Ryan Brennecke / The BulletinKent Callister, 18, hopes to land a spot on the Australian Olympic snowboarding team this winter.

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series featuring 2014 Winter Olympic hopefuls from Central Oregon. Saturday: alpine skier Laurenne Ross.

Bend’s Kent Callister likes his Olympic chances with the Aussies.

But not so much with the Americans.

The 18-year-old snowboarder from Bend is hoping to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics as a member of the Australian team.

Now, if he can just get rid of his American accent.

“They’ve been real nice and welcoming,” Callister says of the Aussies, with whom he has trained in New Zealand for the past year. “They try not to make fun of my accent, but it’s hard sometimes for them.”

Callister, who has dual citizenship and whose father is Australian, last year received a scholarship from the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia (OWIA).

Callister was born in San Diego, where his mother is from, and moved with his parents to Gold Coast, Australia, when he was 5. The family moved to Bend when Kent was 9.

The young snowboarder figures to have a better chance of making the Olympics competing for Australia than he would riding for the U.S. because the Americans are so deep in the halfpipe event.

“I feel a lot better about it now,” Callister says of his Olympic chances. “I think I have a good shot.”

Invited last spring to join both the U.S. Snowboarding Rookie halfpipe team and the Australian halfpipe team, Callister chose the Aussies, making his dream of reaching the 2014 Winter Olympics a more realistic one.

The OWIA is a government-funded program, and Callister says it has provided him more financial support than if he had joined the U.S. Team.

Currently home in Bend, Callister plans to travel with the Australian team to Copper Mountain, Colo., next week to begin training for upcoming U.S. Grand Prix events that will serve as Olympic qualifiers. The first such event is in Copper Mountain, Dec. 16-22, followed by competition in Northstar, Calif., Jan. 6-12.

Callister says if he finishes in the top 20 in both of those two events, he should qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics, set for Feb. 7-23 in Sochi, Russia.

“I have to continue getting in the top 20 at the next two contests,” he says. “If I’m in the top 20, then I’m good to go. It’s been all going really well. Every time I land my run I’m usually in the top 20, so I’m not too worried about it.”

Halfpipe snowboarders are judged on the difficulty, execution and amplitude of the aerial tricks they perform as they soar in and out of the U-shaped pipe.

Callister says the Australians plan to take four men and four women for their Olympic halfpipe snowboard team. The Americans also take four for each gender.

But the competition to make the U.S. Olympic halfpipe team is fierce, with the likes of well-established stars Shaun White, Louie Vito, and many others.

“Oh, yeah, there’s so many good U.S. riders,” Callister says. “They are almost, like, half the field (at a Grand Prix event). But they only take four (to the Olympics).”

Australian halfpipe coach Ben Alexander says he is focusing on the big picture with Callister: the Sochi Olympics and then the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

“The U.S. team is pretty stacked,” Alexander says. “It would have been pretty tough for him to get into the Olympic Games. I think he made a really smart decision. It’s definitely created a lot more opportunities for him.”

Callister reached the finals and finished ninth at the U.S. Grand Prix in Copper Mountain last season, so he likes his chances at the upcoming event. He is working on perfecting a front double cork 1080 and a cab double cork 1080 — elaborate tricks during which he basically performs two back flips while rotating three revolutions.

He is not the first winter sports athlete with dual citizenship to choose to compete for Australia instead of his or her native country. Most notably, Canadian mogul skier Dale Begg-Smith won the Olympic gold medal in 2006 and Olympic silver in 2010 while competing for Australia.

Callister, who attended Bend’s Summit High School and has continued his coursework online, began snowboarding with the Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation and rose swiftly through the amateur ranks. Three years ago, he won the USA Snowboard Association Nationals in halfpipe.

He is not the only Bend snowboarder with Olympic dreams: Ben Ferguson, also 18, is on the U.S. Snowboarding Rookie halfpipe team. But with so many talented U.S. boarders, Ferguson will likely have a tough road to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Meanwhile, Callister is confident that his work on the snow Down Under will pay off with a ticket to Sochi.

“I’ve been training real hard over the summer,” he says. “I think I’m mentally prepared for it.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0318, mmorical@bendbulletin.com.