{"id":2450771,"date":"2019-11-05T21:36:01","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T04:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/olympian-sarah-hendrickson-ready-to-compete-after-18-month-layoff-that-reignited-her-passion\/"},"modified":"2019-11-05T21:36:01","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T04:36:01","slug":"olympian-sarah-hendrickson-ready-to-compete-after-18-month-layoff-that-reignited-her-passion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/olympian-sarah-hendrickson-ready-to-compete-after-18-month-layoff-that-reignited-her-passion\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympian Sarah Hendrickson ready to compete after 18-month layoff that reignited her passion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Sarah Hendrickson hugs teammate Abby Ringquist, right, both of the Park City Ski and Snowboard team, after landing her final jump of the U.S. Olympic Team Ski Jumping Trials on Sunday, December 31, 2017. Hendrickson took home a first place win and a ticket to the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea where she will compete as a two-time Olympian.<\/strong>
Tanzi Propst\/Park Record<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

PARK CITY, Utah \u2014 If you would\u2019ve asked Sarah Hendrickson in January if she would ever ski jump again, she wouldn\u2019t have known what to say. At 25 years old, and after years of triumphs and tribulations in the sport, the women\u2019s ski jumping pioneer had no idea what her future held.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really didn\u2019t know if I was going to come back because I seriously considered being done,\u201d Hendrickson said. \u201cI honestly think some people, including my coaches, family and agent, thought I was done because they knew how many bad days I had where I was just so over it. \u2026 But then I jumped a few times in February and it all changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the ensuing few months, Hendrickson began ski jumping regularly, while in Park City and Steamboat Springs, Colorado. As the Park City native flew through the air each time, it was as if she was jumping towards her love of the sport. Upon landing each time, Hendrickson was all smiles, as she knew there was no way she was ready to give up the sport.<\/p>\n

In April, she made it official. The former world champion was back to training full-time with the goal of competing for the upcoming season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not joking when I say this, but I seriously couldn\u2019t stop smiling, it was that much fun to be jumping again,\u201d Hendrickson said. \u201cTechnically what I did wasn\u2019t anything special, but my body felt good and my mind was super happy. \u2026 I was like OK let\u2019s get back into more ski-jumping specific training and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the revelation happened, Hendrickson had decided to step away from the snow and skis, things that have controlled her life since she was 2 years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was exhausted mentally and physically to the point where I was just going through the motions but definitely not enjoying it like in the past,\u201d she said. \u201cI learned that you can go through all the motions but if there\u2019s no passion, you really aren\u2019t going to be successful. It\u2019s really rare to be successful in that case, and I know I wasn\u2019t going down the correct path.\u201d<\/p>\n

After recovering from knee surgery in early 2018, Hendrickson headed east last fall to live near Aspen, with her boyfriend Torin Yater-Wallace, a freestyle skier for Team USA. While there, she attended community college classes at Colorado Mountain College, reveling in the anonymity while slowly getting back to doing things she loved: hiking, yoga and mountain biking.<\/p>\n

Originally, Hendrickson was planning on returning to Park City for the second half of the winter season late last year. But a weird, and ultimately rewarding, twist of fate caused her to stay in Colorado a little longer than expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy boyfriend shattered both of his feet competing in the halfpipe, so he was in a wheelchair for three months and needed help,\u201d Hendrickson said. \u201cI decided to stay back and take care of him, and in the end, it proved out to be a great thing for us both. I got to keep going to school, got to ski a bit and for as rough as it was, it was a pretty great winter.\u201d<\/p>\n

That extra time allowed Hendrickson to get back into skiing, but at her own pace. She fell in love with skiing for enjoyment again, something she\u2019d missed ever since she became a prominent figure in ski jumping and was forced to give up alpine skiing and ski touring, two of her passions.<\/p>\n

Hendrickson\u2019s renewed enthusiasm manifested itself when, 18 months after she last competed, Hendrickson traveled to Lillehammer, Norway, and Stams, Austria, in mid-September to compete in two Continental Cups, where she finished in the top-10 in both events.<\/p>\n

Now that she\u2019s back, and has had time to reflect on the competitions, Hendrickson admits she hasn\u2019t felt this good mentally or physically since 2015.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest differences about competing now, she said, is that she\u2019s finally doing it for herself. Her sense of confidence and calmness stems from the fact that she knows that her \u201cplan B\u201d in life, which she lived the previous year and a half, not only works for her but is something she loves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fully believe that I\u2019m OK now because I have plan B and am excited and ready for when that time comes,\u201d Hendrickson said. \u201cSki jumping is and was my identity, especially when I was winning it was very much my entire identity. But now that I\u2019ve found other outlets that I\u2019m competent in, I can now shape who I\u2019m becoming into someone I actually want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

sports@parkrecord.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Hendrickson hugs teammate Abby Ringquist, right, both of the Park City Ski and Snowboard team, after landing her final jump of the U.S. Olympic Team Ski Jumping Trials on Sunday, December 31, 2017. Hendrickson took home a first place win and a ticket to the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea where she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2450771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 08:59:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}