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Kerfoot on the long road to the Olympics

For mogul skier Sylvia Kerfoot, the 2004-05 season was a breakthrough even if it didn’t start out that way.

For mogul skier Sylvia Kerfoot, the 2004-05 season was a breakthrough even if it didn’t start out that way.

After leading off her season with an eighth place finish at a World Cup, she crashed in training and sustained a back injury and concussion. She missed a few events while recovering then slowly regained her confidence on the World Cup circuit, improving her results from week to week.

She qualified for the World Championships with just a few events remaining, and went on to place sixth and eighth in dual moguls and moguls respectively, and second among the Canadians behind World Champion Jennifer Heil.

Kerfoot followed those results with a long summer of training with the national team, and is hoping to pick up this season where she left off.

Still, the summer wasn’t without a few close calls for the 28 year old. While training her newest jump – a full front tuck – at Zermatt, Switzerland, she hyperextended her knee. It could have been worse, but after five weeks of lighter training and physiotherapy, she’s ready to start her World Cup season. She leaves on Saturday for France, and will compete on Dec. 13 in a World Cup at Tignes, France.

"Training will be more quality than quantity over the next couple of weeks, but I’m definitely capable," she said. "I’m not worried about my knee, which leaves me free to focus on skiing the best I can."

The Canadian Freestyle Ski Association has the hardest Olympic qualification standards of any of the winter sports teams. One of the reasons is that the team has so much depth, and with only 14 quota spots for both sexes in moguls and aerials, the CFSA wants to take the skiers that are performing at their best.

In making the final team selection, the CFSA will take an athlete’s top two results from 2004-05, and his or her best two results from 2005-06.

"In any other sport I’d have made it, but we almost have a whole World Cup season to get through before they name the team on Jan. 30," explained Kerfoot. "Our last event is at Madonna (di Campiglio) Italy on Jan. 28, and we have five contests before that."

Despite the added pressure of making the Olympics, Kerfoot hopes to stay on track.

"I feel very confident. I’m reaching all of my goals and I’m skiing really consistently. I had six good results in a row last year, and finished with two results in the top-8," she said.

The team spent the early part of the summer at the new water ramps in Lac Beauport, Quebec. For Kerfoot it meant that she couldn’t work this summer and earn money for her season, but she’s glad she made the sacrifice. It gave her the chance to work on new tricks, including the front tuck which she practised again on snow in Zermatt.

As one of the hardest tricks in terms of degree of difficult, Kerfoot believes it will help put her into medal contention this year.

Her plan is to incorporate it into the run she’ll practice and use in competitions, and to have her run as perfect as possible for the Olympics.

"Our team is so strong that you have to keep improving. Jen (Heil) is pretty much the only girl who is guaranteed a spot at the Olympics, and a lot of people are going to be disappointed. It’s too bad we only have 14 quota spots, which means that the mogul skiers are also competing with the men’s aerials team, and men’s moguls team for spots. If we had two more spots, we could easily field a full team of four, men and women, in both events," said Kerfoot.

"I’d also probably feel a lot more relaxed if I knew I had a spot locked up, but it’s exciting this way and it makes you want it more."

Training in Quebec this summer was hard for Kerfoot, who is still partially self-financed. She’s qualified for the maximum Sport Canada funding, and says the team is in better shape financially after receiving money from the new Own The Podium program. But while that covers travel and competition costs, Kerfoot still comes short when it comes to covering her cost of living expenses.

She was hoping to host a fundraiser this fall, but was only in Whistler for a few weeks during the summer and has spent the past five weeks focusing on physiotherapy for her knee. She also spent some time looking for a headline sponsor, which some of her team members have.

Being an Olympic year, "I thought it would be easier," she said.

However, she believes that the Olympics are a great opportunity for her sport. Two years ago the FIS opened up mogul competitions to allow more tricks, including double spins and inverted jumps, providing the athletes could pre-qualify those jumps.

Most people haven’t seen freestyle skiing since the last Olympics, and Kerfoot says they are going to be blown away.

"I think the sport was in a bit of a decline there, but now it’s a lot more exciting. There are guys doing things like corked 1080s and back fulls off the jumps, basically doing the same things skiers are doing in the park right now but in the middle of a mogul run," she said.

The new format is already having an impact. There are more World Cup moguls events on the calendar than ever before, and competitions are back on television. In Canada, Sportsnet recently announced plans to broadcast most of the World Cup events this year.

Freestyle events will also take the lead at the Olympics, with women’s moguls on the first day and men’s moguls three days later.

Both moguls competitions will take place at night, under the lights on the Sauze d-Oulx Jouvenceaux course. That means that Canadians can watch the events live during the day.

While night moguls courses can be a little different to race, Kerfoot is a fan of night events.

"The snow is a little bit harder, but it’s a lot more fun. The crowd seems more into it, and it really feels like you’re putting on a show," she said.

All she has to do now is get there.

"I’ve been excited for this year, I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time. I want to represent Canada and I want to win a medal, but to do that I have to take it one step at a time."