Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nickname | Cass | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nationality | Canadian | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Calgary, Alberta | September 14, 1992||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 174 cm (5 ft 9 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 69 kg (152 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Country | Canada | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Freestyle skiing | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Event | Halfpipe | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
|
Cassie Sharpe (born September 14, 1992) is a Canadian freestyle skier. Sharpe became the Olympic champion in women's halfpipe after winning gold in Pyeongchang, South Korea at the 2018 Winter Olympics. She won a silver medal at the 2015 World Championships in halfpipe in Kreischberg and won gold and bronze in superpipe at the Winter X Games in 2016 and 2018, respectively.
She grew up in Comox, British Columbia on Vancouver Island and learned how to ski with her family, skiing for the first time with her brothers at age 11. Her parents enrolled her in Bumps and Jumps at Mount Washington in 2004. Sharpe competed in moguls, aerials, and slopestyle in her early years. Later she would win her first halfpipe event in 2012, which would get her into the discipline. [1]
Sharpe announced her arrival on the international scene in halfpipe when she won silver at the 2015 World Championships. [2] She would say of her last run and coaching later that "I went big for the last run and brought all the pieces together that I've worked so hard for. We had a crazy training camp in Calgary before coming here, and my coaches were amazing. They made me a better skier in a week, and I owe my consistency to them". [2] Some discounted her win as most of the competitive skiers were at Winter X Games XIX that year, which was scheduled at the same time as the World Championships. [1] Sharpe would back up her podium pedigree with a gold medal win on the 2014–15 FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup to end the season. [1] She also placed second in the Breckenridge Dew Tour in 2015.
She would make her X Games debut in January 2016, where she placed fourth. Unknowingly she was competing with a stress fracture in her back that occurred in December 2015 but was only diagnosed by an MRI scan after the X Games. [1] Wearing a back brace, Sharpe would win gold at Winter X Games Oslo in 2016. [1] She would follow up her X Games Gold with a World Cup gold at the event in Tignes, France. While qualifying in Tignes, she broke her thumb after a fall. Sharpe would tape up her thumb and, later in the event, became the first woman ever to land a switch cork 720 in competition. [1] She would later have surgery to reconnect the ligament and remove a bone fragment in her thumb. [1]
To start the 2017–18 World Cup season, Sharpe won the halfpipe event at Cardrona, New Zealand. [1] She would also win gold Snowmass, Colorado and gold on the Dew Tour. Sharpe would build on this success into the 2018 Winter Olympics, her first Olympic competition. Sharpe qualified first overall for the halfpipe final. There her first two runs both would have had her in first atop the podium; her third run was a victory lap. She credited her Olympic training to practicing every day, saying of her frequent practices that it was "so much to the point that I'm like 'I don't want to anymore, I want to have fun.' But it is fun for me. My job is my favourite thing to do." [3] Sharpe concluded the World Cup season with a gold medal win in Tignes, which made her the Crystal Globe winner for the women's halfpipe season. She commented: "I'm really excited at how the year went. Every contest was a new challenge unto itself, but I'm so stoked to finish the year as the overall winner." [4]
On January 24, 2022, Sharpe was named to Canada's 2022 Olympic team. [5] [6] Sharpe would win the silver medal in the women's halfpipe event. [7]
She is sister to snowboarders Douglas Sharpe and Darcy Sharpe. [8] Sharpe now currently lives in Vancouver.
Sarah Jean Burke was a Canadian freestyle skier who was a pioneer of the superpipe event. She was a five-time Winter X Games gold medallist, and won the world championship in the halfpipe in 2005. She successfully lobbied the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to have the event added to the Olympic program for the 2014 Winter Olympics. She was considered a medal favourite in the event. Burke died following a training accident in Utah in 2012.
Kelsey Serwa is a Canadian retired freestyle skier who was a member of the Canadian national ski cross team. She won a gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and a silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. She is the 2011 FIS World Champion and two times Winter X Games champion. In addition, she has won a bronze medal at the 2010 X Games.
Justine Dufour-Lapointe is a Canadian freestyle skier. She was the Olympic champion in the moguls event at the 2014 Winter Olympics and won a silver medal in moguls at the 2018 Winter Olympics. The gold and silver she and her sister Chloe Dufour-Lapointe won in 2014 was the first time that Canadian sisters stood together on the podium, and the fourth time ever by all nations. In winning the Olympics, she became the youngest freestyle skiing Olympic champion ever at nineteen years of age. Dufour-Lapointe was the FIS World Cup rookie of the year for the 2010–11 season. Dufour-Lapointe was the world champion in moguls at the 2015 World Championships has also won a silver and two other bronze medals in the moguls event at the Freestyle World Ski Championships.
Anna Segal is an Australian Olympic freestyle slopestyle skier and two-time world champion.
Rosalind Groenewoud is a Canadian freeskier, known as Roz G in the action sports world. She is the 2011 FIS World Champion in halfpipe, Groenewoud is also a 2012 Winter X Games champion x 2 and has 3 silver and two bronze medals from X Games competitions in halfpipe. She won the AFP Overall Championship in 2009 & 2010 and AFP Halfpipe Overall Ranking in 2012. Groenewoud is a two-time Olympian, 2014 and 2018. She is the first woman to design her own pro-model freestyle ski with the female owned ski company Coalition Snow.
Maddison Michelle "Maddie" Bowman is an American former freestyle skier. She won a silver medal in the superpipe at Winter X Games XVI in 2012.
Marielle Thompson is a Canadian freestyle skier specializing in ski cross. She is the 2014 Winter Olympic and 2019 World champion in women's ski cross, as well as a three-time FIS World Cup Crystal Globe winner as the top-ranked athlete in that discipline and the 2013 Junior World champion.
Arielle Townsend Gold is an American Olympic medalist snowboarder.
Dara Howell is a Canadian freestyle skier. She was the first freestyle skier to win a gold medal in ski slopestyle at the inaugural event at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Howell has also won a bronze medal in women's slopestyle at the Winter X Games XVII in Aspen, Colorado, behind Tiril Sjåstad Christiansen and Kaya Turski.
Augustus Richard Kenworthy is a British-American former freestyle skier, actor, and YouTuber. He has competed in slopestyle, halfpipe, and big air. Kenworthy won the silver medal in men's slopestyle at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. As of 2019 Kenworthy represents Great Britain. He was cast as Chet Clancy in the ninth season of the horror anthology series American Horror Story: 1984.
Rowan Cheshire is a British freestyle skier, specialising in the halfpipe. Cheshire competed in the 2013 FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup in Voss, Norway, where she finished 17th. She won a bronze medal at the 2013 World Junior Championships in Valmalenco. In January 2014 she became the first British female skier to win a halfpipe competition on the FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup when she took the halfpipe event at a meeting in Calgary. This was the first Freestyle World Cup win for a British female skier since Jilly Curry won an aerials competition in 1992.
Mirjam Jaeger is a Swiss former freestyle skier. Now she concentrates on her modeling and sports broadcaster career.
Simon d'Artois is a Canadian freestyle skier. Born and raised in Whistler, BC. He is a member of the Canadian National Halfpipe team. d'Artois competed at the Winter X Games XIX, obtaining the first Canadian gold in the Men's SuperPipe. He has also competed at the U.S. Grand Prix, where in 2013 he fell and hit his head and shoulders near the end of his Superpipe jump.
Kelly Sildaru is an Estonian Olympic freestyle skier.
Nico Porteous is a New Zealand freestyle skier and an Olympic champion. He is New Zealand's youngest Olympic Games medallist, having won a bronze medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics at the age of 16. He became New Zealand's second Winter Olympic gold medallist, and first male, with his win in men's halfpipe at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.
Elizabeth Marian Swaney is an American who competed for Hungary in the 2018 Winter Olympics in the women's halfpipe based on her Hungarian ancestry. She was unable to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics for Venezuela in both skeleton and freestyle skiing, and qualified for the 2018 Winter Olympics in the women's halfpipe, in which she placed last.
Rachael Karker is a Canadian freestyle skier.
Eileen Feng Gu, also known by her Chinese name Gu Ailing, is a freestyle skier. Born in the United States, she has competed for China in halfpipe, slopestyle, and big air events since 2019.
Zoe Atkin is a British-American freestyle skier.
The women's halfpipe competition in freestyle skiing at the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 17 February (qualification) and 18 February (final), at the Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou. Eileen Gu of China won the event. The defending champion, Cassie Sharpe of Canada, returned and won silver. Rachael Karker of Canada won bronze, her first Olympic medal.