SOCHI, Russia — Trennon Paynter waited for a quiet moment on the first day of training for the women’s ski halfpipe competition, and then the coach dropped in. With him, Paynter carried a glass container that held his friend Sarah Burke’s ashes. And together, they tore down the Olympic pipe.
“I know Sarah wanted to get some hits in the pipe, so she got those,” said Paynter, the head coach of Canada’s halfpipe team, smiling. “I felt really good about it.”
Burke was a pioneer of the halfpipe event that debuted at these Sochi Games and a big reason it did. The Barrie, Ont., native, a four-time X-Games champion who was expected to be the gold-medal favourite here, died at age 29 after a training crash in January of 2012. But her presence has been felt throughout these Games. As teammate Mike Riddle put it, minutes after he nailed his silver medal-winning run: “These are Sarah’s Olympics, for sure.”
When the women’s competition took place Friday night at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, Burke was right there with them. Paynter had earlier orchestrated what he called “a little bit of a stealth mission,” sneaking onto the pipe to spread some of Burke’s ashes. She’s also touched down at the Olympic rings in the athletes’ village in the mountains and at the top of the gondola.
“I feel pretty good just knowing that Sarah was all over these Olympics,” said Paynter. “In our minds and quite literally.”
This had been a plan for a couple years but Paynter and Burke’s husband, Rory Bushfield, kept it quiet and private until after the completion of the freestyle ski events. “It’s probably not entirely following all the rules,” the coach said. “But it’s certainly something that I think we were going to make happen regardless.”
That the International Olympic Committee banned skiers from wearing stickers to honour Burke’s memory has done nothing to stop her friends and teammates.
Ski slopestyle bronze medallist Kim Lamarre was a good friend of Burke’s. As she stood atop the mountain ahead of her final run on Day 4 of these Games, Lamarre saw sun peak through the clouds. “I said, ‘OK, Sarah, carry me through this run. Let’s do it together.” Then, the 25-year-old from Quebec City, nailed it. “I was like, ‘Sarah, we did it!’ I felt like she carried me through. Someone really wanted me to land that run.”
The next night, Lamarre and her teammates went dancing to celebrate. “Sarah’s drink of choice was vodka and we’re in Russia,” she said, smiling. “We had a shot for her.”
Paynter smiles when he thinks about Burke taking in the debut of the event she championed to get here. “Seeing women’s halfpipe skiing on a world stage like that, I think would be a really powerful thing,” he says.
“I know she’s up there, very stoked about it.”