Sarah Burke: More than just a queen of pipe
Sarah Burke needs no introduction. The Canadian freestyle skier was not only the pioneer of the superpipe event, but also enjoyed the reputation of being the queen of the event due to her pipe prowess. Throughout her career, she had been amassing medals
and awards due to her freeskiing skills. Her good looks also hardly go unnoticed, with men’s magazine FHM ranking her 91 on the list of 100 Sexiest Women in 2006.
When Burke was not making headlines for winning top honours in freeskiing competitions, she was making news because of her efforts to bring recognition and validation to the sport that she was passionate about. She was indeed a legendary athlete, role model
and inspiration for millions of women around the world.
Born to Gord and Jan on September 3, 1982, in Barrie, Ontario, Burke began to display her affinity for the sport at a very young age. Speaking about the early days, Burke’s mother Jan recalled, “We would all head down the groomed runs and four-year-old Sarah
would make a beeline for the black diamonds. You would just see this little head pop up and down through the moguls. She always took her own path.”
Prior to the separation of her parents, Burke used to ski with her family. However after separation, it was her father who offered his full support to help her pursue her passion, whereas her mother was more interested in watching her complete school.
After foregoing her aspiration to become an Olympic figure skater, Burke shifted her focus entirely to skiing, with her father always ensuring that she never had trouble reaching contests. After competing in moguls for only a year, she managed to make it
on the provincial team at the age of 14.
In the same year, Burke came across Mike Douglas at the Momentum ski camp. The Whistler-native, considered to be the godfather of freestyle skiing, took her under his wing and assisted her in becoming a pioneer for females in freeskiing and eventually reaching
the superstar status.
According to Douglas, Burke carried the sport on her shoulders and introduced majority of the freeskiing tricks that women perform today, all for the sake of becoming aware of her capacity.
“She loved to challenge herself. She never wanted to give up. Even when she had massive success, she never backed off. She always wanted to keep pushing. That was just her personality,” said Douglas.
Following a series of successful competition results, Burke added one more victory on her resume in 2001, this time claiming top honours in the 2001 US Freeskiing Open half-pipe event, while taking runner-up place in ski slopestyle event. Four years later
when half-pipe made its debut at International Skiing Federation (FIS) Freestyle World Ski Championships , she earned herself the boasting rights for emerging as the first world champion.
She had been asserting her dominance in pipe contests around the world for nearly a decade and was expected to enjoy the reputation of being a “queen of pipe” for years to come.
Making her debut in Winter X Games in 2005, it had not taken Burke any time to make an impression in front of millions of people during what is considered to be the mega-event of winter action sports. In her first two appearances at Winter X Games, she walked
away from SuperPipe event with silver medals. However, from 2007 onwards, she began to completely dominate the contest, taking home the gold for three consecutive years. After missing out on a podium finish in 2010, she reclaimed the throne at Winter X Games
15, making it her fourth Winter X Games SuperPipe Gold in just five years. The winter action sports event had hardly come across a more dominant female athlete in history. It was at the same sporting event where she became the first female skier to land a
1080 in a competition.
Aside from the numerous medals and trophies, Burke had a couple of awards to her name. These included the 2001 ESPN skier of the year Award and the 2007 ESPY Award for the Best Female Action Sports Athlete.
Aside from being the queen of pipe, Burke was also serving as an advocate for the sport. The legendary freeskiing athlete had played a vital role in getting women’s freeskiing added to Winter X Games. However, Burke was far from done yet. For years, it had
been her goal to get women’s freeskiing included in Olympics and if there was one thing she was really bad it, it was giving up. After years of effort and promotion, Burke was finally able to win over the Olympic officials, successfully convincing them to
add freeskiing superpipe to 2014 Sochi Games. Naturally, she was being considered as the favourite to win at the upcoming Winter Olympic Games.
Little did Burke know that despite getting freeskiing added to Winter Olympics, her dream of competing in the Olympics was going to remain unfulfilled.
On January 10, 2012, the Canadian freeskier sustained serious injuries while training for a personal event at the Park City Mountain Resort in Utah. She was air-lifted to the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City, where the test reports showed irreversible
damage to her perennial artery due to deficiency of oxygen and blood because of cardiac arrest. The doctors attempted to repair the damage through surgery, but their efforts turned out to be in vain. After remaining in coma for nine days, Burke died on January
19.
According to a statement by her family, her organs and tissues were donated just as she had wished for before her death. Burke is survived by her husband Rory Bushfield and her parents, which include Gord, Jan and her sister Anna.
Burke was indeed a legendary athlete in the truest sense of the word and has left behind a legacy that will live on forever.
Tags: