Nine days after undergoing surgery for a compound fracture of her left forearm after crashing in practice, reigning Olympic women's snowboard cross champion Maelle Ricker said Wednesday she is aiming to have "the race of her life" in Sochi in defence of her crown.
Speaking to the media via conference call from her hometown in Vancouver, Ricker, the reigning women's snowboard cross world champion, said she broke her radius after sticking out her arm to break a fall on Jan. 28 in Aspen, Colorado. She elected to have surgery later that day and said the arm was healing well.
The 35-year-old Canadian will travel to Russia on Saturday in preparation for her Feb. 16 race.
"It sounds crazy but it's helped me. I've obviously been really excited about the Games and the build-up and the training and all the traveling leading up to the Games I've absolutely loved, but this is almost like there is this burning desire and it's almost like somebody's doused a bunch of gasoline on the fire, so I'm pretty ready to go," Ricker said.
"I can feel the adrenaline and I can feel the excitement of going over to Russia, so I'm actually just going to use that as a positive and use that for motivation to just get me through these couple of weeks and hopefully have the race of my life."
Ricker, who will wear a splint during the Games, said she had been home for a week doing on-land training, physio and getting more range in the arm as the swelling subsided. While she has broken numerous bones during her career, she admitted she had never raced with such a "fresh" injury before.
She added there was never a doubt that she wouldn't be at the Olympics to defend her title.
"I spent a lot of time on snow in January already and I had absolutely amazing training leading up to the crash, so I have every confidence that when I do get back on snow it will be fine."
Since her accident, Ricker has been working in the gym with bungee cords and pulleys to simulate the reaction of the pull of quickly getting out of the starting gate, something vital for getting a strong performance.
"I think it is going to be better than maybe what I think based on just my progress in the gym the last few days. Everything is moving so much better than what I would have ever imagined a week post-op from breaking an arm," she said.
"I'm really positive about this and I know that all the progression and the training leading up to this is just going to keep getting better and better every day."
Ricker, currently No. 7 in the FIS world rankings, will be among a core group of veteran boarders vying for medals in Sochi. Dominique Maltais, a 33-year-old Canadian, currently leads the women's snowboard cross world rankings, while American rival Lindsey Jacobellis is No. 2.
The 28-year-old Jacobellis, the silver medal winner at the 2006 Turin Games, is back racing after a two-year hiatus and will be looking to avenge a disappointing result at the 2010 Winter Games when she was disqualified in the semi-finals after sliding off the course.
"There's a lot of girls riding really well this year," said Ricker who will be competing in her fourth Olympic Winter Games. "I think another one to look out for is Eva Samkova from the Czech Republic. She's been having a phenomenal year as well."
