Katie Ormerod announced herself to the snowboarding world in June 2014 when she became the first female ever to land a double cork 1080 aged 16.
But while the ideal scenario would have been to push on the following season and cement her position on the circuit, the British snowboarder was instead forced to watch on from the sidelines after rupturing her ACL just two months later.
Thankfully for Ormerod she is back fully fit and raring to go again – a fact proved when she qualified for the finals of the Mile High event in Perisher, Australia back in August.
The early season is about to ramp up another notch at the end of the month when some of the world’s best snowboarders gather in Dachstein, Austria for the rearranged 2015 Pleasure Jam.
And Ormerod admits she can’t wait to get into the thick of things as she aims to put her injuries behind her.
“Luckily I’ve had a good start to this season now. I was making sure my knee was going to be super strong for this season and then we went to Australia for pre-season and I did my first competition there and made it to finals which I was really happy about,” she said.
“Going back to the board after my injury was the best feeling ever. I was feeling really strong and then I just got all my tricks back as quickly as possible. I was just loving it, it was the most fun thing to be back.
“The next competition is the Pleasure Jam at the end of November. And then I’ve got my first invite to the Dew Tour in Breckenridge in December so it’s starting to get busy again.
“In a year’s time, I would have loved to have reached the podium in competitions, or at least have got into the final of most of the competitions.
“I hope to have progressed as a snowboarder, to have done my back 10 again, have learnt new tricks. That would be a good season for me.”
Ormerod is not one to hold back and is already busy working on perfectly her latest trick – the cab double nine.
She is still the only female to have successfully landed the double cork 1080 despite nearly a year and a half having passed since she managed the feat.
Involving two full flips and one full spin the same motion as a corkscrew, there were some who doubted a few years back whether women would even be able to perform the trick.
And while delighted to prove people wrong, Ormerod is determined to nail it several times again.
“It’s been like over a year now and still no other girl has done it, which has crazy. It was the best feeling ever,” she added.
“I’d wanted to land it for a while and then me and my coach we just went to Austria just to make it happen. It worked. I landed it. It was the best feeling.
“Now I just want to do it again and get it consistent so that I can do it in a competition and it should be all good.
“I haven’t seen anyone else trying to do it yet. Someone else will probably do one eventually but that’s the whole idea, seeing progress in the sport which is really good.
“I was stoked to help progress female snowboarding by doing that. Hopefully I’ll land another double cork and keep progressing the sport, it’s going to be fun.”
Sportsbeat 2015