Dear Interweb,

Check out this article written for the Whistler Ski and Snowboard Festival. I guess I’m a “Girl-Crush”! 

http://wssf.com/media/newsreleases/apr15.html

Here’s the piece on me: 

  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 colours 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 favourite event of the year (including me!) because no matter what, you have fun with your ski friends.”

Roz Groenewoud is competing in the World Skiing Invitational at the TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival in Whistler, B.C. April 18-21, 2009.

 Sincerely,

RozG

Dear Interweb,

I am here in Aspen once again for the Winter X Games Experience. In terms of half pipe ski events, nothing currently rivals the X-Games for bright lights, famous athletes, pressure, significance and prize money. This year is my 2nd time here and I am looking to improve on last year’s experience: I fell both my runs on my easiest trick, rightside 540 and ended up 10th out of 12. I was so relieved that it was over, as I had felt nauseous for a month leading up to the event, that at the time, I didn’t even mind my result. 

Last night was the first training session in the pipe. It is 22 feet big this year, compared to 18 last year, and it has been extended by 50 feet. Our team had been training in Park City, which is also 22 feet,

Yesterday at the X pipe, compliments of Freeskier

and therefore didn’t struggle with the adjustment as much as the athletes that had never skied a pipe that a large. The female event is Friday night so I still have a lot of training time to get my tricks down. The snowboard athletes were training as well, which is always a pleasure to watch. As female skiing is always compared to female snowboarding, I like to observe their riding for inspiration. I think the biggest difference between the disciplines is the depth of the field. In female skiing, there is realistically one girl who will win if she puts down her best run and 5 or 6 who could be on the podium. Comparatively, there are 5-6 girls who could win in snowboarding with 10-12 on the podium.

Stay Tuned! Rossignol will be doing edits everyday. Here is the link for the edit yesterday that starred the French rider Kevier Roltoni a.k.a Xavier Bertoni & Kevin Rolland:

http://www.zapiks.com/x-games-xiii-xavier-kevin.html

Sincerely RozG

Dear Interweb,

Here is some reading, should you be too partied-out to do something more productive. (I, personally, chose to be D.D. last night so that I could party-hop easily and also hopefully accomplish a lot today):

http://www.skipressworld.com/ca/index.php/canadavol23no3-8.html

On pages 41-43 there is an interesting article on the struggles (and successes) of pro-female athletes trying to make a living in a male-dominated environment. I was interviewed by Jules at a Pro-Female Athletes Career Conference in San Francisco this fall. It turned out to be a good article (and a very insightful conference) and I’m stoked that I got a big shot (compliments of Jimbo Morgan). The magazine will be out in print on January 16th.

 Also, belated Merry Christmas! I spent Christmas at my family’s ski mobile home (yes, I occasionally live in a trailer) at Castle Mountain, Alberta. It was great to relax and ski some pow after a month of training pipe and park in Colorado. Many people haven’t heard of Castle (which is a very good thing) as it isn’t a “resort”– no high speed chairs, hotels, high class shopping or perfectly groomed super park.

Skiing the groomer home on Christmas morning...

I wasn’t able to ski some of the best terrain Castle has to offer as there was ongoing avalanche danger because of the way the snow fell this year—light, cold, dry snow followed by a lot of warmer, wet stuff.  However, on the terrain that I did ski, I was finally forced to admit that my little brother, who is now taller than me, is also a better powder skier. They grow up so fast…

Little Lukey killing the Castle Pow

Sincerely,

Roz G