So I’m about one hour into hearing of Sarah Burke’s passing. It’s a weird feeling. I can’t say that I followed her career closely, or that I knew all that much about her. But I knew of her. I was aware of freeskiing.

I spend so much of my time just busting on skiers, because in the last ten years they have tried to so hard to be snowboarders (disregard the fact that snowboarders have spent the last 35 years trying to be skateboarders). But credit has to be given where credit is due. Sarah Burke could rip:

I even have mixed emotions about posting that video. Those announcers are just horrible. But hopefully you can pick up what I’m putting down. She was good, at the top of her game and she was pushing it. So much respect has to go out to her for that.

I’m not going to deny that her death is tragic, or that I can even imagine what her friends and family are feeling right now. But I gather she lived lived her life well, I suspect she never stopped living it to the fullest.

Much like when I learned of Craig Kelly’s death years ago. It’s saddening. It’s a hard thing to lose a hero. But somewhere in that loss is a sense of pride for the hero. They were doing what they loved. They knew there were risks involved and they still progressed, because living without skiing or snowboarding probably wouldn’t be living to them.

As fans all we can do is keep them alive in all of our aspirations to want to ride like they did.

I don’t think I’m a very good coper.

Tags: Sarah Burke, Skiing

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 19th, 2012 at 6:32 pm and is filed under Akshin sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.