‘Mind-blowing’: honour for man behind snow sports glory

Melissa Woods | June 7, 2026

For more than two decades, Michael Kennedy helped Australia’s winter athletes chase Olympic dreams.

Now, the veteran sports administrator has set out on a journey of his own.

After calling time on a 23-year career as chief executive of Snow Australia, which came off the back of the country’s record-breaking Winter Olympics campaign in Italy in February, Kennedy headed back overseas to tick off a personal goal.

Kennedy received the news about being appointed a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia in the King’s Birthday Honours while walking the 790km-long Camino Frances with his wife, Shannah.

He said the walk, averaging 25km per day for 40 days from France to Spain, had given him time to reflect on his career as an architect of Australia becoming a global winter sports powerhouse.

“I already started the Camino (when I heard of the award), so it was just mind-blowing, as you’re sitting here, trying to process the last 20-odd years and everything that’s happened, and then that comes through,” Kennedy told AAP.

“It’s obviously pretty humbling and I’m pretty grateful about it, but I think there’s a lot of other people that have been on the journey as well, so it’s sort of been as much a team effort as anything else.

“I’m happy to be recognised but I’m accepting this on behalf of many others.”

Kennedy took over the chief executive role in 2002 and this year ended the longest tenure for a sports administrator of any major sporting code in Australia.

His links to snow sports began on the Mt Buller slopes as a child before he competed in World Cup moguls and then transitioned into coaching and high-performance roles.

He was part of Alisa Camplin’s Olympic triumph in Salt Lake City in 2002, with the aerialist winning Australia’s first skiing gold medal.

In Milan-Cortina, Australia won six medals, including three gold, to finish 14th on the medal tally.

But Kennedy said there were achievements beyond medals he was most proud of – helping unify a fractured winter sports landscape, and building a multi-sport venue, the National Snowsports Training Centre in Jindabyne, which opened in 2024.

“It was a seven-year labour of love, and it’s up and running – you see athletes from different sports training, you’ve got kids from the local community there doing their trampoline lessons while you’ve got Olympic champions in the gym,” he said.

“It’s a real home for snow and for winter sport … it’s a bit of a field of dreams.”