There was another interesting story from the Women's Aerials competition yesterday involving Brazilian Joselane Santos.
Last May, former Canadian aerialist Ryan Snow was looking for a new coaching gig after coaching the Americans in Vancouver. He was married to a Brazilian, and while on vacation there, pitched the idea of starting up a Brazilian Aerials team to the Brazilian winter sports federation. Within a couple months, he had a budget and had selected two former Brazilian gymnasts, Joselane Santos and Lais da Souza to be on the team. Santos was a nationally ranked gymnast and da Souza had competed for Brazil at the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympics. There was only one minor problem. Neither had ever been on snow.
Fortunately, the airborne part of aerials does not require snow. So, they spent the summer in Sao Paulo jumping off a converted plastic snowboard track into a giant airbag. Toward the end of summer, they went to Whistler ski area north of Vancouver to learn how to ski. Joselane said she lost track of the number of times she fell. She even fell getting on and off the ski lift. It was only in the fall that the two Brazilians finally landed their first aerial jumps.
Ryan's original plan had been to target the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea, but this was to change. The International Ski Federation has an allocation system for each Olympics that allows any country with a recognized National Governing Body to qualify athletes for Olympics even if they are not at the top of the World Cup standings. Originally, Brazil was fourth in line for one of these allocations. But it soon became clear that Brazil would have a good chance of qualifying an athlete for Sochi. All they had to do was to compete in some World Cup events and not finish last.
At this point, things were looking really good. In January, Lais finished 28th out of 33 while Joselane finished 30th out of 33 at the World Cup event in Deer Valley, UT. Later the same week, Lais finished 23rd out of 27 and Joselane finished 25th at Val St. Come in Quebec. A week later, Joselane finished 30th out of 33 while Lais finished 32nd. Since Lais had slightly more World Cup points, she was named to the Brazilian Olympic team with Joselane as the alternate. Then disaster struck. Around January 29th, while skiing with her coach in Utah, Lais collided with a tree and sustained a life-threatening spinal injury. She did not sever her spinal cord and while she is just now beginning to breathe on her own, she still cannot move her arms or legs. The Orthopedic specialists treating her said that 90% of people sustaining this injury die within the first week. However, Lais' fitness level was so high that she survived the most critical period and doctors believe that she may yet recover.
So, it was with a heavy heart that Joselane took Lais' spot on the team and headed to Sochi. In Aerials competitions, there are six ramps numbered 1 through 6 and ranging from 2.10 m to 4.25 m (6.9 ft to 13.9 ft) in height just above the 39 degree landing slope. The athletes choose the ramp that is required to land the jump being attempted. Joselane lined up for her Back Tuck (one flip in a tucked position) with a small jump on the far right of the course marked only with the Olympic rings - likely placed there only for her. I cannot claim to know what was going through her mind at that moment, but remember that she had only been doing aerials for seven months and then only in competition for about one month. My thoughts would have been along the lines of "God, please keep me from hurting myself and making a complete fool of myself in front of a world-wide audience"! I expect that she was a little more optimistic than that. ;-) Despite everything, Joselane landed her jump and got a quite good score of 24.8 from the judges times a 2.000 degree of difficulty for 49.60 points. This placed her in 20th place out of 22 competitors, narrowly ahead of Tanja Schaerer of Switzerland and Hanna Huskova from Belarus, both of whom crashed on their jumps.
Joselane and the other 15 competitors not in the top 6 after the first qualification jump then moved on to the second qualification jump. In this round, Joselane used her most difficult trick, a Back Lay (one flip in the layout position) with a 2.050 degree of difficulty. For comparison, the most difficult jump in that round was the same Back Lay followed by two flips, each with a complete 360 degree rotation with a 3.800 degree of difficulty. Joseland's second jump was not quite as good, but she landed safely. I saw her make a sign after she landed and found out that she was making the letter L for her friend Lais. While waiting for the score, the magnitude of what she had just done and the whole situation with Lais got to her and she broke down and cried. Her score of 23.5 from the judges was good for 48.17 points, putting her in last place overall, but I am sure that she did not care.
For every Olympic medalist, there are hundreds of Olympic athletes like Joselane who have risked, or suffered serious injury in their quests to be the best in their countries and who have simply had the courage to try. I hope that Lais will recover from her injuries and that Joselane will again attempt to represent Brazil in Pyeongchang four years from now.
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