One of American singer-songwriter Pink’s top-selling songs was Get the Party Started — something SA’s “pink” ski-racer, Lara Markthaler, is hoping to do at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, Italy.
Having qualified at 2024’s World Championships in Austria, Markthaler first hit the ski slopes aged just two and has been making her mark at sport ever since — not only in snow-sport but also mountain biking, where she won six Red Bull Crankworx titles while the family were living in Canada in her early years.
As for her hair: “I’ve had pink hair since 12 … well, it actually first started with purple hair,” she explains. “Dyed hair wasn’t allowed at formal school so I started experimenting when I started online schooling and my Instagram following [@Spunkiiiiii has more than 110,000 followers] really started taking off.
“Now people can recognise me from the pink hair that sticks out of my helmet, whether it’s a ski helmet or mountain-bike helmet.”
A former Youth Olympian for SA two years ago, she received a huge splash of publicity during 2024 World Championships, where the teenager finished 29th out of 115 in ski-racing. The top 30 is the real deal that gets competitors the chance of a second run.
“Word had got to the commentator at the bottom of the run that it was my 18th birthday and if I made it down they’d all sing happy birthday to me, so I really had no choice but to make it down [in the end only 45 girls got through] and I was lucky enough to soak up the totally crazy moment of 20,000 people singing happy birthday to me on live television.”
Team Lara is very much a family unit with dad Christian the rock. “My dad trains me, he’s my manager, sorts out all the nutrition, logistics, technical side of things — I’m so glad to share it all with my family.”
Christian, who has stood on a few podiums at events sanctioned by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation says: “It wasn’t a planned sports career — it grew naturally from our shared passion and that we became great training partners. It was hard work, but it was also a lot of fun, a true father-daughter team.
“Today, everyone in the ski scene knows Team SA. Lara is proud to put SA on the skiing map — to inspire young South Africans to believe that anything is possible and to encourage people to visit her home country.”
While flying across the pristine white slopes may look like fun, it takes an enormous effort to reach Lara’s level.
“I ski about 160 days a year and train and so on 320-330 days — in my summer season I do two sessions of two hours a day to improve my agility, strength, core and legs — lower back injuries are very common in ski-racers. You simply have to do that much to be competitive.”
European ski season is from November to mid-April and in the European summer they do glacier camps in Switzerland, Italy or Austria, or sometimes travel to Chile/Argentina in South America.
“The ‘ski-bubble’ is quite small, there aren’t that many places to go during summer,” Lara says.
During her off-time — she’s just spent some time “home” in SA where she has family in Durban (mom Judy’s from there), Johannesburg and Stellenbosch — she loves kitesurfing and still hits the mountain bike trails when she can.
“I don’t really have time to party [maybe twice a year after a big event] or have a boyfriend, because I’m always on the move so it wouldn’t be fair. I can always catch up on those things when I’m older.”
Now living in Innsbruck, Austria, and looking ahead to 2026’s Winter Olympics, Lara will be doing the slalom and giant slalom events.
“The slalom has about 60 turns/gates and we get two runs, which are counted together. Slalom takes about 50 sec to a minute and giant slalom about 10 sec longer. In slalom we reach speeds of 50-60km/h but in giant slalom it’s up to 90km/h!”
Her expectations? “I’m really going to try to do something … maybe if I’m lucky and the course is something that suits me … maybe another top-30 finish, that would be great as there’ll be more than 100 girls racing.”
Talking of getting the party started, Lara’s 19th birthday is February 19 2026 — the same day as her giant slalom competition.
After an Austrian crowd of singers in 2024, imagine a full house of operatic Italians in full cry for SA’s pink racer!
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