Rich vein of gold in the mountains
As the baby of the family, Kelsey Serwa grew up in perpetual chase mode on the slopes of Big White Ski Resort.
“They’d always try to ditch me,” the 24-year-old from Kelowna, B.C., says of her older brother and sister. “I’m the pesky little younger sibling, and they were like, ‘Ah, go away, we don’t want to hang out with you, because you’re not cool.’
“So like, you know, skiing down a mountain, they would try to go as fast as they can, and I would just try to keep up with them.”
That experience proved invaluable Friday as Serwa shadowed Canadian teammate Marielle Thompson all the way to the finish line in the women’s ski cross final at the Sochi Olympics.
Thompson, of Whistler, B.C., won gold and Serwa seized silver as the Canadians cruised to a 1-2 finish at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.
An impromptu chorus of O Canada broke out in the crowd during a victory ceremony that featured no tears — only smiles and hugs.
On the podium, the Canadians went airborne in their ski boots and very nearly dropped their flowers. Volunteers kindly allowed Brad Serwa to sneak in with the accredit- ed photographers to capture his daughter’s crowning moment.
“Gold and silver,” deadpanned head coach Eric Archer. “Just how we planned it.”
Canada’s game plan to own the podium in Sochi centred largely on racking up the medals in freestyle skiing. The Canadians indeed mined gold — and silver and bronze — in the Caucasus Mountains. In a show of unparalleled dominance, Canada collected four freestyle golds, four silvers and one bronze. Thompson and Serwa completed the third freestyle gold-silver sweep (Alex Bilodeau and Mikael Kingsbury went 1-2 in men’s moguls; Justine and Chloe Dufour-Lapointe won gold and silver in women’s moguls.)
“It’s the water,” Serwa quipped when asked to explain the steady stream of Canadians on the podium. But seriously … “We just have a really good program, and we’re supportive of each other. We push each other.”
Ski cross is best described as roller derby on skis, with four competitors battling for position while navigating bumps, jumps and rollers all the way down the mountain.
“It’s just like when we were little, racing your friends down the ski hill,” said Thompson, 21. “It’s just the most fun you can have on skis.”
It was from the comfort of her couch that Thompson watched fellow Canadian Ashleigh McIvor win gold at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Now her victory in Sochi will keep gold in Canadian hands for another quadrennial.
The Canadian team dedicated both medals to the late Nik Zoricic, who died in March 2012 after crashing at the finish line of an event in Switzerland. The Canadians wore blue ski pants his honour.
“I’m sure Nik’s up there smiling down and cracking open a couple of beers,” Archer said. “We miss him. The jeans we wear for Nik, because his first ski cross event, he raced in jeans, and we gave him a lot of flack for that. He’s part of us, and he always will be.”