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Whistler Olympians

In other words… Maëlle Ricker
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"Why do we fall? So we can get up again."

- Thomas Wayne, Batman Begins

The advice of Bruce Wayne's father rings no truer for anyone than Maëlle Ricker.

The 31-year-old star snowboarder is one of the favourites in snowboard cross at the 2010 Games after a disappointing finish four years ago in Torino. It was snowboard cross's debut at the Olympics. Ricker set the fastest qualifying time and won every round of competition.

Then, in the final run, she caught an edge right out of the start gate and fell so hard she sustained a concussion and had to be airlifted off the hill.

Such a stumble might have ended the career of another Olympian. Not Ricker. She bounced back from the fall and, with 12 World Cup medals to her name, is the number one snowboard cross racer heading into the 2010 Games. This Olympics is her revenge.

Ricker will be facing down more than a dozen other boarders in this year's event but she has a unique advantage: she knows the course at Cypress better than any of them.

Like most Whistler parents, geologist Karl and biology professor Nancy Ricker had Maëlle in a snowsuit from nearly the moment she learned to toddle.

"We used to take them out on skis, from the time they could basically walk," Nancy says of Maëlle and her older brother Jorli. "We have pictures of her when she was basically two, going out on these water skis that were made for kids.

"We have pictures of her with a bottle in her mouth and a snowsuit on, toddling around the mountain."

Taking Maëlle out to the slopes at such a young age might have been the spark that stoked a passion for danger in her daughter. When she was three, the family lived in a house in a hilly area of West Vancouver and their driveway had a steep incline. One day Maëlle went out with her Big Wheel tricycle - and an idea.

"She went flying down the driveway," Nancy says. "Basically there was a wall that dropped about five or six feet into the neighbour's yard below and she just went flying over it and ended up in their driveway.

"I thought, 'Oh my God, she's killed herself.' But she thought, 'Oh, great fun' and just started laughing. I just sat there and started thinking, she's a daredevil."

It's that risky nature that has no doubt helped make her a successful snowboarder - but it's likely not the only thing. Also essential to her success has been an intimate knowledge of Sea to Sky's mountains, instilled in her by her parents. The four of them would often go on summer camping trips.

Nancy remembers a particular trip when Maëlle was but two years old.

"We walked in and she walked the whole way on her own," she says. "But coming out, as soon as she started going uphill a little bit, she put on the breaks. Karl put her in his backpack and took her up that way and Jorli walked himself."

Such trips have given her a love for the outdoors that goes beyond the clichés. On top of snowboarding, she surfs, skydives, bungy jumps and mountain bikes, fulfilling the side of her that pines for danger.

"You do try to talk about how beautiful (nature) is as you're walking along," Nancy says. "There's been a little bit of a spinoff in that regard, but I don't feel like I tried to indoctrinate either kid to enjoy the outdoors."

Maëlle got her adrenaline rush through skiing until she turned 16. Jorli, defying his father's preference for skiing, had been snowboarding at Whistler with friends for some time and his sister wanted to tag along. The two were brought up to love skiing but Jorli, for one, got fed up with what he saw as the stringent structure of the sport.

"I don't know, it probably just brought back the fun that we had when we started skiing," Jorli said of snowboarding. "We were brought up to love skiing but at the same time it turned into what ski racing was, which just really wasn't that fun, you know. ...It's kind of like a military structure."

Jorli noticed an instant connection between Maëlle and her board. In her second year of riding she was jumping 60-foot cliffs and almost landing them.

"I remember one day she hit it three or four times and was really close to landing it," he says. "It didn't take her long at all, it seemed like she had an interesting connection with the board. It caught on quickly."

Maëlle's "try, try again" attitude may be key to her winning a medal in her third Olympics. In Nagano she came fifth in halfpipe. She sat out Salt Lake City with a knee injury. And in Torino she was on her way to a top finish when she stumbled out of the gate.

Coach Tim Milne doesn't seem worried. He calls this Maëlle's "retribution" Olympics and is confident she'll place among the medalists.

"Snowboard cross is a sport of chance," he says. "You can never control the variables, crazy stuff always happens."

At Cypress, he says, she has a chance in her proverbial backyard to make amends.

 

 



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