Voisin gets 2nd chance after 2014 heartbreak
PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA »
Freestyle skier Maggie Voisin was supposed to be one of the feel-good stories of the 2014 Olympic Games, a fresh face kid out of Big Sky country who wasn’t old enough to drive but had breakout star potential written all over her.
But Voisin was in Russia only a few days before she broke her ankle in training and was unable to compete.
“It’s all so surreal to be sitting here today,” Voisin, 19, said earlier this week, looking back on her disappointment of herfirst Olympics. “It was one of themost heartbreaking moments of my career. I told myself I was going to do whatever it took to be back here. I’m just so, so honored and ready to represent Team USA and show the world what we do.”
Voisin gave more than a little hint of what to expect in Saturday’s (tonight on theWest Coast) women’s freestyle slopestyle compe- tition at Phoenix Snow Park at the recent X Games.
Voisin won the X Games slopestyle competition, becoming the first American woman to win the competition and pushing her into the gold medal contender conversation in South Korea.
Four years earlier Voisin, only weeks after she turned 15, became the first U. S. woman to medal in an X Games big air skiing event, taking the silver on her way to Sochi.
Voisin, born in Kalispell, Mont., raised in Whitefish, arrived in Sochi the youngest U. S. Winter Olympian since 1972.
But on the third day of training in Russia she fractured her fibula.
“I have this big fire under me because of what happened four years ago to be back here and have another chance to show the worldwhat I have,” she said. “More than anything I’m just going with the same mentality. I absolutely love skiing and what I do and I’m so grateful to get this chance to come to my second Olympics.”