Georgia Simmerling’s unprecedented Olympic career will be put on hold for at least two years following a ski cross crash that will keep her out of the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
On Sunday Alpine Canada confirmed that the West Vancouver multi-sport star broke both her legs in a scary crash in front of a Canadian crowd during a World Cup event at Nakiska Saturday. The incident happened during the semifinals near the end of the course where Simmerling was in a high-speed battle with two other skiers. She landed awkwardly on the second-last jump of the race and fell hard, fracturing the tibia and fibula of her left leg and suffering a tibia plateau fracture to her right leg. She underwent surgery in Calgary, getting a rod and screws in her left leg and screws in her right.
The timing of the crash was particularly unfortunate for Simmerling with the Olympic ski cross team being officially announced today and the Winter Games beginning in a little more than two weeks. This was the final World Cup race before the Olympics.
“I am devastated,” Simmerling wrote on her Instagram account Monday morning. “My emotions feel quite numb at this point. But, my heart is also extremely overwhelmed and filled with so much love from every single individual that has reached out to me. I cannot express enough gratitude to you all. … I tried so hard to be safe, smart, calculated and focused every time I went down a track this season. I came up one month short.”
Simmerling, however, was already showing the determination that has typified her athletic career – her Instagram post contained a short video of her making a quick cut down a hospital hallway in a wheelchair.
“The world has a way for each of us we simply cannot control,” she wrote. “What I can control, however, is my mindset tackling the next month. I will take on this rehab like I take on everything, with determination, resiliency and a little stubbornness. I’m not broken. Well shoot, I guess I am, but I will come back even stronger, I trust in that with everything that I am.”
Simmerling was having a strong season on the World Cup circuit, hitting the podium twice to sit fourth in the overall standings coming into Saturday’s event.
The 28-year-old from the Grouse Tyee Ski Club has already made Olympic history as the first Canadian ever to compete in three different sports in three different Olympic Games. She competed in alpine skiing in Whistler at the 2010 Games before switching to ski cross for Sochi in 2014. In 2016 she made an even bigger switch, earning bronze in women’s track cycling team pursuit in the Summer Olympics in Brazil.
She jumped right back onto snow after Rio and was picking up speed this season, her two podium places giving her a total of nine World Cup medals for her career.
“I know my Canada Ski Cross team will do me, and our entire country proud,” she said. “I will be breaking TVs cheering for them at home.”
