Zhangijakou, China • Considering all the things Colby Stevenson has come back from, a low score in the opening round of the Olympic men’s big air event wasn’t much of a challenge.
Six years ago, the Park City skier fell asleep at the wheel while driving a friend back to Utah after a competition. The truck he was driving flipped eight times and Stevenson woke up in the hospital days later with a shattered skull. Bed-ridden and broken, it appeared his brief career as a professional skier was over.
But then his neurologist cracked open the door. Stevenson might be able to ski again someday, he said.
“I still had a lot of balance issues. It was going to be a long road, but I had that hope,” Stevenson recently told The Salt Lake Tribune. “Skiing was my life and what I wanted to do and nothing was going to stop me from getting back to it.”
Stevenson exhibited that same brand of determination Wednesday on his way to earning the silver medal in the inaugural Olympic men’s big air ski final at Shougang industrial park.
To read more about Stevenson and his competition, visit sltrib.org
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aim to inform readers across the state.