In the lead-up to the 2010 Games, Dave Duncan was making all the right moves. He had two World Cup podiums and a silver medal at X Games to his credit, ensuring himself a spot with the team in the 2010 Winter Games.
But ski cross is a tough and unforgiving sport, and on the first day of training at the Olympic venue at Cypress he crashed and broke his collarbone. He would miss the rest of that season. The following summer he broke his wrist while downhill mountain biking. He came into the 2010-2011 season with injuries and never really recovered.
"Last season I was riddled with small injuries that just didn't allow me to compete at 100 per cent," Duncan told Pique in a phone interview on Tuesday. "I could still ski, I just couldn't compete at my best — I had a strained groin, broken metatarsal, sprained thumbs, and all these general injuries that I suffered in competition. Last year in a 30-day stretch I had probably three of the biggest crashes of my life — I didn't blow out a knee or break a leg thankfully, but it still did quite a bit of damage to my body — and my psyche. It messes with your confidence."
Despite the injuries, Duncan was determined to come back and trained hard this summer to come into the current season healthy. And now, at the midway point of this season, he has a bronze medal at the World Cup level and two fourth place finishes, and is currently ranked seventh in the world. Last weekend he followed up with a third place at X Games, on one of the biggest, toughest and most technical courses in the world.
"A big motivation for me (coming back from injury) is just coming up short of competing in the Olympics," he said. "You've probably talked to lots of athletes who have said that competing in the Games was a childhood dream of theirs, and I'm no different, I had the same dream. To get that close and walk in the opening ceremonies that you've been striving for your entire career, and then to come up injured 24 hours short... The next day I was already motivated to come back and compete for a spot in Sochi. Even now with all the nagging injuries, I just want to get as healthy as possible and get back at it."
There are risks, Duncan acknowledged, but he couldn't picture doing anything else.
"We all love competing and we love our sport — if we didn't love it, we wouldn't do it," he said. "It's an incredible thing to be an athlete in ski cross and be able to do this for a living, and I'm so grateful to be here. I hope I can do it for as long as I decide to."
Duncan credits a few things with his good health so far this season, including a move to Whistler with his common law girlfriend Maja Jensen in May 2011. The move has given Duncan the opportunity to dryland train with other athletes at the Whistler Athletes Centre as well as on Blackcomb Mountain on the dedicated ski cross track. He's also an avid mountain biker, and cross-trained during the summer on his collection of bikes — road, cross-country, downhill and pump track.
Support funding from Own the Podium has also been a huge help. "We wouldn't be anywhere near where we are now without that support," he said.
"A large part of why I've been able to get back to where I was in 2010 is the availability of support staff, to the Whistler Athletes Centre, to Back in Action Physiotherapy. I'm coming up on 30 and my body doesn't heal the same way it used to, so being able to get ready physio any time something is nagging is tremendous for me."
The team has also been doing some trampoline and gymnastics work at Whistler Gymnastics Club that Duncan said has helped to build balance and his air awareness.
"I'm six foot and over 200 pounds so I'm a pretty big guy and I've never been gymnastically talented, so to have someone to come in and teach air awareness, and how to use my body in situations that are compromising to avoid injury has probably been a huge factor for me this year. I've never done any kind of a flip before, so to be able to get on the tramp and do a back flip at will has been pretty incredible for me."
Duncan can't say why so many athletes with the ski cross team have been injured recently, including three of the top women in the world in Ashleigh McIvor, Kelsey Serwa and Julia Murray. He thinks a lot has to do with the nature of the sport and how far it's progressed in the last few years: "You don't have a big gap between racers anymore, we're all side by side, comfortable skiing really close together and trying to make passes out of any situation," he said.
Another reason might be the strength of the team. Even with injuries, the team has had four different men podium this season and two different women. In fact, a member of the Canadian men's team has been on the podium in every race this season.
"The volume (of runs) we get in race situations is incredible, because there's always someone in the final," said Duncan. "There's more opportunity for success, but also for injury. We all train hard and race hard, and sometimes you have some bad luck."
Duncan said he tries to take it one race at a time, although his goal for this season is to win one event. "I've had a lot of podiums on the World Cup and X Games and in feeder series, and I feel ready to take the next step and get on top of the podium," he said. "I'd like to step up and have that flow in the next goal of qualifying for the Olympics and then getting a medal at the Olympics."
Duncan and his teammates will be back in action this weekend at Blue Mountain in Ontario, before heading back to Europe for events in Germany, Sweden and Switzerland.
