With less than a year to go until the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, one athlete is bringing an unexpected pulse to the snowy peaks: electronic music. Lara Hamilton, an Australian ski mountaineer, DJ, and classically trained vocalist, is not only preparing for her Olympic debut – she’s also carving out a unique space where high-performance sport meets underground sound.

As ski mountaineering prepares for its historic first appearance at the Winter Games, Lara stands out – not just for her endurance and alpine skill, but for the energy she brings from behind the decks. Based in Colorado, she performs at ski resorts and mountain venues, blending soaring vocals with textured electronic sets inspired by the landscapes she trains in. Her current project, ‘Save Skimo,’ is both a track and a statement – an ode to the sport and the natural environment it relies on.

While training rigorously for the Olympics, Lara draws on her background in opera and her love for electronic music to fuel her journey. For her, the path to Milano Cortina 2026 is more than a physical ascent – it’s a creative fusion of discipline, rhythm, and emotion. Whether on skis or on stage, Lara is redefining what it means to be an Olympian. We caught up with her for an in-depth chat of how she manages her time between the slopes & the studio. Enjoy!

WWD: Hey, Lara! Great to have you with us! Can you walk us through how you got started with DJing and what drew you into making music?

I think it’s important to mention that I don’t believe I would be a great athlete without music. So in that respect, music has always been a big part of my life. For both my bachelor and masters degrees, I studied music and specialised in Opera performance, whilst dabbling in a few music technology classes. I’ve always liked tech music and dancing, and for the past few years I have invested a lot of time into DJing, as it works well with my big sporting goals, and just makes me really stoked on life. In late 2023, I started to learn how to use decks under the guidance of an experienced friend. Once I’d built up my confidence, I purchased my own, and began to experiment and practice a little bit every day to find my style. I’m still learning new things, and that’s all a part of the fun. Right now I’ve been having such a good time travelling for my sport with my portable deck, producing mixes, and starting to make my own music!

WWD: With your background in opera, has vocal performance shaped the way you produce or mix tracks now?

There are many crossovers between classical music training and DJing. The ability to understand key signatures, and their shifts, tempo, mastering….it all significantly helps the process. I think the biggest thing is the ‘ear training’ I’ve had. I can be out on a ski or a run, and hear a song, and another song, then I need to stop and write down the idea because I think those 2 tracks could really work well together. In the not so distant future, I look forward to experimenting with some of the operas I’ve studied, up against house and tech music genres.

WWD: Ski Mountaineering is celebrating its premiere at the Olympic Games and you’re training for Milano Cortina 2026, and making music at the same time – that’s quite special! Has chasing that Olympic dream changed how you make or think about music?

Yes, I’m an Olympic hopeful for Ski-Mountaineering for Australia, and all sights are set on Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games. I need to travel a lot at the moment, and my favourite down-time around training is to make music. This year I’ve made my set-up and ability to record mixes portable, so I can travel and still create music. This is really important for the next 9-10 months. I often get ideas whilst training in the mountains, up against constantly changing environments, so it’s important to be able to transfer those ideas over quickly so I can plant the seed and grow it!

My favourite thing about DJing is making other people dance, feel free, happy, because that energy is infectious. My mixes moving forward will be with that in mind – because I feel extra inspired, motivated and really want others to embrace this energy too. Life is short, it’s best to chase our dreams when we are given a shot.

WWD: How does being involved in the international ski mountaineering scene inspire your creativity as a DJ and producer, and do you draw inspiration from specific places or experiences during your travels?

Following on from the question before, absolutely. I’ve made friends with a lot of teams and athletes, and sometimes we share music. That’s one of my favourite things, because it opens new avenues and genres to explore. I’m always looking for that. I think sharing music is one of the most enjoyable things. I love the dance music culture in Europe – this season I was particularly inspired on that front.

WWD: Do you find any similarities between the mental focus it takes to train and the mindset you need when you’re performing as a DJ?

Yes, preparation and consistency are the two key things. If you’re prepared, and well-practiced, you can only give your best on the day of performance. You can’t really ask much more of yourself! It is really important to have fun. I’ve found the happier I am, the better I do at everything.

It’s important to mention too, that the nerves can often be similar, because there’s always that fear of making a ‘big mistake.’ In skimo, a mistake will cost you time, which is extremely precious in the Olympic disciplines, the sprint and mixed relay. Lost time in such short events can change finishing positions drastically. Whilst DJing is different in that respect, I like flow, so I don’t enjoy losing that. However, as I gain more experience in both worlds, I’ve learnt you can always come back, and to make ‘mistakes’ is 100% normal and beneficial. You learn more from the mistakes than the successes. Sometimes the comeback is the best thing, and the mistake is what you needed to improve drastically.

WWD: What’s your process like when you’re making a new track or preparing a set? Do you draw from your life as an athlete for ideas?

The first part of the process is my favourite. I start with a few songs I am curious to experiment with, and throw them into a playlist. I hit the ‘recommend me music’ button, and I go trail running or for a ski and listen to the whole playlist. I’ll do this a few times, and start to remove and add songs to it. This is the inspiration/set-list curation stage. I then begin to think about order, and blends of songs. I need to figure out the BPM and key signatures of each track, and then I group them into ‘clusters’ based on similarities. I then go and listen to these groups to identify where tracks could be remixed or pair well together.

That’s when I write the first draft of a ‘set-list’ per se. I then workshop this as if I was playing a set, many times. I then do a few draft recordings, and sometimes, in the ‘drafts’ I find sections I love, that I will later add in the editing phase, to the final mix. Once the final mix is recorded (and I record them all live, which is a little bit of pressure, even if I have worked with the tracks before). After recording, I listen to the mix in headphones, in a car, over monitors…as many mediums as possible. I want to hear everything. I make notes, and generally do this process whilst carrying on with my day as normal – it’s quite fun!

I then head back to my ‘travel studio’ (I call it, because my last mix I recorded from my hotel room in Tignes, France whilst on a training camp!), and start to edit the mix. This is when I add in my own beats too, often midi and sample instruments. After I’m happy with that, I listen again, same process as earlier, and then work on mastering/sound optimization, with a focus on the medium that the mix will be streamed on the most.

WWD: What are you listening to right now that’s influencing your sound?

I listen to so many different styles of music in one day, so my sound influence tends to come from the energy I’m feeling during that particular time in my life. Lately, I’ve been travelling a lot so I want calm music that helps me through the inevitable stress that comes from lots of changes.  I’ve been listening to a lot of Latin-Western fusion, indie/folk, and soft rock. Emotive stuff, that has beautiful melodic motifs that are experimented with. I love experiments with styles – think of unlikely fusions that work really well!

WWD: What do you hope people take away from how you blend music, creativity, and athletics?

I really want people to believe you can follow many passions, and I think it’s important to have creative outlets – whether that’s as a hobby or pursuing it at a high level. It’s good to be diverse! Music, and art in general, works different parts of your brain, and can help the other areas of your life significantly. For me, it just makes me really really happy – and that’s then infectious to other parts of my life. When you are happy, you do well, because you approach more things with joy. Other people can tell, on an energetic level, and that’s really good for us all as a collective. Lately I’ve been thinking about how to shoot some DJing samples with my portable kit, in really beautiful locations (of course, whilst considering the natural environment of the area).

WWD: Looking ahead, what are your long-term goals in both ski mountaineering and music?

I want to enjoy skimo for a really long time, and have the opportunity to do many different kinds of races in lots of different countries. Right now, I am focused on the Olympic disciplines, but I do really love the individual and vertical races too, so, for sure more of these are in my future. As are big team races. I want to help put Australia on the map in the individual, vertical, and team race disciplines. Think Pierra Menta, and Trofeo Mezzalama! I hope to continue to make music alongside my sporting goals. Music helps sport, and sport helps music, so I will continue to hold them close to my heart and chase my dreams in both.

For my music, I want to explore making more of my own music, and within this, how I can integrate my Opera training, and knowledge of singing in languages like French, Italian and German, into music more common in DJing! It’s a really experimental avenue, but I know it will work, because at the end of the day, when you understand the fundamentals of music, like key signatures, motif development, tempo, and rhythm, the world is your oyster!

WWD: A match made in heaven! Thanks for the chat, Lara 🙂