Toronto Star

Rebuilt Thompson is back to defend

Canadian gold medallist leads seedings just four months after knee surgery

- KERRY GILLESPIE SPORTS REPORTER

PYEONGCHAN­G, SOUTH KOREA— Marielle Thompson came down the ski cross course earlier this week with a Go Pro camera on her helmet and an enormous grin on her face.

She had just completed her first runs over a course of jumps and banked turns since having knee surgery four months ago. It’s an astonishin­gly fast comeback to skiing. Thompson ruptured her ACL and MCL — the ligaments that hold a knee together and make it work — in October when she crashed during a training run in Switzerlan­d. That was just before the World Cup season, which she spent rehabilita­ting her knee and watching videos of the races she expected to be winning.

“I was watching all the races this season, trying to keep my head in the game,” said Thompson.

She was ahead of the game Thursday morning, when she posted the best time in seeding runs. Teammates Kelsey Serwa and Brittany Phelan were second and third; India Sherret was 11th.

The racing begins Friday (11p.m. ET Thursday, TSN).

As far as the team is concerned, another gold isn’t a pipe dream for Thompson.

“She had one of the fastest times the other day (in training) and she’s just feeling it out,” head coach Stanley Hayer said Wednesday, after the men’s race where Canada’s Brady Leman won gold.

“She’s proven year after year that she’s one of the strongest out there and she’s come back from crashes that you wouldn’t think,” he said. Thompson had knee surgery in 2015 and skied her way back to No. 2 in the world the following season. That rehabilita­tion took much longer than the 25-year-old from Whistler, B.C., has given herself this time.

When Serwa, the 2014 Sochi silver medallist, had her third knee surgery more than a year ago, it was eight months before she was back skiing. Thompson has cut that time in half.

“It’s like she never even left,” Serwa said, after watching her teammate in training. “It’s just really cool to see her come back and it was obviously a lot of hard work.”

Thompson’s return to the team was especially uplifting since it came on the same weekend in late January that the team lost its highest ranked skier, Georgia Simmerling, who suffered two broken legs at the Nakiska, Alta., World Cup — the final race before the Olympics.

It says something for the team that even with Thompson out of commission last season — the team leader has won the overall World Cup title three times — they still had four women ranked in the top 10.

As for Thompson, when she’s on snow she doesn’t think about her surgically repaired knee — just her goal.

“When I’m skiing I’m just full focus into the course and I’m glad I can ski that way,” she said. “Just make sure I’m skiing like I know I can. And we’ll see how it goes.”

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