A pioneer in women’s freestyle skiing has been seriously injured in Park City.
Sarah Burke, a Canadian freestyle skier who’s a four-time gold medalist in ski superpipe at the Winter X Games, sustained "serious" injuries while training in the Eagle Superpipe at Park City Mountain Resort Tuesday, said Andy Miller, communications director for the resort.
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The Park City Mountain Resort mountain patrol stabilized her at the scene before transporting her to Base Patrol, where she was airlifted to the University of Utah hospital in Salt Lake City.
Further details were not immediately available.
The U.S. Ski & Snowboard Association is "wishing her a speedy and full recovery," according to Margo Christiansen, the communications director for USSA.
Burke is among the pioneers in the sport who helped push her event into the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. She also won the gold medal in the women’s halfpipe at the 2005 FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships in Ruka, Finland. Like many freestyle skiers, she has appeared in many skiing films, and received ESPN’s Best Female Action Sports Athlete in the 2007 ESPYs.
According to her Facebook page, which was flooded with well wishes from her fans, Burke was the first competitive female freestyle skier. Several people sent their best wishes to Burke on her Twitter feed, @sarah_j_burke, including Emily Cook, an American freestyle aerialist who lives in Park City, and Elena Hight, an American Olympic snowboarder.
The Eagle Superpipe is the same structure where snowboarder and Olympic hopeful Kevin Pearce suffered a brain injury on New Year’s Eve in 2009.
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