National Post Sports

Sarah Burke: Too young, too smart, to go that way
Canada’s women’s soccer team stands for a moment of silence to remember freestyle skier Sarah Burke prior to their Olympic qualifying soccer game against Haiti in Vancouver. Burke passed away earlier on Thursday following a training accident last week.

From the Post’s Joe O’Connor: Her death stings, because it is unfair, because Sarah Burke was too young and too smart and too pretty and too warm and too well-liked and too remarkable, as an athlete, to leave us so soon.

Plug her name into Youtube and watch clips of the 29-year-old B.C. skier taking flight, blasting out of a superpipe and soaring up, up, with the blue sky as a backdrop and gravity, an earthly annoyance, as her only limit.

Ms. Burke twists. Twirls. Flips. She makes us gasp, and it is amazing to see, especially now, knowing that every clip is a reminder and a memorial to a gifted skier who pushed the boundaries of her sport.

Pushed them so hard and so far that Ms. Burke won four X-game titles, five World Cups and a world championship. She is the reason why the Olympic old boys club added women’s ski halfpipe to the program for Sochi 2014. (Photo: REUTERS/Andy Clark)