West Vancouver native Maëlle Ricker's attempt to defend her Olympic gold medal fell short on Sunday in Russia as she crashed in the quarterfinals of the women's snowboard cross event.
The 35-year-old's bid to repeat her championship performance from Cypress Mountain in 2010 was made all the more difficult by a gruesome injury she suffered while training just 19 days before the event.
Ricker suffered a compound fracture of her left arm on Jan. 28, breaking both bones in her forearm with the radius breaking through the skin. Ricker needed two metal plates and 16 screws to fix the damage, but the morning after the accident she was already setting out the steps she would need to take to get ready for Sochi.
Competing with her arm in a cast, Ricker looked good during her qualifying run on Sunday at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, posting the fourth fastest time of the day on a course that was at times treacherous - two of the first six riders in the qualifying round were taken off the hill on stretchers.
In her six-woman quarterfinal - her first elimination race - Ricker was in the middle of the pack and battling for the necessary top-three spot when she fell while taking an aggressive inside line around a banked curve. She ended up 21st in the overall standings. Her broken arm affected her ability to compete, she said. In snowboard cross, racers use their arms to launch themselves out of the gates at the start of the race.
"I (didn't) have my usual pull out of the gate," Ricker told Postmedia News following the event. "It just kind of all fell apart there in the quarter-final. My start wasn't anything to write home about and it just got worse and worse as I went down the course. Usually I'm able to refocus and get back on point, especially in pressure situations. I can usually pull up my socks and dig deep, but that was really not the case today."
Despite the injury, Ricker fully expected to contend for a medal in Sochi. Her crash didn't do any further damage to her body but left her shaken up nonetheless.
"I'm a little bit in shock," she said. "It's something that's going to replay in my head for years to come. I'm not going to be able to shake this one off very easily."
While Ricker stumbled in her repeat attempt, her Canadian teammate Dominique Maltais earned redemption for her disastrous 2010 performance. Four years ago Maltais crashed during a training run on the Olympic course and suffered a collapsed lung. She still competed but failed to advance past the qualification round, finishing a disappointing 20th. On Sunday Maltais raced with speed and power all day to earn a silver medal.
"The last four years, I've been improving myself and focusing to get better," said Maltais. "I made it happen today, and I'm really happy."
Eva Samkova of the Czech Republic won gold in Russia, dominating the event from start to finish while wearing a video camera on top of her helmet and a moustache drawn in the colours of the Czech flag.
As for Ricker, she said before the Games that she was not yet ready to decide whether or not these would be her final Olympics. She has competed in the Games four times, starting with an appearance in halfpipe as a 19-year-old in Nagano, Japan in 1998. Several of the racers in this year's event, including the new Olympic champion, listed Ricker as their hero on their athlete biographies for Sochi.
The Olympics also ended on a disappointing note for North Vancouver native Manuel Osborne-Paradis who finished tied for 24th in Sunday's Super G. That result came one week after he finished 25th in the Olympic downhill.
"Adios Sochi!" Manny posted on his social media accounts following the race. "Not at all happy with my performances. Time to head home and recharge the batteries for the rest of the season. Still had an amazing experience at the games and stoked on how many new friends I've made. Team Canada's staff and athletes are amazing."
While Manny was disappointed with his own showing he and the rest of the Canadian team were buoyed by the performance of Jan Hudec who won bronze in the Super G, finishing tied for third place with American great Bode Miller. It was Canada's first Olympic alpine skiing medal since Ed Podvinsky won bronze in downhill in 1994.
