There’s a pause and then a laugh, as Dara Howell thinks about the last time she was on a podium. “Ummm,” the reigning Olympic champion in women’s slopestyle skiing says, “it’s been a very long time.”
It has, for the 23-year-old from Huntsville, Ont. — nearly three years. Not since Howell earned X Games bronze in Aspen in January of 2015 has she finished in the top three at an event.
“I know, it’s awful, right?” she says. “It’s coming, it’s gotta come! I’m working as hard as I can.”
And Howell, who missed the first event of the season after tweaking her knee in training, will get a shot this week as the Dew Tour makes a stop in Breckenridge, Colo. Women’s slopestyle skiing opens Thursday with qualification, and the finals go Saturday.
To hear an Olympic champion call herself an “underdog” sounds like a stretch, but Howell is in the midst of a comeback since she took off the better part of two seasons after she became a Canadian hero in Sochi, winning her sport’s first-ever Olympic gold.
The break came because Howell mentally and physically “wasn’t there,” she explains. “I wasn’t engaged in what I was doing, I wasn’t pushing myself.”
So, she stopped competing. She slept a lot, and lost about 15 pounds. “It was a loss of confidence, a loss of self-respect,” Howell says. “I wasn’t doing much, I wasn’t confident in the person that I am, I was losing sight of myself.”
She even considered quitting. Two summers ago, a friend asked what her plans were going forward in skiing and she said: “I think I’m done, I think that’s it.”
Today, Howell can’t believe those words even came out of her mouth. A few months after she did say that, she started seeing a sports psychologist, and got a couple of new coaches. “Things turned around pretty quick,” she says, “But yeah, I thought I was done. It’s so messed up because now you ask me and I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m just starting!’ It’s so crazy.”
Can’t keep the smile off my face! pic.twitter.com/EYYHjx5LeI
— Dara Howell (@DaraHowell) October 2, 2017
Last season, Howell took some important first steps toward getting her confidence back and finding the fun in competing again. She didn’t make it on any podiums, but it was a successful season for other reasons. “I was pushing myself again, I was trying to overcome my fears of not being good enough,” she says.
Those fears came because Howell didn’t know how to handle the success she had at such a young age. “I think I just felt the pressure of, I’m 19, I won Olympic gold, I hit the pinnacle. So how do I ever top that? What if I never succeed again? What if I’m never good enough?” she says. “I’m almost disappointed in myself for feeling like that. There was no need for it, you know? There’s so much that could be said.
“I just hid and was not happy.”
Howell is openly talking about that struggle now because just as she captured Canada’s attention when she won Olympic gold nearly four years ago, “I have such a voice to help others,” she says.
“It took kind of hitting rock bottom for me to reset and be like, ‘Wait, no, I am good enough. This is what I really enjoy doing.’ Why not go back and give it a try, and if I don’t succeed, then at least I know I’ve given it every ounce of sweat and tears and effort to be had.”
Howell says working with her sports psychologist and with coaches Geoff Lovelace and Sian Angharad, in addition to her national team coaches, turned her career around. She’s no longer afraid to be perfect, and says she’s a better and more dedicated skier today than she was when she won Olympic gold.
“Leading into 2014, I worked really hard, but I relied a lot on my raw talent. I could’ve worked a lot harder, and I really changed that. I work so hard now,” Howell says. “I do anything and everything to put myself in the best position, whether it’s finding new trainers, coaches, sports psych, a nutritionist, the right treatment. I’m willing to invest in myself and do anything I can to help myself be the best possible.”
She worked over the off-season to add some rotations to some old tricks, and has improved her rails, which have always been a weakness. On a new air bag in Quebec, she also tried some doubles, which have never been done in women’s ski slopestyle competition. Howell isn’t sure if she’ll debut a double this season, but she’s not ruling it out.
The Olympic Games are fewer than two months away, and Howell knows the pressure will be on. “I’m sure people are gonna say, ‘Is she gonna win again?’ But for me, I’m just so grateful I’m in this position, because I truthfully did not think I would be where I am right now,” she says. “I feel like I might go in as an underdog because I was quiet for so long, I haven’t been on a podium since 2015, and I don’t know what’s gonna happen.”
What’s certain is Howell is again feeling like a contender to get back on that Olympic podium. “Definitely,” she says.
There are a bunch of chances to end that top-three drought before Pyeongchang, of course, starting with this week.
“My edge is back, I’m eager to compete,” Howell says. “I want to get on some podiums. Let’s do this!”
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