Athlete profile: Maelle Ricker

Posted: Tue February 3, 1998 at 5:00 PM ET

Athlete notes

Ricker's scientific parents made a wise investment 18 years ago...when Maelle was but a year old, her geologist father and biology teacher mother decided to purchase a cabin in Whistler...though the cabin was more for their own enjoyment, it ended up being the foundation of their children's skiing and, later, snowboarding careers..."We used to go there every weekend and for all of the holidays," says Ricker of her second home. "My father is also a mountaineer and started us skiing really young"...by "us," Maelle refers to herself and older brother Jörli (YOR-lee), who is also a snowboarder for the Canadian national team...Jörli introduced her to snowboarding in 1993, and the half-pipe shortly thereafter...in 1994-95, her first season of competition, Maelle finished second to Natasza Zurek in the half-pipe at the Canadian national championships, a feat she duplicated the following season...last season was her first on the World Cup tour, as she turned pro after completing high school in June 1996...but, still eligible for junior competitions, Ricker won the 1997 ISF World Junior Championships...she also competed at the "senior" World Championships of both major professional circuits, coming in 13th at the ISF meet and 11th at the FIS...she calls her performance at ISF Worlds, "the best run of my life"...she finished last season in third place overall and was understandably quite pleased with her achievement..."The whole year, I wasn't really paying attention to standings and stuff like that," says Ricker. "When people told me ‘You know, you can go to Europe by snowboarding,' I was like, ‘Yeah, OK.' It's the opportunity to travel to Europe that excited me to snowboard more than results"...but she does realize that the rest of the snowboarding world may not take her immediate success so lightly -- "I do understand that there's kind of an expectation on me now to place high"...while Ricker has done "a bit of both" the ISF and FIS competitions so far, she plans to focus solely on the ISF tour after Nagano...speaking of the Olympics, Ricker points out that, "It does stand out (on next year's schedule), but it's not the end-all and be-all of things"...Ricker, who just started gymnastics "to get more flexible," works part-time in a local snowboard shop...