I had never heard of Sarah Burke until after her death. It seems obvious that this woman was a beautiful and wonderful human being whose life was unfortunately tragically cut short in a skiing accident. She was 29 years old.
She was training for a super-pipe event in Park City, Utah when she crashed, rupturing an artery in her brain which resulted in a cardiac arrest at the scene. Despite being airlifted to a hospital in Salt Lake City, she died 9 days later after suffering irreversible brain damage.
She was a Canadian freestyle skier who won Olympic Gold (her lifelong dream) and was Winter X Games champion 4 times as well as World Cup winner 5 times and World Champion.
She was also known for singlehandedly campaigning for the inclusion of women in the ski half-pipe discipline and for pushing for a lot of freestyle events to be included in the Winter Oympics. She succeeded. Women will participate in the half-pipe event in the Winter Games of 2014 in Sochi, Russia, a Winter Games at which Sarah Burke was widely tipped to take Gold.
In 2010, she married fellow freestyle skier Rory Bushfield.
I was struck by how much love they had for each other.
The pride he has for her as the 'gold medal hopeful'.
The way she smiles at him.
I was particularly moved when they described their mutual love for the mountain. And when they both said their wish would be to die on the mountain...
My heart goes out to Rory Bushfield.
And the rest of Sarah's family.
How does one recover from a loss such as this?
May Sarah Burke (Sarah Bushfield) rest in peace.
