Tuesday, November 6, 2001
Salt Lake and sugar plums
Spruce Grove's Jennifer Heil is one of the fastest-rising stars in freestyle skiing
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
If this was last year at this time, when Jennifer Heil was just a little kid, she might have told you that there were only 87 sleeps until the Salt Lake Olympics.
But now she's 18. Now she has her own Olympic Diary on the CNN Sports Illustrated site, has just finished a Canadian Olympic team uniform photo shoot for Roots, has just finished taping her Olympic profile for the networks and ...
Well, it's not sleeps now.
"It's got to be on the other side of Christmas before Salt Lake seems like it's close to me,'' she said yesterday as she sat in the family room of her parents' home in Spruce Grove, getting used to the idea of being one of the Canadian athletes people will be watching on the road to Salt Lake City this winter instead of somebody they'd never heard of.
"The Olympics are still like a dream. I feel, partly, still a kid. I didn't even think about being at these Olympics at this time last year. I was thinking 2006,'' said the daughter of Heather and Randy Heil, parents she refers to in her CNNSI.com diary as "insanely enthusiastic.''
After five weeks of training in the shadow of the Matterhorn in Zermatt in the Swiss Alps, Heil is back in the town she put on the map last year for a quick break before she heads out in a couple of days to start her own Countdown to Salt Lake City.
Coming from nowhere last year to go into this season ranked fourth in the world with silver- and bronze-medal performances on last year's World Cup freestyle ski schedule, Heil opens her season in Tignes, France.
Last year she was the ski sensation of the nation. This year we find out if she's the real deal.
"I want to go and do what I did last year and get to Salt Lake and not let the Olympics get too big,'' she said of her game plan.
IN A PRETTY GOOD POSITION
"I think I'm in a pretty good position,'' she added of being fourth-ranked in the world when the top three women are 28, 25 and 24 years old respectively.
"I want to go out and improve on my results from last year. I was the youngest on tour last year. I've been the youngest involved in everything every year. It's fun to chase the older girls.''
This is a young lady still getting used to the idea of travelling to exotic places and people starting to recognize her and all of that.
Pressure doesn't really compute at this point.
"It's been really exciting,'' she said. "To get on an airplane and go to a new place every week in Europe, North America and Japan. I'm getting a taste of the world pretty darn quick.''
She says she's a total tourist.
"I'm taking way too many pictures. In Japan it was the snow monkeys ... ''
She says the getting-recognized part is an adjustment.
"I was on a plane and the flight attendant said 'You're the skier!' I thought `This is weird.' I don't think it's affected me.''
A LIFELONG DREAM?
Heil says she's dreamed of the Olympics "all my life.''
OK. Since '92. That's when she bought a copy of Sports Illustrated's preview edition of the Barcelona Olympics and taped all the pictures onto the wall of her bedroom.
Heil remembers watching Canada's Jean Luc Brassard at the Lillehammer Olympics. That was the day she shifted her Olympic dream into overdrive. Now Brassard is her compass.
"Jean Luc says not to lose my focus on why I'm there. He said at his first Olympics, he was looking at this and saying 'Wow!' and looking at that and saying `Whoa!' and he totally forgot about moguls.''
It won't be easy.
"I'm so excited about just meeting all the other Canadian athletes. I think I'd like to meet the figure skaters most. I really enjoy the figure skating.''
Heil could be the Simon Whitfield of these Olympics for Canada. She competes on the first day.
It means she won't be able to be in the opening ceremonies. But she's cool with that because it's a bit of a trade-off in her mind.
"Because my event is on the first day, I'll have all the other days to experience the Olympics.
'`And there's still the closing ceremonies.''
Maybe it is 87 sleeps.
2002 Games Freestyle Skiing Coverage
