(Saint-Côme) “Pleasure is the priority”, clearly evokes Maia Schwinghammer. However, these words take on a new meaning for the 22-year-old skier, just a few months after she left part of herself in the Atlantic. Literally.
The planned interview with the Saskatoon native was to focus on her start to the season, her most recent successes and her apprehensions a few hours before the start of the World Cup in Val Saint-Côme.
However, despite her big white smile identical to that of the snowy slope and shined by the bursts of sunshine of a perfect January day, it is difficult to ignore the skier’s reflex of hiding her right hand under her left hand. .
Quickly, the discussion centered around a day that Schwinghammer remembers all too well, because every day, she is confronted with a painful memory.
Never again will the skier take superstitions lightly. Last Friday, October 13, Schwinghammer was surfing in the ocean. With her lover Julien Viel, also a member of the national freestyle ski team, she was enjoying a little respite between the end of a training camp in Chile and the start of the season in Finland. These holidays were idyllic. Until the tourist fell into the water.
“I caught the back of the wave and fell. When my head came out of the water, I couldn’t feel anything. I put my hand on the board and I was missing a piece of a finger,” she describes, on the second floor of the site’s main chalet after a training session on snow.
Almost two-thirds of his little finger had disappeared into the salt water. However, Schwinghammer did not fall violently, nor did her hand hit the fin of her board or a sharp edge of her equipment.
It’s still a mystery. Was there something in the water, a fish? We really don’t know.
Maia Schwinghammer on missing part of her little finger
When her finger was cut off, she felt nothing. “And I saw it. And that’s when I started to feel it. »
Her partner helped her get back on the board and dragged her to shore. “It was chaotic, but it made a good story,” she recalls of the scene.
“I held my hand in the air to reduce the bleeding and so I wouldn’t bleed out in the middle of the ocean. We never know… ”
An ambulance took her to a clinic, where she immediately had surgery. “We had to cut the finger bone to remove it from the joint, which was pretty intense, especially since I was awake and seeing everything. It was quite traumatic. »
No doubt in her skiing career, Schwinghammer has seen legs broken or knees twisted, which allows her to believe that “it’s not a gigantic injury.” The fact remains that the nerves in his hand have been damaged and the heavy loads or the cold of the mountains weaken it considerably.
However, that doesn’t stop him from experiencing the best moments of his career.
A first podium
With a mother from Tremblant and a friend from Quebec, Schwinghammer understands Vigneault’s language perfectly. She speaks it too, but not enough to sustain a full interview. The questions were therefore asked in French and his answers were in Franglais.
However, it is in skiing that she expresses herself best. Schwinghammer is unwaveringly passionate about her sport, in all its variations. During the meeting, his gaze oscillated towards the track, where his counterparts were practicing. And she looked at them as a child looks at his idols. While Schwinghammer was arguably better than the majority of athletes training at the time.
PHOTO BERNARD BRAULT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Maia Schwinghammer
The Canadian is 10e in the world rankings, propelled by her first career podium, in her last race, two days before Christmas in Georgia.
“It proved to me that I can still ski and that I deserve my place,” she explains.
However, nothing in her preparation predestined her to win her silver medal in the parallel event.
“I forgot my bib. I had to go back to the hotel, I slipped and fell on the concrete because of my boots. I had forgotten my backpack, I was late for the inspection. It was chaos. »
But as she truly feels at home on the top of a mountain, “I no longer had any stress, I felt that I was very calm, concentrated”.
Thanks to fast, intense descents that were more dynamic than precise, the best skier in the country found herself in the final against Jakara Anthony, leader in the general classification and reigning Olympic champion.
“I think since I knew I was going to be on the podium, I was just so excited. I imagined my mother watching from the house. She had to fail! I stepped out of my comfort zone and made a big mistake. »
This performance and, above all, this result confirms her in her progress. Despite two top 10 at Ruka and Alpe d’Huez earlier this season, “I wasn’t necessarily always in the best frame of mind before skiing. I finally managed to break this trend,” she emphasizes, replacing her tuque.
Find motivation
At 22, Schwinghammer finds himself in an extremely unique position. At this stage of her development, she still has everything to do and everything to learn. At the same time, she is the most successful skier in the national team.
She is therefore a role model and reference among her teammates, even though she is only just starting out.
I want to be an example, but it’s not because I made a podium that the job is finished, on the contrary. The idea is not to be perfect, but to get closer to it and to ask myself with each new step I take what I can do to be better.
Maia Schwinghammer
The skier also did a lot of introspection before arriving at such a reflection.
If his smile is undoubtedly his most distinctive personality trait, it faded for a few moments.
It was around 2020 and 2021, in the middle of a pandemic and during Olympic qualifying. “I questioned myself and my results suffered,” she admits.
Being isolated, far from her family and constantly under pressure was too much for her in her late twenties. She ultimately failed in her Olympic qualification, “her ultimate goal”.
Since then, “I came back to base and remembered why I skied. And since then, things have been going well.”
So much so that she found her true nature again. Because despite everything, Maia Schwinghammer smiles.