Aspen, Colo. • For Roz Groenewoud, the dream finally was realized. She had claimed a skiing halfpipe world title, and after two close calls, she now has a Winter X Games gold medal.
"The only thing better would have been if I got a hug from Sarah [Burke] at the bottom," Groenewoud told The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.) on Saturday on Buttermilk Mountain, her once-dry eyes filling with tears.
![]() |
Join the Discussion |
![]() |
Post a Comment |
Groenewoud skied with passion, she skied with creativity, and most of all, she skied with a laser-sharp focus, determined to win for Burke, her Canadian teammate who died this month at 29 from a brain injury that she suffered in a training accident in Park City.
Competitors wore stickers on their helmets and ribbons on their sleeves bearing Burke’s name in a continued tribute to the four-time Winter X champion, whose influence helped catapult the sport into the Olympics, starting with the 2014 Sochi Games.
Figure skating • Ashley Wagner won her first title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at San Jose, Calif., salvaging what was an otherwise dismal night of splats and spills with a majestic rendition of "Black Swan." She finished with a score of 187.02 points and then watched as two-time champion Alissa Czisny and Agnes Zawadzki melted down.
Women’s downhill • Lindsey Vonn dominated yet another World Cup downhill, winning by 1.42 seconds on the Engiadina course at St. Moritz, Switzerland. Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany was runner-up and Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein was third.
Men’s downhill • Didier Cuche won his second consecutive World Cup downhill race on a shortened Kandahar course at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Erik Guay of Canada finished second and Hannes Reichelt of Austria was third.
Speedskating • Canadian speedskater Christine Nesbitt broke the world record in the 1,000 meters in the world sprint championship at Calgary, Alberta. Nesbitt, the Olympic champion in the 1,000, finished in 1 minute, 12.68 seconds at the Olympic Oval to break the mark of 1:13.11 set by Canadian Cindy Klassen in 2006 on the same ice.
Freestyle • American star Hannah Kearney won her 12th straight World Cup women’s freestyle moguls event, and Canadian Mikael Kingsbury took his fifth straight men’s victory at Calgary, Alberta .
Luge • Austrian brothers Andreas and Wolfgang Linger won a men’s doubles luge World Cup event before Germany’s Tatjana Huefner won the women’s race at St. Moritz, Switzerland.
Ski jumping • Daiki Ito of Japan edged Norway’s Anders Bardal for the first World Cup ski jump victory of his career, at Sapporo, Japan. Ito finished with 252.6 points after making jumps of 134 and 130 meters on the large hill. Bardal had jumps of 134 and 135 meters but was deducted style points and finished second with 252.5 points.
Snowboarding • Siegfried Grabner led an Austrian sweep of a men’s snowboarding World Cup parallel giant slalom, while Amelie Kober of Germany defended her title in the women’s event at Sudelfeld, Germany.
Copyright 2012 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.






