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The desire, the emotion, the thrill
Updated: Tuesday May 29, 2001 4:25 PM
Canadian aerialist Deidra Dionne may become one of the top young athletes of the 2002 Olympic Games. The 19-year-old was named 1999-2000 World Cup female rookie of the year and won a bronze medal at the World Championships in January. Check out Dionne's diary on CNNSI.com as she trains for Salt Lake.
May 28, 2001
Hi, my name is Deidra Dionne and I am from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. When not traveling for competitions or training in Lake Placid, N.Y., I live with my parents, Stephen and Fay. I have two brothers -- Curtis (22), who attends Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., on a golf scholarship, and a younger brother Drew (17), who is a member of the Alberta Provincial golf team and is currently evaluating his golf scholarship offers for university. I am the middle child at age 19 and credit my brothers for my competitive nature. I played all sports, including boys' baseball, until I was 14 and once won a provincial badminton championship. However, my first love has always been skiing. I started skiing at the age of 3, but didn't begin freestyle until I was 13. I loved aerials from the very first day and have been competing and practicing ever since.
Most people know my sport as "so you fly off those big jumps and do those flips and twists and things?" That is me. Aerials are part of the sport of freestyle skiing, which first immerged as a demonstration sport in Calgary in 1988 but didn't gain official Olympic status until the 1994 Games in Lillehammer. I am currently training in Lake Placid with the Canadian aerial team under head coach Nick Bass. This summer is the big one, last chance before the winter of 2002. Most people wonder what we do to train in the summer, especially since there is no snow in Lake Placid during the summer! We train at a facility in which the same jumps we use in the winter are built out of wood and are covered with a plastic surface that enables us to ski down and perform our tricks into a big swimming pool. Contrary to what most believe, most of our training is done in the summer. This is when we learn and improve, we tend to just maintain in the winter. It is into the water that we increase our degree of difficulty (learn harder tricks) and improve technically. Therefore, the summer is where all the important steps to becoming Olympic champion begin. The Olympics. They have been my dream since I was a little girl. I love the desire, the emotion, the thrill. I have always desired to be the best in the world, an Olympic gold medalist. It hasn't been until recently that I can imagine this dream coming true. When I think about the upcoming games in Salt Lake City, they almost seem surreal. I am then suddenly brought back to reality when I realize just how much I have to train to ensure that next February, I am ready to compete for my dream. So that is where I stand now. I am here in Lake Placid anxiously awaiting the start of my five-month summer training program. I will keep you posted as to how it is going and will do my best to answer any questions that you might have. -- Deidra
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