The Women of Telus World Ski Festival
The Women of Telus World Ski Festival
The TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival offers no shortage of action – music, arts, sports. Barbie, you’re over. Here’s a list of ten spunky women to catch up with in Whistler all of whom deserve an action figure of their own.
Photo by Watermark Inc.
Roz Groenewoud, pro skier
Her first year competing at the World Skiing Invitational, skier Roz Groenewoud was 15 years old and star-struck to be in the half-pipe finals alongside her icons Sarah Burke, Marie Martinod and Jen Hudak. “I've been on the halfpipe podium twice since then but, as they say, you never forget the first time! “
No stranger to adversity, Groenewoud, who lived in Ecuador during elementary and middle school, showed her true colors in 2008 when she competed at the Orage Masters for Rossignol. “I left a lot of blood on the course. I was told they had to shovel away several garbage bags of bloody snow. My face was smashed up and swollen and I had stitches in my mouth plus black eyes... After x-rays, stitches and exams, I asked the doctor at the Whistler hospital if I could still compete that night in Big Air and he said, "well...there is no physical reason..." So I grabbed a taxi back to my hotel, took a hot shower to get the blood off me, found clean clothes and stumbled over to the Big Air Finals site to compete. I'd won qualifiers for females and as it was the first time there was a female category for big air, practically nothing would have kept me away.”
Roz, now a member of the Canadian Halfpipe Ski Team and hoping that half pipe skiing will be welcomed into the Olympics in 2014 so she can bring home gold for Canada, says “WSI is many people's favorite event of the year (including me!) because no matter what, you have fun with your ski friends.”
Roz Groenewoud competed in the World Skiing Invitational at the TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival in Whistler, B.C. April 18-21, 2009.
No stranger to adversity, Groenewoud, who lived in Ecuador during elementary and middle school, showed her true colors in 2008 when she competed at the Orage Masters for Rossignol. “I left a lot of blood on the course. I was told they had to shovel away several garbage bags of bloody snow. My face was smashed up and swollen and I had stitches in my mouth plus black eyes... After x-rays, stitches and exams, I asked the doctor at the Whistler hospital if I could still compete that night in Big Air and he said, "well...there is no physical reason..." So I grabbed a taxi back to my hotel, took a hot shower to get the blood off me, found clean clothes and stumbled over to the Big Air Finals site to compete. I'd won qualifiers for females and as it was the first time there was a female category for big air, practically nothing would have kept me away.”
Roz, now a member of the Canadian Halfpipe Ski Team and hoping that half pipe skiing will be welcomed into the Olympics in 2014 so she can bring home gold for Canada, says “WSI is many people's favorite event of the year (including me!) because no matter what, you have fun with your ski friends.”
Roz Groenewoud competed in the World Skiing Invitational at the TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival in Whistler, B.C. April 18-21, 2009.
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