An Excerpt From Winter: Sarah Burke and Rory Bushfield
Let us dedicate this day to Sarah Burke, an inspiration to women, athletes and snow lovers all around the world. This amazing female will be missed by sooo many. My heart goes out to all her friends and family. Let us be grateful for having had her be apart of our lives and sport. While we shed tears in her memory, remember she would only want you to live yours to the fullest, as she did.
Burke, a pioneer in both women’s ski slopestyle and halfpipe, was a driving force behind the sport’s inclusion in the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia in 2014. Born in Midland, Ontario, Canada and living in Squamish, British Columbia, Burke was a four-time gold medalist at Winter X Games. She also won the 2001 U.S. Freeskiing Open in halfpipe and second place in slopestyle. She won the first ever world championship halfpipe event. She was awarded an ESPY in 2007 for Best Female Action Sports Athlete. She also had five World Cup victories on her resumé, including two earned last March at La Plagne, France. She won the 2005 world championships at Ruka, Finland, and finished fourth at the 2011 worlds at Park City.
Burke crashed Jan. 10 in Park City, Utah, while training in a halfpipe. The Olympic gold-medal hopeful and four-time Winter X Games champion tore one of the major arteries supplying blood to her brain and went into cardiac arrest.
She underwent surgery and spent nine days on life support at the University of Utah Hospital. But Burke had suffered irreversible brain damage after the fall because of lack of oxygen and blood to the brain. She passed away Jan 19th 2012 (yesterday)
www.giveforward.com/sarahburke was organized by her agent, Michael Spencer and has marked a goal for $550,000. Her husband Rory Bushfield, a fellow skier from Alberta whom she married in 2010, is listed as the beneficiary.
As long as we live, she too shall live, for she is part of us, as we remember her.
