Congratulations Meryeta O'Dine

Hero’s welcome at airport for O’Dine

MARK NIELSEN

Citizen staf f

With two Olympic bronze medals in her luggage, snowboarder

Meryeta O’Dine arrived back in Prince George last Tuesday.

About 60 friends, family and fans some wearing Team Canada hockey jerseys and others with signs welcoming her home greeted her with enthusiastic cheers and hugs as she made her way into the arrivals area at the airport.

It was only a matter of time before she pulled out the hardware - both hefty pieces and both representing the first time a Prince George athlete has won an Olympic medal.

O’Dine will be in the city until Monday before she heads back to Vancouver for a training camp and then off to Europe for more races

before her season wraps up.

It’s the first time she’s been back in Prince George in five months.

“I’m very excited for some A&W, I’m very excited to see my friends and have some downtime with them a little bit,” she said.

There will also be a bit more Olympic-themed festivity before she leaves.

O’Dine will be the guest of honour at Prince George’s Olympic Celebration on Saturday at Canada Games Plaza, 1 p.m. start.

The event will feature music, local food, opportunities to meet local Olympians, and other festivities.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE Two-time Olympic bronze medal winner Meryeta O’Dine takes a selfie with a friend upon her arrival at the Prince George Airport last Tuesday afternoon.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE

Meryeta O’Dine shows off the two bronze medals she won in snowboard cross at the 2022 Winter Games. She is the first Olympic medallist in Prince George history.

Congratulations MeryetaO’Dine on winning twobronze medals at the winter games!

Proud to be asupporter and part of your cheer team!

got first by a photo finish’

Editor’s note: this is an edited version of a story that first appeared in a 2013 edition of the Prince George Citizen.

Two years from now, Meryeta O’Dine wants to be carving through corners and sailing over jumps at the Canada Winter Games. To realize this goal, she’ll have to grab a Team B.C. spot in her chosen sport, snowboard cross.

The 2015 Canada Winter Games, of course, will be held in Prince George.

The snowboard cross competition will utilize the slopes of the Tabor Mountain Ski Resort and, on Sunday, O’Dine and other Games hopefuls will have the chance to race on a track that will be similar to the one that will be in place for 2015.

On Sunday, the B.C. Snowboard Provincial Series stops at Tabor and will double as a test event for the Canada Winter Games. Naturally, O’Dine can’t wait to hop on her board and go for a rip on a course that has been designed by world-renowned builder Jeff Ihaksi. “I went out there [in mid-January] and

did a couple runs on the track,” O’Dine said. “There weren’t necessarily berms or anything. There were a couple rollers, just so we could kind of see what it’s going to be like, the layout of it. And it was really interesting. [Ihaksi] is really

excited to start putting stuff in.”

The 15-year-old O’Dine only took up snowboarding a few years ago but has quickly become one of B.C.’s best snowboard cross athletes. Two weeks ago, she attended a provincial-level race

in Lake Louise and won all nine of her heats.

Then, last weekend, O’Dine was at Big White near Kelowna for an international points event and blistered the course again.

At Big White, she advanced to the final both Saturday and Sunday. On the first day, she was making a move to take over the lead but was knocked off balance by a Japanese boarder behind her.

O’Dine crashed and was disqualified for missing a gate. But, in the Sunday final, she had one of the most thrilling races of her life.

“I was in second most of the way down the track and in the last four corners and two jumps, it was me and the girl in front of me fighting for first,” O’Dine said. “I’d pull ahead and then she’d pull ahead. It was the coolest racing I’ve ever done and I got first by a photo finish.”

O’Dine’s golden result was especially impressive because her fellow competitors were 18 to 20 years old.

Sunday’s riders will range from 14-and-under to 30-and-over. O’Dine will compete in the 15-18 age class.

After Sunday’s race, O’Dine will start gearing up for a Nor-Am event the following weekend back at Big White. There, she’ll get the chance to go head-to-head against some of the current members of Team B.C.

CITIZEN FILE PHOTO

Mereyta O’Dine racing at Tabor Mountain in 2011.

Top athletes balance school, training

Editor’s note: this is an edited version of a story that first appeared in a 2014 edition of the Prince George Citizen.

Juggling school with sports is a precarious occupation when you’re a high-performance athlete.

In February, at the height of the competition schedule, Meryeta O’Dine attended her Grade 10 classes at D.P. Todd maybe one day per week.

The rest of the time she was on the road to compete at ski resorts all over the province.

As an athlete, she made major inroads, and her school work did not suffer.

For that she can thank Canadian Sport School Northern B.C. Students attend morning classes at their regular school, then go to the Northern Sport Centre at UNBC for afternoon classroom sessions and sport-specific physical training.

“It’s allowed me a lot more freedom with getting my homework done and not having to worry about it so much when you’re coming back from competition,” said O’Dine. “They’re always understanding about you staying back and getting your homework done. You can get tests emailed up to the university and bring them back to school.”

O’Dine’s mettle leads to medals

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Meryeta O’Dine visited Engage Sport in September 2017 to talk to young athletes.

medals photo:James Doyle

From sick bay to Canada Winter Games gold

Editor’s note: this is an edited version of a story that first appeared in a 2015 edition of the Prince George Citizen.

A concussion temporarily zapped the short-term memory of snowboard crosser Meryeta O’Dine.

As if that wasn’t enough, while she was on the sidelines unable to race, she developed a kidney infection and ended up losing 20 pounds.

In a gravity-dependent sport such as snowboard cross, where the more weight you carry the faster you go down the slope, losing body mass is never a good thing. But despite those setbacks, O’Dine made a triumphant return to the medal podium in Mont-Tremblant, Que.,

In only her second race day since she hurt her head in a Europa Cup training run in late 2014 in Austria, the 17-year-old from Prince George battled to a third-place finish in Wednesday’s NorAm Cup final.

“It was good, it was actually a lot of fun today,” said O’Dine. “[On Tuesday] I waxed with the wrong wax and had a bit of a crash and that kind of sucked, but today I had the right wax and got third. I could have made a pass but played it safe and got a podium still, so I’m happy with it.”

O’Dine has been a rising star on the national snowboard cross scene ever

since she began racing FIS events two seasons ago. Last January she won bronze in her first NorAm Cup race and went on to post six top-10 NorAm finishes.

She started the 2014-15 season on the South American Cup circuit in Chile, where she won a race in August. That

carried significant weight in putting her on top of the points standings to determine the two-female, two-male B.C. boarder cross team for the Canada Winter Games. “Canada Games is pretty much what got me into snowboarding,” said O’Dine. “It’s one of the higher-stake events for me. I was 13 when it was

announced we were getting the Games in Prince George and I was so young then and I was so new into snowboarding I didn’t think at all that it was a possibility. I was just announced as the top pick for boarder crossing and it’s really cool to see it happening after all this buildup.”

After the women’s preliminary heats at the Canada Winter Games, O’Dine, 18, was ranked second behind Ontario’s Tayler Wilton, 21 who went into the event as the defending Canada Games champion.

On opposite ends of the draw, both Wilton and O’Dine won all of their quarter-final and semifinal heats to qualify for the final which was a close contest right to the end.

“I was last going into the first berm and there was a pass on every berm and on the last section of the course I held a good line and I managed to come out with it,” said O’Dine. “I was extremely nervous today, but I’m so excited about how it all turned out.”

“It was hard to beat someone like Meryeta today, unfortunately I made a small mistake there near the end,” added Wilton. “This is probably my favourite course. It was fun, fast and technical with amazing berms.”

Katie Anderson from Jaffray, B.C. won the bronze medal.

UNBC PHOTO

Meryeta O’Dine races down Tabor Mountain to capture gold in women’s snowboard cross at the 2015 Canada Winter Games in Prince George.

Bruised but not broken

Editor’s note: this is an edited version of a story that first appeared in a 2018 edition of the Prince George Citizen.

The cobwebs of her fifth concussion have diminished, but the reminders still linger inside the head of snowboard cross racer Meryeta O’Dine.

Still recovering from a face-first wipeout one hour into the second day of training for her first Olympic Games at Phoenix Snow Park in Pyeongchang, South Korea, a fall she cannot remember, O’Dine is determined her first trip to the Olympics will not be her last.

“For sure it was disappointing, but it was still real cool to be there and cheer on my friends,” said the 21-year-old

Prince George native. “It was definitely a really good experience - it was my first Olympics and I’m still young and hopefully I won’t get too many more concussions in the next few years. I’m just going to take it season by season and look out for my noggin.”

Her latest concussion sidelined O’Dine for the remaining four World Cup events, which dropped her from sixth to 11th in the world standings. Leading up to the Olympics, she had seven top-10 individual finishes and made the team event podium twice, winning silver in Montafon, Austria and bronze in Ezerum, Turkey.

O’Dine and Zoe Bergermann of Erin, Ont., combined to finish third overall in the women’s team season standings.

O’Dine was sent home right after the competition and was back in Vancouver watching the closing ceremony on TV.

“As much as I’m upset I didn’t get to compete, the Olympics was not only the highlight of my season but the highlight of my life,” she said. “I proved to myself and a lot of people that I could go and be there and race among the best. Obviously it didn’t end up as well as we’d hoped but it was amazing to be there.”

Injuries come with the territory in snowboard cross and O’Dine has had more than her share.

In 2016-17, in addition to her two concussions, she had a ruptured foot ligament and hurt both shoulders, which limited her quickness out of the start gate this past season.

The concussion sustained in training for the world championships in Spain in March 2017 forced her into recovery mode last spring. Sidelined for 67 days, she missed two months of on-snow glacier training in the summer but still managed to finish fourth in the first World Cup event of the season in Cerro Catedral, Argentina.

“Every season throughout, the ends of the seasons have been recovery for me,” she said. “I just roll with the punches.”

Meryeta CANADA

FACEBOOK PHOTO

Meryeta O’Dine took this self portrait after being injured in training at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

‘Reconnecting to the joy of finding your best’

Editor’s note: this is an edited version of a story that first appeared in a 2019 edition of the Prince George Citizen.

After a frightening crash and compression fracture in her spine ended her season in early spring, Meryeta O’Dine worked harder than ever. Her recovery plan and many tough months of intense physical training paid off.

O’Dine achieved her lifetime best results in SBX National Team standardized physical fitness testing, surprising her entire technical team after injury and deciding to train in Prince George.

“Because for me this year, snowboarding is about a lot more than placing your best, its about reconnecting to the joy of finding your best,” she said.

Missing the end of the previous season meant she landed 14th overall in the World Cup standings for 2019.

“This season I have less and more going on. I’m focusing on refreshing myself between World Cups, not just physically but mentally. Anyone in their right mind will be excited to show up for their dream job, but you won’t be able to do your dream job if your head’s in the game and your emotions are elsewhere.

“It’s up to me this year to reconnect with myself, my passions and my process.”

This year’s World Cup circuit will feature eight races, hosted in various countries throughout Europe, including China in February, which will be a great preview for the 2022 Winter Olympics venue.

The exciting addition of the snowboard cross team event in the Olympics provides another opportunity to race with Canadian teammates.

“The test event in China is an exciting event especially because we can use it as a mock build up to the Olympics. We get to learn the venue, the snow, and conditions while we’re there and try to capture the Olympic balls-out feeling on the course we’re riding.”

Government funding only covers a small portion of racing costs.

Even with sponsorships and a full-time job, it’s still difficult to cover all of the costs.

As a result, she held a fundraising evening at the Kinsmen Hall that included a buffet dinner, a comedy show featuring her comedian mom Virginia O’Dine plus special guests, a silent auction, and a dance.

CITIZEN FILE PHOTO

Meryeta O’Dine was home in Prince George for the summer of 2019, working a full-time job, training and fundraising for the next snowboard cross season.

WHATEVER IT TAKES Meryeta O’Dine celebrates her bronze medal finish in women’s snowboard cross at the 2022 Winter Olympics, right. After Caterina Carpano of Italy landed on O’Dine in the team snowboard cross final, top left, both racers fell and slid down the slope. They jumped to their feet, crawling and hopping up the next berm, above left, with O’Dine getting to the top first before heading down the mountain to finish the race.

APROUD

MOMENT FOR PRINCE GEORGE.

to all our Canadian athletes but aspecial congratulations to local PrinceGeorge athlete Mer yeta O’ Dine forwinning two bronzemedals in SnowboardCross.

From all of us who work at our local Prince George McDonald ’s Congratulations!

CANADIAN PRESS PHOTOS

MEDAL MOMENTS FOR MERYETA Above, Meryeta O’Dine celebrates on the podium during the medal ceremony for the winners in the women’s snowboard cross event at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Below, O’Dine and Canadian teammate Elliot Grondin hold up the bronze medals they captured in the team snowboard cross competition.

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