Katie Ormerod eyes Beijing 2022 podium after PyeongChang injury heartbreak 

You would be hard pressed to find a snowboarding comeback story quite like that of Katie Ormerod.

On the eve of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games, the British slopestyle and Big Air star – who had been touted for great things in Korea - snapped her heel which ruled her out of the Games.

The damage was so great that it almost ended her professional career.

After seven operations and more than a year out of action, the Halifax-born star was back on a board and soaring through the skies once more.

Ormerod quickly rediscovered her form and five World Cup podium finishes in the 2019/20 season saw her become the first British snowboarder to claim a coveted Crystal Globe as the slopestyle series winner.

She is a pioneer trickster, an X-Games medallist, and also a highly skilled gymnast. Here’s everything you need to know about Katie Ormerod.

Katie Ormerod: How a freak accident changed everything

It was on the first day of training three days out from PyeongChang 2018 that the young Briton’s life and career abruptly changed.

After coming off a rail too early, Ormerod fell and broke her wrist trying to negotiate her landing.

After a splint, some painkillers, and a stern resolve, Ormerod was back the next day eager to tackle the rail that had been her undoing.

However, on her second attempt, she once again came off too early and the consequences, this time, were dire.

“The pain was unbearable,” wrote Ormerod for Red Bull. “I knew straight away that I would not be competing. I screamed for help and was taken to the medical tent where they had to take my boot off to see what the damage was.”

Unfortunately for the Olympic hopeful it took nearly an hour to remove the boot and when the X-ray results finally came through, the worst was confirmed. Her heel was snapped clean in two.

Following immediate emergency surgery, two pins were inserted into the boarder’s foot to help fuse the bones back together. After the operation, Ormerod was optimistic and believed her recovery would take about four months.

What she did not expect were the further complications that would follow.

“When my heel had broken, it had started killing my skin from the inside out.”

“I had to have a further five operations to fix it using skin grafts. As soon as we were aware of the skin complications, I was told I was facing at least a year of rehab before I would be fully recovered.”

Some nine months into Ormerod’s recovery, which had seen her graduate from crutches and into the gym, the snowboard star couldn’t shake the pain she was still experiencing in her heel.

After further interrogation it was determined that the screws initially placed in Ormerod’s heel were now doing more damage than good, and so they had to be removed:

“This meant one last operation – my seventh. I was warned he [the surgeon] couldn’t be sure if it would work but I agreed we had to try. Everyone wanted to do whatever it took to get me back."

Luckily for Ormerod, her hard work to get stronger after her first six operations meant that the rest and rehab that followed her final wasn’t as gruelling; it wasn’t a complete return to square one.

Driven by self-belief

It speaks to Ormerod’s character that her most successful season followed an injury that had threatened to undo everything.

But for the boarder, that her injury had the potential to do so only strengthened her determination to return even better, and enjoy each outing as if it were her last:

“Everything I had been through meant I was now a much better snowboarder than I had been before.

“Mentally, I felt like I had an advantage too. I’d had a whole year to visualise the kind of snowboarding I wanted.”

While she was stuck at home, learning once more how to walk - first with crutches and then without - Ormerod plotted her comeback.

“By the time I was back on my board, because I had done a thousand times in my head already, I was instantly a better snowboarder.”

Ormerod’s tested mental strength held strong and, 18 months later, she was back competing on the World Cup circuit.

From modest dry slope beginnings to the highest heights

Though Ormerod may now be hitting the half-pipes and landing world-first tricks with snowboarding’s elite, her beginnings were relatively humble compared to some of her rivals.

Born and bred in Yorkshire, the Big Air and slopestyle athlete spent her formative years plying her trade on her local dry slope a 10-minute drive from her home in Halifax.

She started skiing at just three years old before asking Father Christmas for a snowboard two years later with a young Ormerod soon experiencing the thrills of tricks and flips:

“I vividly remember the first time I hit a jump,” Ormerod shared with Red Bull.

“I was six years old, and I was with my dad. We were just watching other people hit it so I could figure out the speed and everything.”

“I just went for it and landed it first try. That was a big moment for me – I was tiny and it felt like a really big jump. There was a huge adrenaline rush – I was so proud of myself.”

One of the challenges that comes with dry slope skiing is that it can be quite punishing for beginners thanks to the bristly carpet-like material designed to mimic a mountain slope.

Though it's a far cry from snow, Ormerod is proud of where she has came from and where it has now taken her. Speaking in an interview to White Lines, she said:

“I’m hoping that I’ve proved that, just because I’ve come from a nation where we don’t have mountains or snow resorts, it’s possible with hard work and passion that you can reach the highest level."

Determination and defiance always yield results

The first big turning point for an aspiring Ormerod came at the age of 14 shortly after she was named to the British team.

She ended up winning the British Championship in Switzerland, courtesy of a backside 720 over the pros’ drop which, coincidentally, was the first time she’d done it.

Fully immersed in the national set-up, Ormerod found herself travelling more for competition and new horizons soon opened up. Her dream of becoming a professional looked then like it might be realised.

However, with the stratospheric highs came the lows.

Ormerod was hit with disappointment after just failing to make Team GB’s roster for the Sochi 2014 Games.

Determined to turn this negative outcome into something positive and productive, she decided to invest all her time into mastering the double cork 1080 – a move no woman had ever successfully landed.

After months of preparation, Ormerod finally tried the trick out and landed it on her first attempt.

News travelled quickly that a 16-year-old Briton had achieved something no other woman had done. It marked her out as a star on the rise and soon saw her invited to bigger competitions and bigger stages.

Following her historic achievement in 2016, she was invited to compete in her first ever Winter X-Games in Aspen. A year later, she took bronze in the snowboard slopestyle competition.

Having bounced back from a number of setbacks, Ormerod hopes it's a case of third time lucky in her bid to compete at the Olympic Winter Games.