Britt Cox speaks at The Scots School Albury on International Women's Day

The 2017 world champion, who learned her craft at Falls Creek, said restrictions and regular COVID testing made the Beijing Games a different experience, but organisers did a fantastic job.

"I actually felt really safe when I was there, the safest I had felt the entire season so it meant that we could just focus on our performance and on competing," she said.

Cox shared her message with more than 120 guests during Tuesday's International Women's Day breakfast at The Scots School Albury, her former secondary school.

She wasn't encouraging settling for less than one deserved or wanted, but rather "recognising what is within your control in any given moment in time, in the present and using that to shape the direction of your future".

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At the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, the skier had been a medal favourite but a minor mistake in her final run saw her finish fifth.

"All of a sudden that dream that I'd had since I was eight years old, it just felt like it slipped through my fingers and I was gutted, I was absolutely devastated," she said.

"I came home, I felt like there was something missing and I realised that so much of my identity had been wrapped up in this idea of winning that Olympic gold medal and the fact that it didn't happen, I was kind of like, 'What now?'."

Her coach Kate Blamey helped her work through these feelings and memories.

"As much as it really hurt and it kept bobbing up in my mind, I couldn't control it but what I could control was my perspective," Cox said.

Since then, and as she recovered from major injury in 2019, she has reflected more on all her career, the opportunities and friendships, "appreciating the journey, rather than the destination".

Cox took this attitude to Beijing, where she finished 14th.

"It ended up being my most fulfilling Olympic experience to date just because I allowed myself to enjoy it, to experience it," she said.

"It wasn't my best result on paper but it was my most fulfilling."

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