It was hard for Squamish's Aleisha Cline to watch her sport's Olympic debut from the sidelines.
The mother of two young children battled valiantly through the beginning of the World Cup season, but wound up without one of the hotly contested spots on Canada's Olympic freestyle ski team.
But on Saturday (March 6), Cline put all of that aside and rocketed onto the podium in the first World Cup race after the Olympics, capturing silver in Branas, Sweden, for her first medal of the season.
"I can't even put that into words," she said of earning silver after the Olympic heartbreak.
The Swedish course, which Canadian head coach Eric Archer said produced "a bit of a drag race" and lots of passing action, played to Cline's strengths as a great glider.
She used solid starts and stayed close in the turns before excelling in the gliding sections, beating the likes of Olympic silver medallist Hedda Berntsen of Norway in her head-to-head races en route to the final.
France's Ophelie David, the top-ranked women's ski cross racer in the world, edged out Cline for the gold medal, but the silver was still sweet, said Archer.
"I think there was a lot to deal with leading into the Olympics; she just felt a little more free today. I think it helped her performance for sure," he said.
Cline said she enjoyed the competition because at this point, all the pressure is off. And this was reflected in her jovial demeanor.
"Every time I've done well, it's been one of my kids' birthdays," Cline joked, as Saturday marked the 23-month anniversary of her daughter's birth.
She also has a four-year-old son whose birthday is fast approaching on Friday (March 12) - the next World Cup ski cross race is Thursday (March 11).
Cline was a dominant force in the developing years of the sport, as a legendary competitor on the X Games scene with four golds to her credit, and a six-time World Cup medallist between 2002 and 2004.
The ski cross racer who became known as the sport's Lady Dominator returned from a four-year hiatus in large part because of the lure of her sport in the 2010 Olympic Games on home snow at Cypress Mountain.
Cline struggled to find her top-flight form on the World Cup circuit in the last months before the Games. Although she wowed in winning the World Cup event at Cypress last season and sped to three, subsequent top-10 finishes, she didn't get a berth in the Games.
"It was definitely difficult to watch [the Olympics], because of course that was the goal; it was the whole reason for coming out. But I didn't ski to my potential the month before," Cline said, adding that her teammates who made it to the big show deserved their berths.
She said she didn't go into Saturday's race expecting that she could win a medal.
"I don't think anything like that these days."
But she'd be happy to make this into a trend. Beyond the rest of this season, Cline said she isn't sure about her future in racing, given how important her family is to her - but she's not closing doors to any opportunities.
Meanwhile, Whistler's newly minted Olympic ski cross champion Ashleigh McIvor finished 13th in the women's race, a bit clouded by what Archer called her "Olympic gold-medal hangover."
"She was exhausted when she got here," he said, after a whirl of media and duties after her golden performance, and it proved difficult to get in gear to race in Sweden.
Pemberton resident Kristi Richards finished 17th in the competition, which was turned into a one-run contest without qualifying due to fog. The weather conditions also forced the cancellation of Saturday's events and Sunday's men's competition.
Chris Del Bosco of Sudbury, Ont., who earned notice in his Olympic race with his last-gasp push for gold and subsequent crash for fourth place, won some redemption on Saturday too, as he captured the silver medal in the men's race.
Despite battling a head cold, Del Bosco said he felt strong in speeding through to the final round, where he and the other two challengers came within half a ski of catching winner Michael Schmid of Switzerland.
Del Bosco said he was "looking for a little redemption here."
"It definitely helps a little bit, [but] we'll have to wait a few years for the real redemption."
Del Bosco now sits second in overall standings behind Schmid.
Whistler's Julia Murray, who raced on an injured knee at the Olympics, is done for the season, Archer said. She's had knee surgery and emailed the coach the day before the Branas race to say everything went well, Archer added.
Canada's mogul-skiing stars returned to World Cup competition in Inawashiro, Japan, where 2010 Olympic silver medallist Jennifer Heil of Spruce Grove, Alta., secured another silver in Sunday's (March 7) event to win her sixth straight World Cup medal and keep her in first in the overall standings.
