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Reply to "Capturing a country through sport: The crossovers"

Jennifer Heil

Jennifer Heil is awarded her silver medal at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
Jennifer Heil is awarded her silver medal at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.  (Steve Russell)  

At the 2006 Turin Olympics, Jennifer Heil raced through moguls and soared into a backflip iron cross before landing to finish in gold-medal time. It was Canada’s first medal of those Games and the first-ever Olympic medal for a Canadian woman in moguls skiing.

On home soil at the 2010 Vancouver Games she earned another medal, silver, then won the overall World Cup title and, the following year, swept the moguls events at the world championships before retiring.

To make all that happened — there were points in her career when her body was so broken-down she could barely get into her ski boots — required a team of doctors, physiotherapists and trainers. Heil wanted other athletes to have access to the kind of support that had made her 2006 gold possible and so she helped develop B2ten, an initiative that provides a collection of summer and winter athletes with the extensive customized support they need to have their best chance at medal success.

FM
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