Blog | MountVacation.com

Canada isn’t one of the safest places when it comes to alpine and cross-country skiing. Sometimes the slopes and tracks are very close to trees, the ski lift support beams are covered with some of the thinnest cushions I’ve ever seen on ski slopes and gorges and precipices are fenced off by narrow bands. Apparently they feel that all they have to do to ensure safety is to include a disclaimer on their skiing tickets stating that everyone is skiing at their own risk. Anyway, the ditches and gorges next to the cross-country tracks were unprotected as well. The first one to notice this was the best cross-country skier in the world, Justina Kowalczyk, who warned the technical delegate for women’s cross country sprints that a particular turn on the slopes is dangerous
.
The technical delegate was Uroš Ponikvar, a fellow Slovene, who told Kowalczyk to leave him alone and to get ready for the race. Several minutes after this, Petra Majdič fell in the gorge on the exact same turn. She fell 3m and landed on ice and rocks breaking both her skis and skiing poles and hit herself badly. The security staff got her out and wanted to take her to the hospital, but Petra wanted to take part in the qualifications. After it became clear that she felt pains in her abdomen and ribs, she agreed to have an ultrasound examination, but only after ensuring that she’d be allowed to start last in the qualifications.

The ultrasound showed that nothing was broken; it was just a very serious blow. Petra was relieved, took some painkillers and went to the start line. She managed to get through qualifications and ran extremely well in the quarter finals. She was in agonizing pain, but gave everything she had and then some. They literally carried her off the finish line after every race. In the semi-finals, her adversaries were just too strong. She fell behind two of them, who would then be guaranteed a place in the finals, but kept going because she could still qualify on the basis of her time. She came in fourth, but got through to the finals.

Exhausted and in serious pain, she was about to start the race of her life. She knew that such an opportunity would never come along again. She knew she won’t be able to recover enough to attend the 30km race, that she’d be too old for the Sochi Olympics. She had worked 20 years for this opportunity. So it was now or never and after a truly heroic performance she won a bronze medal. She gave the last ounces of her strength for it, fainted as she crossed the finish line and some even thought she’d need resuscitation
.
Other coaches and competitors said her achievement was the equivalent of a gold medal, but Petra Majdič said that it was more: “It is gold with little diamonds in it.” They took her to a hospital soon after and a thorough examination showed that in fact, she had 4 broken ribs and a pierced lung. This season is over for her, but Petra’s Olympic dream still came true.