The list of injuries suffered by Maisie Hill three years ago reads more like a casualty of war than a future Olympian.
The 24-year-old snowboarder crashed into a wall of ice during a training session in Switzerland in January 2023, leaving her with a lacerated liver, a broken spine, ribs and pelvis, a fractured lung and a bleed on the brain.
She also lost 20 percent of her blood and almost died as a result.
The fact that she is even walking again is remarkable, let alone preparing for her Olympic debut at Milano Cortina. Then again, they do say that Olympians are a different breed.
She said: “I’m so proud of myself. It’s been a big journey for sure, I’m trying to enjoy snowboarding every day. I’m so grateful to still be able to do it.
“Before (the accident), I was looser with it but now I’m a little bit more calculated. I think that comes with age as well.
“In the beginning after coming back, I was just so fired up. It was really, really good.
“It wasn’t until a couple months down the line that I started to have a few niggles and had troubles with things. But I worked through it and saw a sports psychologist. I got through it.
“My rehab was nine months, so it was pretty quick considering my injury.”
Those nine months involved weekly physio sessions at Bath University and an extensive recovery programme funded by the BOA and overseen by GB Snowsport and their sports science and medicine programme.
Given the severity of the injuries, it was not an easy period, but for Hill, inspiration came from her family, and in particular, her grandmother Jean.
She said: “My grandma is 91 now and she just refuses to go into a wheelchair. She wants to be up and about all the time.
“When I was in hospital, I was thinking about her all the time and thinking if she can get up and do stuff, I’ve got to be able to do it as well.
“She was a big inspiration for me when I was injured. Her and my grandad, I never met him, but everyone says we look exactly the same and we are really similar. He was a six-time world champion powerboat racer and he had a lot of motivation and fire, I think I inherited that from him. I think about him a lot when I’m riding.”
Another person who has had a big impact on Hill is former teammate Ellie Soutter. The pair competed together at the Winter Youth Olympic Festival back in 2017, with Soutter regarded as one of the brightest prospects in Britain as she claimed bronze in the snowboard cross.
Soutter took her own life on her 18th birthday after suffering financial and mental health pressures, and her family set up the Ellie Soutter Foundation in her honour.
The family pledged to raise funds to support promising winter sports athletes in the UK, with Hill the beneficiary of the first grant of £6,000 when she was 17 back in 2018.
She admits that she might not be in Italy had it not been for that support.
Hill said: “It’s crazy when I think back to myself when I got that grant. It was around the time where my parents were saying ‘we can’t afford for you to do this anymore’. It was really expensive.
“I was training really, really hard trying to do my best but I didn’t really have any support from sponsors at the time. So having that help from the Ellie Soutter Foundation was the boost I needed so I’m really grateful for them.”
Sportsbeat 2026