For Marielle Thompson, ski cross was love at first flight.
The youngest member of Canada’s ski cross team became the first member of the squad to punch her ticket for the Olympics when she took top spot at the season-opening Nakiska World Cup event, held just outside Calgary last weekend. That, coupled with the fact she became the first Canuck skier to claim a World Cup crystal globe last year, means Thompson is well positioned to challenge for a podium spot in Sochi.
“I think my win in Nakiska really showed I can be a contender on any given day with the best in the world,” the 21-year-old says. “It really gave me a lot of confidence.”
Thompson emphasizes the fact she’s not getting ahead of herself in terms of setting Sochi goals, but her preparation for the Games figure to be much less stressful than other athletes’, given she’s already booked her spot at the starting gate.
“The competitions are going to be great training for the Olympics,” Thompson says of the events between now and her date in Russia. “Racing is the best kind of training and it will be a big weight off my chest that I don’t have to qualify.”
In claiming the overall championship in 2012–13, Thompson won two races and finished in the top three in six of 10 events during what was her fourth World Cup season. Winning at Nakiska was just the continuation of a successful ski cross journey that began on a bit of a lark. Thompson started skiing competitively at age 10, taking part in the typical downhill alpine events. Around the time she was 16, Thompson and a few pals decided to take part in a friendly year-end ski cross competition at Whistler-Blackcomb just to see what it was like.
“We signed up and realized it was so fun, and we wondered why we weren’t doing this full-time,” says the Whistler native. “The next year, I was really lucky that the Whistler Mountain Ski Club kind of started the B.C. ski cross program.”
After a pair of years racing for her province—and winning the North American Cup (NOR-AM) title at the end of 2009–10—Thompson jumped to the national team. She credits her teammates on the tight-knit ski cross crew for helping push her toward the success she’s enjoyed, and says the dream of competing at the Games was spurred on by growing up watching elite skiers like Ashleigh McIvor and Julia Murray from her hometown hit the big-time. Both of those women competed in Vancouver when ski cross made its Olympic debut four years ago, with McIvor striking gold.
“I saw that these other Whistler girls could go to the Olympics, so I kind of thought I could too,” Thompson says.
Since proving she can, Thompson says she’s been overwhelmed by the influx of congratulatory messages from around the country. The young lady they call “Big Air Mar” is optimistic her parents, a pair of ski instructors named Rod and Pam, will make the trek to Sochi to cheer her on in person.
Either way, there figures to be an added bit of emotion at these Olympics for Thompson and her teammates given the event will fall almost two years after Canadian ski cross competitor Nik Zoricic was killed at a 2012 World Cup race in Switzerland. “He was a really big part of our team,” Thompson says. “We’re kind of like a family.”
Now, the baby of that group has a great chance to provide Canada’s ski cross squad with a golden experience in Sochi.