Brit snowboarder Katie Ormerod feared she might never walk without pain again – now she is on the brink of history
JUST over a year ago, Katie Ormerod feared she might not be able to ever walk without pain – now she is on the brink of making snowboarding history.
The Halifax star, 22, has previously broken her back, both wrists, her left shoulder and needed surgery on both knees, so when she calls her most recent mishap “THE injury”, you know it must have been a bad one.
I speak to “Katie O” two years to the fateful day she fell off a rail on the eve of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
Ormerod recalled: “My heel snapped clean into two pieces. I had to have emergency surgery in Seoul. They put two metal screws in my heel to pin it back together.
“But everything that could have gone wrong, did. There were a lot of complications and I had to have another SIX operations.
“The way my heel broke, it killed the skin from the inside out.
“I had to have surgery to get rid of the dead skin and then I had a tube going into my heel, connected to a machine which produced a mucus shield, and I had to have skin grafts from my hip too, so it wasn’t ideal!”
As well as the physical toll, Ormerod also found herself at a very low ebb mentally when, nine months into her rehab, a return to her beloved sport still looked unrealistic.
I was physically the strongest I’d ever been from all my hard work in the gym but I was feeling so much pain when I was walking. Nobody knew why.
Ormerod on 'THE injury'
She says: “I wouldn’t call it depression, I was just going through a really hard time.
“I was physically the strongest I’d ever been from all my hard work in the gym but I was feeling so much pain when I was walking. Nobody knew why.
“I should have been returning to my snowboarding but I couldn’t walk without limping and that was really hard to deal with.
“I did try snowboarding at the local Snowdome and I couldn’t do it because it was so painful. The thought that I might not be able to snowboard again was really difficult for me.
“Never mind that, I just didn’t want to be in pain for the rest of my life.
“I went for more scans which showed the screws in my heel were sticking out and rubbing against my Achilles. As soon as the pins came out, I was so happy because I knew I’d be able to snowboard again.”
COMEBACK QUEEN
So now she’s back – and how!
Her World Cup return came in New Zealand last August in the big air discipline, in which competitors perform mid-air tricks after launching off a giant ramp. Ormerod claimed a totally unexpected silver medal.
This, and an increasingly positive outlook, set her up for the World Cup campaign in slopestyle, the test of rails and jumps which saw her come a cropper in Korea.
Yet there has been no sign of trepidation and, incredibly, she is top of the standings after three successive podium finishes.
Going into the final two competitions, in Calgary on Sunday February 16 and in the Czech Republic next month, she stands a great chance of becoming the first Brit to land a World Cup title.
She reveals: “Coming back from injury, I’ve been doing all the contests with zero pressure.
“There’s no external pressure from anyone, I put no pressure on myself. I’m just aiming to have as much fun as possible.
MOST READ IN SPORT
“I’m having the best time. My riding has come on so much since my injury. I’ve changed my style of riding a lot – I had a lot of time to think about it.
“I’ve also put some new tricks in there this season, such as my double backflip, so I’m really excited about the future.”
Still in love with her sport? You can tell she’s head over heels.