VANCOUVER ' From the moody black-and-whites of foreboding skies to the closeups of morning dewdrops to the bright-eyed faces of neighbourhood youngsters, the photos on Kelly VanderBeek's blog reflect her own passion and wear-it-on-the-sleeve emotions.
The alpine skier from Chilliwack has a zest for life and a quick, expressive laugh. She is also a woman who freely admits to emotional breakdowns and is not afraid to publicly own up to her fears.
All of it comes through in her insightful eye behind the lens.
With more time on her hands the last few months while rehabbing a left knee that shredded in a training run crash last December at Val d'Isere, France, VanderBeek 'threw myself into photography.'
'I'm passionate about it and learning a ton. It's good to have something to keep me excited and doing stuff.
'It's a cool art. A dying art, I guess, but I love it.'
The question now is, Can she love skiing again with a similar passion?
She suffered a bit of a setback this past week. After stepping up her training regimen and adding some one-legged jumping, her rebuilt knee began to hurt and swell.
'After the sixth day of that program, the knee exploded,' she said from Calgary where she flew to check in with Alpine Canada's medical and physio staff. 'It sort of took a few days to build up and then the knee rejected the volume.
'It will tell me when it's ready. It tells me as clear as day. It's just the impact and side-to-side lateral stuff that it's not quite ready for. It's a very functional knee right now, but it's not ski-racing functional.'
A three-time podium finisher on the World Cup circuit and one of Canada's several near misses at Turin in 2006 ' fourth in the Super G, just 3/100ths from bronze ' VanderBeek was considered an Olympic medal threat at Vancouver until the heartbreaking injury two months before the Games. She tore the posterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments and sustained two fractures in the tibial plateau.
She had surgery Dec. 31 and for the past couple of months has been doggedly lifting weights, doing squats and riding the exercise bike to rebuild strength in the leg.
Despite cautious talk from the doctor and the physio that she may not race at all this season, VanderBeek says she was determined to prove them wrong and had been 'holding out hope, literally until this week' that she might make it back in time to compete in the season-opening World Cup downhills at Lake Louise, Alta., Dec. 3-5.
It will ber the first time she has missed Lake Louise since her World Cup debut in 2001 as a nervous 17-year-old out of Kitchener, Ont.
Now, the plan is to return to snow next month for some light free-skiing and see how the knee reacts while pointing to a return to the World Cup circuit in January. The long-term goal is Sochi in 2014.
As big as the physical hurdle can be, the psychological one after a serious injury is often even more of a challenge.
Throwing yourself down an icy piste at 120 kilometres an hour is never easy, particularly knowing the catastrophic consequences of catching a rut or slipping into soft snow.
'There are a few people I'm working with, especially in the last month, and I feel very ready to go through it all. But I do need to deal with some of the issues that are underlying.
'I've never been a fearless athlete. I'm not a kamikaze skier and that will be a hurdle I have to figure out. The challenge will be falling back in love with the sport, loving it like it was when I was a 12-year-old kid.'
Without having to join healthy teammates in dryland training and at an on-snow summer camp in New Zealand, VanderBeek has spent more time with her family and more time than ever with her husband, Olympic whitewater kayaker David Ford. In their eight years together, their busy schedules often meant they would go weeks without seeing each other.
If absence makes the heart grow fonder, do long stretches of together time work?
'Definitely,' she says with a laugh. 'We're still happily married. It's been wonderful, good to have another side of life to focus on and enjoy.'
VanderBeek, a long-haired blond whom the camera loves, worked as a skiing analyst for CTV during the Olympics, a job that 'definitely helped fill the void' of being unable to compete.
'I'm a lover of the Olympics and being around that energy and vibe helped a lot.'
Still, there were moments of 'if-only' anguish.
'The night of the women's downhill, I was in physio, in so much pain and I just broke down. It was like 'I didn't think I'd be doing this' that night. I had imagined being on the podium.'
VanderBeek concedes some people have questioned her decision to continue skiing after a decade at the World Cup level, especially given the television offers that came her way following her star turn with CTV.
'They say 'What are you doing?' But this sport has been amazing and I'm not willing to end my career on such a downer. My partner supports me and '¦ I still believe there are World Cup podiums in my body.'
gkingston@vancouversun.com
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