Canada’s Meryeta O’Dine captures Olympic bronze in snowboard cross
Posted February 9, 2022 5:34 am.
Four years after her Olympic dream ended before it started, Canada’s Meryeta O’Dine won a bronze medal in women’s snowboard cross at the Beijing Games on Wednesday.
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Meryeta O’Dine wins a snowboard cross bronze for #TeamCanada at #Beijing2022 ????
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— Team Canada (@TeamCanada) February 9, 2022
The 24-year-old native of Prince George, B.C., missed the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics after she suffered the fifth concussion of her career in training just two days before she was scheduled to compete.
“It’s honestly pretty surreal right now,” O’Dine told CBC. “I came in here with a pretty big mission. Of course, in this sport, absolutely anything can happen. It can be anyone’s day. I just kept on telling myself it was going to be my day today. I really worked on everything I could. I came in with a lot of vengeance definitely from the last Olympics.”
O’Dine was a surprise medallist after being ranked 12th in the World Cup standings this season.
Lindsay Jacobellis won the four-woman big final and captured the first gold medal for the United States in Beijing. Chloe Trespeuch of France was second.
O’Dine held off Australia’s Belle Brockhoff for bronze.
Up until Wednesday, Jacobellis was best known for taking a massive lead into the final jump at the 2006 Turin Games, but tweaking her board as she road over the crest, then falling and settling for silver. Beijing marked Jacobellis’ fifth Olympics.
O’Dine, who won first-round, quarterfinal and semifinal races and had the third fastest qualifying time of the day, picked up Canada’s seventh medal of the Games.
It marked Canada’s first medal in women’s snowboard cross since Dominique Maltais won silver in 2014 in Sochi.
Tess Critchlow of Big White, B.C., finished sixth after coming second in the small final.
O’Dine’s road to Beijing was challenging. She has called 2020 the most difficult year of her life as her brother Brandon died after a battle with cancer just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world.
O’Dine told the Canadian Olympic Committee she struggled with anxiety and depression after Brandon’s death, but that she re-learned how to be an Olympic-level athlete with the help of psychologists.
“A lot of psychology,” O’Dine told CBC when asked how she kept going. “Friends and family from home were my No. 1 supporters. I’m training and travelling with the B.C. team again and it has just been all time positive vibes and great training. It’s really set me up to bring me together to be where I am mentally today.”
O’Dine’s earned Canada’s third snowboard medal of the Games, after Max Parrot of Bromont, Que., won gold and Regina’s Mark McMorris took bronze in the men’s slopestyle.
With files from the Canadian and Associated press
