Bahrke tears up the course at Cypress Mountain on February 13.

Ready to Ride
Standing at the top of the course at Cypress Mountain on that rainy night, Bahrke decided to go for broke.

“I had such a good feeling in the start gate,” she says. “I qualified in sixth place and I was so mad at myself—I did not work these last four years to get sixth place, so I just pushed out [of the start] like I wanted it.”

For me, watching NBC from the couch at home, her run looked like a winner, or close to it. Bahrke thought otherwise.

“I went big off the top air, and I thought I made a big mistake and I was really upset at that point but I knew I skied the middle section like I’d been training and just let it rip,” she remembers. “I went really big off the bottom air and finished great. I thought I’d made a significant mistake on the first air, but it turned out you couldn’t see it from the bottom. I got to the bottom and looked at the coaches and they were going insane.”