In the beginning, it's very hard to stay positive. Half of you, you just want to give up. But that's against my nature. Being in a sport, like women's ski jumping, where you haven't been included for so long, I mean, none of us gave up. We're still here; we're still fighting, and hopefully we'll get a chance to achieve our dreams. – Sarah Hendrickson
PARK CITY — Sarah Hendrickson touches the brace keeping her leg straight very lightly before she describes to a throng of reporters what it was like to suffer a major knee injury just as all of her dreams finally felt within reach.
“It was pretty devastating; I won’t sugarcoat it,” said the 19-year-old during a round table with reporters attending the USOC Media Summit in Park City Tuesday. “I was on such a good path. I was jumping well, having some of the best jumps of my life, when I fell, and that was really hard. But you can only be sad for so long and then you’ve got to pick yourself up and, you know, work back and fight against the odds. If I want to make it to Sochi, that’s obviously what I’m going to have to do.”
Hendrickson understands why some see her bid to be back on snow by mid-January as a long shot.
But if anyone can win what looks like a lopsided fight, it’s a member of the U.S. Women’s Ski Jumping Team. These are the women who led the fight to have the sport included in the Winter Olympics, including filing a lawsuit calling their exclusion a violation of the IOC’s charter.
Hendrickson is more the beneficiary of the battle her teammates waged to get the sport included in the Winter Olympics, but training right along side Lindsey Van and Jessica Jerome, she felt the same sting and confusion of being excluded. And it was the tenacity and courage of her teammates that inspired her in some of her darkest moments in the last five weeks.
She said she knew right away that she’d severely damaged her knee, but didn’t want to go to a hospital emergency room. She met with the same surgeon who repaired her other knee last year, an injury that kept her from jumping for six months, to decide how to repair the damage and discuss how soon she could return to jumping.
“(The doctor) straight up told me I could do this,” she said, adding that she planned to do anything and everything her coaches and medical advisers asked. “He said biologically it’s possible. He did my other knee and he’s very realistic. That gives me a ton of confidence that he believes in me on the medical side of things.”
She said the biggest road block to returning to pre-injury form, which included winning the U.S. championship in August and the World Championships last winter, will be in her own mind.
“Really it’s a mental game,” she said. “The biggest obstacle will be landing, or the fear of landing. … Mentally I just have to tell myself I’m ready. If I get the OK by doctors, it’s full throttle.”
The team selection criteria is still being determined, but there will be discretion for coaches to take Hendrickson, if she's healthy, based on her past performances, even if she can't compete in a single World Cup. The team will be named Jan. 19, 2014.
Hendrickson spends six hours a day in a gym, just a little less than five weeks after surgery. Continuing to work for a spot on the first-ever U.S. women’s ski jumping Olympic team has not always been easy. “In the beginning, it’s very hard to stay positive,” Hendrickson said. “Half of you, you just want to give up. But that’s against my nature. Being in a sport, like women’s ski jumping, where you haven’t been included for so long, I mean, none of us gave up. We’re still here; we’re still fighting, and hopefully we’ll get a chance to achieve our dreams.” She said the U.S. team is so tight-knit, in part, because of the fight they endured to convince the IOC to include women in one of the oldest Olympic sports.
Jerome remembers sitting in a courtroom in Vancouver, Canada, just a few months before the 2010 Winter Olympics seething because it was snowing in her hometown of Park City.
“I wanted to be home training,” Jerome said. “And I’m sitting there, and I’m thinking, ‘What am I doing here?’ Without trying to sound like a snob, I’m very glad I did all of that. At the time I just wanted to be training because that’s what I knew how to do.” There was no good reason to exclude them. The list of excuses they heard years ago now makes them laugh.
“I think it was one of those original extreme, hard-core sports,” said Jerome. “Even though girls were doing it for a long time, some people wanted to keep it for the rock stars. It sounds ridiculous, but honestly it’s kind of the mentality.” When asked if she fancied herself a rock star now that she could represent her country in the Olympics as a ski jumper, she didn’t hesitate.
“No,” she said. “I’m home on a Saturday night with cats.” Jerome attended the 2010 games as a spectator and she said she was reluctant to do so at first.
“At first I didn’t want to go because I felt like it was the party I wasn’t invited to,” she said. “And it hurt my feelings. It brought me back to high school. But I went and and I sort of stayed under the radar. … I went, I watched, and it was fun, and then I left.”
Lindsey Van, who is the oldest team member at 29, said that after years of being told no, she started to believe they would never get into the Games. Now that she has the chance to make the first U.S. women’s Olympic ski jumping team, she is thrilled.
“I don’t know why it’s worth it,” she said of continuing to jump through the rejection and painful injuries. “There is no other feeling like it. It’s addicting. It’s unique and there is nothing else that emulates it.” When asked why the U.S. women are so successful in the sport, Van answers without smiling.
“Because we have fun,” she said. “Our team is really successful because we train together every day. We all live in the same town, and every day I like a competition. There is always someone pushing you, someone jumping well, and you want to be that person or you want to beat them. We have fun with it. … It’s not a job. It’s a passion.” Hendrickson said being accepted into the Olympic family has brought stability and funding to their sport and their team. But their decision to choose ski jumping was never about winning gold medals, and it’s the reason she chose the sport, even when the Olympics wasn’t an option.
“We showed up to the jumps every day because we loved it,” Hendrickson said. “That’s why Lindsey kept doing it. That’s why Jessica kept doing it. And finally it’s paid off.”
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