Ever wonder what became of the women ski jumpers who launched a lawsuit against VANOC in an ill-fated attempt to have their sport included in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics? Recently, the Georgia Straight met with Zoya Lynch, the first plaintiff in the challenge.

The 20-year-old National Sport School graduate now calls Revelstoke home; it’s where she hopes to make her mark as a leaper of another sort. Lynch’s current sport of choice is freeskiing, a genre of ski competition held in the more rugged alpine regions of Europe and the Americas.

Freeskiing is as lyrical as its name implies. Competitors start individually from the summit of a mountain peak and descend to a finish line far below. Along the way, the challenge is to make best use of natural features, such as cliff drops, to demonstrate athletic and artistic prowess.

Speed, agility, and, above all else, aerial calisthenics, determine the winner. As long as she can stay in one piece, Lynch has a lock on all three categories. “I’m the queen of broken bones,” she confided at Revelstoke Mountain Resort, where the Canadian Freeskiing Championships takes place January 4 to 11. “At nine, I broke my arm ski jumping at the Calgary Olympic Park. That’s where, with inspiration from my older brother, I began training. Since then I’ve broken my back, ribs, collarbone—everything.” The suggestion that she’ll be a hurting old lady left Lynch unfazed. “I practise a lot of yoga, so I think that will balance things out.”

Recently certified as a Vinyasa yoga instructor, Lynch’s advice on fitness is to embrace the premise of uniting mind, body, and soul in all activities, and not just on the ski hill, where, if all three aren’t aligned, she doesn’t feel complete to compete. “Yoga is so good for flexibility, just as meditation is for working on breathing. Everything you need to achieve fitness lies outside: a bike, running shoes, rock-climbing, surfing. There’s no need for a gym pass.” To gain a complete picture of how she finances a lifestyle that sees her spend from November to April on the slopes of Mount Mackenzie as a member of RMR’s pro team, add tree-planting and construction work in summer to that workout regime.

At age 18, Lynch won the first freeskiing competition she entered, at Rossland’s Red Mountain Resort. “That’s what got me excited,” she related. “I’ve always loved freeskiing. It’s part of what we did as a family. My dad owns Amiskwi Lodge north of Golden, where we still ski tour.”

According to Lynch, the key to success in freeskiing competitions is to choose the most fluid route down a challenging slope, picking cliffs to sail off and making it look easy. “I’ve been doing judged sports all my life, so I’m comfortable with the dynamics. To win on the Freeskiing World Tour, I’ll definitely include lots of spread-eagles, some ski grabs, and maybe a 360.”

Does being a local give her home-mountain advantage? “The qualifiers are held on a run I ski all the time. Since there are no training runs in freeskiing, you pretty much have to work with the conditions on race day. If I make it through to the finals, I’ll at least have a chance to scope the course from the helicopter on the way to the drop at the start.”

As to the debut of women’s ski jumping at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Lynch waxed philosophical. “Now that the first women’s World Cup has been held, it’s pretty exciting. After the Whistler [court] decision came down, all the Canadian girls quit the sport or retired. It was an awkward time. Most of us went to school or in other directions. Right now, it’s a shame that training isn’t happening at the Whistler Olympic Park. A highlight of my career was jumping there,” she reflected wistfully.

With that, Lynch hoisted her Whistler-made Prior skis and began boot packing her way uphill through waist-deep snow for “another day at the office” in RMR’s North Bowl. “By the end of last season, I was worn out from skiing powder every other day. It was an incredible winter,” she said in parting.

Since 1891, when the Mount Revelstoke Ski Club was founded, skiing and ski jumping have been synonymous with Revelstoke. Beginning in the 1960s, most of the action shifted across town to Mount Mackenzie, site of the current resort that opened in 2007. For the past 27 years, a midwinter tradition has been the Moonlight Ski event staged by Parks Canada in Mount Revelstoke National Park. Held annually on full-moon nights along a groomed trail on the Meadows in the Sky Parkway, this year’s gathering is slated for February 4.

Long-time participant Evelyn McInnes described the eight-kilometre ascent to the Monashee Cabin as “one steep hill with hot chocolate and cookies waiting at the top”. Reached by phone, McInnes cautioned novices to prepare for “rain, wind, everything. But after a couple of switchbacks, it’s all okay. There are lots of young people who really fly along, towing sleighs for their babies.” In Revelstoke, it seems there’s more than one way to define freeskiing.

ACCESS: Revelstoke lies 565 kilometres east of Vancouver on Highway 1. For information on Revelstoke Mountain Resort, including the Canadian Freeskiing Championships, visit www.revelstokemountainresort.com. Details on Mount Revelstoke National Park are posted at www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/bc/revelstoke/index.aspx/. The writer stayed as a guest of the Sutton Place Hotel at Revelstoke Mountain Resort.