Racing a tough terrain: Ashleigh McIvor, Ski cross racer

Intense training may break an athlete’s body and mind, but most competitors would agree it’s worth suffering to be an Olympic champion, especially when you get to compete in the world’s biggest winter-sports spectacle. At 26, ski-cross racer Ashleigh McIvor has already sustained and recovered from more sports-related injuries than many athletes with twice her experience. “I’m going to be one hurtin’ old granny,” she joked at the end of last winter after she’d won the 2009 world championships in Japan.

Eight World Cup races into this season, the Whistler native ranks second overall behind France’s Ophélie David in the sport that requires competiters to race each other down a steep, winding course of jumps, rolls, and ridges. In a preview of what to expect when she competes next Tuesday (February 23), McIvor finished second after being overtaken at the wire by 33-year-old David, who scored her fourth consecutive win at the Winter X Games in Colorado at the end of January. The two seem destined to be in on the kill again when women’s ski-cross racing returns to Cypress Provincial Park, where McIvor finished second behind Squamish’s Aleisha Cline last February. (Although Cline was not selected by the Canadian ski-cross team and Freestyle Canada to compete at the Olympics, there’s an outside chance she may yet qualify if an injured team member does not heal in time.)

Back in 2002, McIvor sensed that ski cross’s destiny just might be written in the stars. That realization dawned on the UBC undergraduate student while doing research for an English essay. As McIvor explained to the Georgia Straight, she examined why ski cross should be included in future Olympic Games. “The more I investigated, the more valid I realized the concept was—so much so that I put my schooling on hold and decided to give this ski thing my all and just play it by ear.”

Unlike many of her colleagues, who segued into ski cross from the ranks of alpine ski racing, McIvor’s background reads more like that of freeskiers like Cline, who, when contacted by the Straight, characterized cross’s early days as “all woo-hoo, baggy pants, and, ”˜Let’s see who can get to the bottom first.’ ” As McIvor recalled, “When I was 18, I was sitting at home in Whistler watching my first ski-cross race from the X Games. I remember thinking, ”˜I could beat those girls.’ ” The following winter, McIvor acted on her hunch and journeyed to an X Games qualifying race in Lake Tahoe. Although she dislocated her shoulder poling out of the start gate, she still managed to make the cut.

Perhaps because of—or in spite of—a lack of alpine-ski-racing experience, McIvor maintains a laid-back approach to ski cross, a sport that one of her coaches, Willie Raine, compared to the running of the bulls. It helps that the self-described “adrenaline junkie” possesses what Cam Bailey, president of Canada Ski Cross, described as “terrific genetics. Ashleigh’s lanky and tall, which is good for your suspension when following a course. She has natural athletic ability, which is especially unusual, as she doesn’t have any depth in alpine racing. She’s a very relaxed girl in general who handles pressure well. Her job is to perform on demand. ”˜Live for the day’ is our team motto, and Ashleigh is very, very good at it.”

One listen to McIvor’s trademark laugh would convince anyone of that.