The National Slopestyle Championships, held at GreenValleys Mountain Bike Park west of Albion Park, have received a Destination NSW grant designed to boost their long-term success. Photo: GreenValleys Mountain Bike Park.
Could Shellharbour be the birthplace of a future Olympic sport?
Thanks to years of hard work, and a grant from the NSW Government, Nick Haertsch thinks it could be.
The GreenValleys Mountain Bike Park has spent the past five years pushing for slopestyle mountain biking to be recognised as a discipline, alongside endurance riding and cyclecross.
Nick reached into his own pockets to take the sport on tour across the country for three years.
His first big win was when AusCycling included slopestyle under its banner, complete with insurance and a national championship event.
The first national championship was held at GreenValleys, west of Albion Park, in April this year. Then he received a call from Destination NSW.
“It’s been a hard slog,” he said.
“I was at an event in Canberra, I answered the phone, and I had to sit down. It just hit me all at once.
“To slog away at this for years and then be told the government can see the value in it for the area, I could have cried.”
Slopestyle mountain biking is a competition over a fixed course between 600 metres and one kilometre, with a variety of fixed features like ramps, dirt jumps and drops.
Competitors perform tricks and are judged across four areas: air and amplitude, execution and style, the difficulty and style of tricks, and the overall impression they give judges.
Nick said the sport was most popular with mountain bikers aged under 28.
Australia is the first country to have a national sporting organisation recognise slopestyle, and he hopes it will become a roadmap for other countries.
Eventually, like freestyle BMX, it could become an Olympic sport – and the first-ever national event will have been held in Shellharbour.
It’s well within the realms of possibility as other events supported by the Regional Event Fund have gone on to make it on the international stage.
The Parkes Elvis Festival received a grant in 2004 when it was attracting a few hundred people.
It now draws an estimated 25,000 attendees and generates $13 million in revenue.
In 2024-25, a new selection of 66 music, sports, food and cultural events will be awarded $1.3 million in grants of up to $50,000 each.
At least eight of them are in the Illawarra-South Coast area, including Ride Wollongong, Ultra Trail Jervis Bay, Port Kembla Festival 2025, the Winter Wine Festival at Crooked River Winery, Make Good Festival at Bundanon, Clearly Presents ”Land of Milk and Honey” in Kiama, and the Bundanoon Folk Festival.
The Regional Event Fund, managed by Destination NSW, bolsters event organisers with equipment hire, venue hire, market research, photography, videography, publicity and marketing to attract out-of-region visitors.
“A lot goes into events, and this grant goes a long way to cover infrastructure costs like toilets, generators and sound systems, ” Nick said. “It’s amazing.”
The fund is a key contributor to the continued growth of the NSW visitor economy, which is now worth more than $50 billion to the state.
Minister for Jobs and Tourism, Arts, Music and the Night-Time Economy John Graham said with the current financial climate, this type of support was more crucial than ever.
“We know that regional events and event owners are faced with significant challenges and these grants will help alleviate some of that financial pressure,” he said.
“We want to help these events reach the heights of the Deni Ute Muster or the Parkes Elvis Festival, events that are now highlights of the NSW calendar. These unique events reflect the personalities of their communities and draw visitors from all over the country.
“The NSW Government is committed to growing a vibrant visitor economy across the state by supporting a diverse range of events, driven by locals, who know their communities best.”
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