Watch the video above: Canada’s extreme Olympians have high hopes. Allison Vuchnich reports.
A reality TV star, a former competitive inline skater and a skier who never competes without her signature red lipstick are some of Canada’s top hopes for medals on Sochi slopes as several extreme sports make their Olympic debuts – this despite all three having suffered injuries shortly before the Games.
Slopestyle snowboarder Mark McMorris has spent much of 2013 being filmed by an MTV film crew for a reality show, “McMorris and McMorris,” co-starring his brother Craig, who is also a professional snowboarder.
The crew followed Mark from event to event, where he picked up his second gold medal in slopestyle at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado, a silver at the X Games in Tignes, France and a win at the Burton U.S. Open, making him one of the top snowboarders worldwide.
“It was the craziest eight months of my life,” McMorris said.
Now, the snowboarding superstar from Regina is focusing on his first Olympic games – the first time slopestyle has been featured as an Olympic event.
And he will be competing with a broken rib, sustained in a fall at an X Games event less than two weeks before his Olympic debut.
“While I’m sore, I’m continuing on my road to Sochi,” he said in a statement. He’s expected to arrive in Sochi on Jan. 31. His first event is Feb. 6.
Read more: Mark McMorris in good spirits despite rib fracture
In slopestyle snowboarding, athletes slide down a hill covered in rails and jumps, and are scored based on the smoothness of their run and their acrobatic tricks.
“I think slopestyle has been such a massive part of snowboarding for many years. It’s just never been to the Olympics,” McMorris said. “When you go to every single resort across the world, there’s jumps and rails, but there’s not necessarily a 22-foot halfpipe, so a lot of kids can relate and work their way up to what we do. So it’ll be good to see it on a worldwide stage where everybody’s tuned in.”
The 20 year-old has represented Canada on an international stage for years, but never one quite as big as this.
“I think it’s going to be a dream come true,” he said in an interview with Global News. “I’m so proud to say I’m from Canada, so I’d love to put on a good show for us at the Games.”
Canadian women conquering injuries
Two other events new to this Olympics are slopestyle skiing and ski halfpipe. Slopestyle skiing is similar to slopestyle snowboarding, and in ski halfpipe, athletes ski down a halfpipe, performing acrobatic tricks along the way.
Some of the top contenders in both events are Canadian.
Montrealer Kaya Turski is an five-time X Games champion in slopestyle events. She made the switch to skiing in 2006, after a previous career as an inline skater.
Turski was widely considered a favourite going into Sochi. When a torn ACL sidelined her six months before the Olympics, she underwent an experimental knee surgery to get back in the game as soon as possible.
“I feel good. I feel ready. I’m excited and that’s it. We’re going for it,” she said in an interview with Global News. She proved she can still come out on top at the 2014 Winter X Games in Aspen, taking home gold less than two weeks before the Olympics.
Her teammate Roz Groenewoud had knee surgery in mid-December. The halfpipe skier from Calgary was expected to make a full recovery well in time for the Olympics, though.
In her profile on the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association website, Groenewoud says she never competes without her Canadian flag bandana and red lipstick.
“I’m a really proud Canadian and I’m really excited to represent Canada,” she told Global News.
As a 2012 X Games gold medallist and 2013 FIS World Cup champion, her chances are good. She took home silver in Women’s Superpipe at the 2014 Winter X Games on Jan. 24 – her first competition since the knee surgery.
Still, Groenewoud says, she’s missing a former teammate – champion half-pipe and slopestyle skier Sarah Burke, who died in 2012, following a training accident in Utah. Burke was a long-time advocate for women’s freestyle skiing and was a driving force behind getting women’s ski halfpipe included in the Olympics.
“I definitely looked up to my teammate Sarah Burke,” said Groenewoud. “She was such a pioneer. She got our sport half pipe and slopestyle into the X games with equal prize money for women eventually and she kind of blazed the trail so a lot of us could follow.”
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