047: Spencer O’Brien/A Snowboarder At The Olympics
“I worry it’ll happen again. In fact I have no doubt it’ll happen again. Looking back I wish I had stood up. I wish I’d said to the girls ‘Do we really want to do this?’”
Imagine training your whole life for the biggest event of your life, only to find that on that day the event you’d expected would show the best of your sport is about to become a very public fiasco. Worse, conditions are so bad that for most competitors the day turns into a straight battle for survival – with the entire thing played out front of a global audience.
It sounds dramatic, but that’s essentially what happen to snowboarder Spencer O’Brien and the rest of the women’s snowboarding field during the Slopestyle event at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. As has been well documented, the weather was so bad that none of the competitors wanted to ride – but the contest went ahead anyway. The result was a travesty of a slopestyle contest that let the competitors and snowboarding in general down.
Why is this important? Its no secret that action sports have a thorny relationship with the Olympics, and the 2018 women’s slopestyle seemed to confirm concerns that have been voiced for decades. This is a story about what happens when action sports culture gets subsumed by the mainstream, and how it affects our unique culture in the process.
The fallout rumbled on for weeks, and Spencer herself was so incensed that she wrote an open letter offering a unique competitor’s perspective. As somebody who has been at the forefront of women’s snowboarding for a decade, Spencer is somebody able to offer a unique perspective on the whole messy issue.
The result is a completely frank conversation with one of the biggest presences in women’s snowboarding that covers the Olympics, Spencer’s own take on the farrago, what it means for snowboarding and her own career, and also doesn’t shy away from the tough questions that come with this perennial Olympic snowboarding debate.
Honest, thoughtful and with the same graceful, progressive approach she has brought to her entire career, the result is one of my most honest and revealing episodes yet. Don’t miss it.
If you only have five minutes…
Listen to this section - Spencer on whether boycotting was ever an option.
Show Notes
- Technical difficulties
- Rehabbing an ACL injury
- Being used to being injured
- Riding through the pain barrier.
- ‘I know so many people who have competed at the Olympics without an ACL’.
- Learning to be matter-of-fact about the injury process.
- Summer plans.
- Learning to sail.
- Growing up on Vancouver Island
- Riding Courtenay as a kid – and travelling to local events.
- Spencer’s weekend routine as a kid.
- First pipe contest – acid-dropping to flat.
- Sporty kid – and deciding to choose snowboarding.
- Snowboarding as an O’Brien family activity
- When slopestyle flipped the switch.
- First sponsorship through Roberta Rodger
- Spencer’s competitive streak
- Stalking the forums and ‘geeking out on snowboarding’.
- Connecting with the wider Canadian scene.
- The importance of Whistler
- The jump to pro events.
- Fanning out with Janna Meyen
- The camaraderie of women’s snowboarding.
- Anna’s cab double 10.
- Spencer’s open letter.
- Importance of the women’s big air for representing snowboarding in the right way.
- How Spencer sees the Olympics now.
- “I worry it’ll happen again”.
- How snowboarding’s relationship with FIS is changing.
- The Dream Tour idea
- 2012 World Champs in Oslo
- SLS judging system
- The issues in competitive snowboarding epitomised by the women’s Olympic slope event.
- Craig McMorris’s CBC coverage
- How FIS events work.
- ‘The level of communication was shocking.’
- Why not boycott?
- X Games controversy.
- Gigi’s Facebook post on the women’s slope.
- Margaret River contest cancelled.
- What Spencer would change.
- The reaction from the younger competitors.
- Ed Leigh’s Transworld story on the Olympic debacle.
- ‘Run it or cancel’.
- The Terje argument – ‘what do you expect?’
- Will Spencer go to the Olympics again?
- Dealing with rheumatoid arthritis
- Early symptoms – bursitis in shoulder, atrophying muscles, Baker cyst, capsulitis
- The daily ritual of dealing with chronic pain.
- Throwing anaemia into the mix.
- Finding out the meds to deal with it.
- ‘Do I need to broadcast everything?’
- Representing Canada’s First Nations heritage on at the global stage.
- Subvertng the stereotypes.
- What’s next for Spencer and this generation of women snowboarders?
People Mentioned
- Jon Weaver
- Sani Alibabic
- Darcy Sharp
- Cassie Sharp
- Brian Savard
- Megan O’Brien
- Roberta Rodger
- Leanne Pelosi
- Sean Kearns
- Jeff Martino
- Natasza Zurek
- Hana Beaman
- Janna Meyen
- Anna Gasser
- Stale Sandbech
- Craig McMorris
- Roberto Moresi
- Chris ‘Gunny’ Gunerson
- Torah Bright
- Gigi Scheidl
- Roman Arnold
- Terje Haakonsen
- Sarah Lewis
- Silje Norendal
- Enni Rukajärvi
Places Mentioned
- Bali
- Biarritz
- Vancouver Island
- Alert Bay
- Courtenay
- Mount Seymour
- Vancouver
- Grouse Mountain
- Whistler
- Pyeongchang
- Laax
- Oslo
- Texas
- AK
COMPANIES/BRANDS/ORGANISATIONS MENTIONED
- Oslo World Snowboard Championships
- Chorus
- Velvet
- Burton Snowboards
- Transworld Snowboarding
- Vans Triple Crown
- FIS
- Air & Style
- Laax Open
- FIS Snowboard
- X Games
- Dew Tour
- Mount Baker Banked Slalom