Wednesday, 30 November 2016

Skier Dustin Cook returns for another taste of glory

Knee surgery and recovery that took after terrible crash a year back implied he spent keep going season watching races on TV.

Canada's Dustin Cook on his way to the gold decoration at the men's super-G race at the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup finals in Meribel, France on March 19, 2015.

Canada's Dustin Cook on his way to the gold decoration at the men's super-G race at the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup finals in Meribel, France on March 19, 2015. (PHILIPPE DESMAZES/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

By KERRY GILLESPIESports journalist

Tues., Nov. 29, 2016

Following quite a while of battling on the national ski group, Dustin Cook at long last got his huge achievement and began heaping up results, including Canada's first big showdown super-G decoration in 2015.

At that point, a year prior, he smashed hard. His skis went one way and his correct knee went the other way. The reconstructive knee surgery and restoration that took after implied Cook spent all of last season watching World Cup races from the family lounge chair.

"He'd stay there commentating on how everybody was skiing and you could let it know was slaughtering him to lie there and watch," said his father Paul Cook, reviewing those winter ends of the week in Lac-Sainte-Marie, Que.

In any case, hard as it was to watch the races that he had anticipated that would be in, it didn't measure up to the torment of watching his correct leg muscles squander far from absence of utilization.

"That was the hardest part, rationally, in light of the fact that I worked so hard … it took me 20 years to develop the muscle and it's gone in two weeks, just vanished. It's insane," the 27-year-old said.

Prior to his breakout season, which incorporated that silver at the big showdowns and bronze and gold World Cup awards, Cook had considered truly stopping skiing completely. He had never completed main 10 in a World Cup race and was beginning to think about whether he ever would.

"It was clearly truly intense and it got harder as time went on," he said. "I was just tired of skiing super well in preparing and realizing that I'm sufficiently quick and after that not assembling it (on race day). It was exceptionally baffling."

That all changed on Feb. 5, 2015 with the silver at the big showdowns in Beaver Creek, Colo., and, maybe significantly more essentially, with the World Cup decorations that immediately took after to demonstrate that he truly had arrived and wasn't only a one-hit ponder.

His one period of achievement had made every one of the years of diligent work and disappointment that preceded in a flash justified, despite all the trouble all. Along these lines, when he got himself appendages and skis at odd edges, crushing through race doors, before halting in unbelievable torment in favor of a mountain, days before the 2015-16 season opener in Austria, he never at any point examined that his profession may be over.

"Not even remotely near the possibility of that … everything is simpler when you're on top," Cook said, grinning. "I'm truly fortunate to have had that achievement first and now I realize that I can get back there without a doubt."

It's taken more time to discover where he remains in super-G, his best occasion, than anticipated. He's been prepared to race for a considerable length of time yet the initial two downhill and super-G World Cups of the season, Lake Louise, Alta., Nov 26-27 and Beaver Creek, Dec 2-3, were crossed out for absence of snow. Presently, he wants to race in Val d'Isère, France, Dec 2-4, in World Cup occasions rescheduled from Beaver Creek.

A year ago, it was Cook's father who got the call directly after his crash.

"He cleared out me a phone message at work: 'father, please call me.' You know when you simply know, you have an impulse? I knew he had done his knee," said Paul Cook, who could advise his child precisely what's in store of the procedure since he'd blown his own knee in a bosses race four years back.

"I knew in my innermost self that one day this would happen."

Elevated skiers don't ski on snow to such an extent as ice and the compel they put into their skis in the turns and the rapid accidents are the reason the group's orthopedic specialist, Dr. Robert Litchfield, has said that human knees simply aren't intended for world class skiing.

Canada's best snow capped skier, Erik Guay, has had six knee surgeries and two-time American Olympic gold medallist Ted Ligety, who had ACL surgery last season, joked that his Olympic chances had quite recently gone up.

"Will probably win an Olympic gold award in skiing in the event that you have had an ACL (surgery), so I am joining a superior measurable gathering now," Ligety told the Associated Press between keeps running at October's season opener in Solden, Austria.

Cook heard a lot of dark cleverness thusly amid his recovery.

"Everybody said that toward the starting, 'gracious you're a piece of the club now.' I was truly glad not being a piece of that club. Yet, I unquestionably feel more grounded now than I was, I know I'm more grounded … I was in the exercise center for eight months in a row and we never get that sort of time in case you're really dashing."

Indeed, even with every one of that, his correct leg still hasn't came back to its old size. Yet, his quality is back as is his certainty and love of the game.

"I overlooked how much fun skiing was, I always remembered it was fun however how much fun and the main day back on snow I resembled, 'This is wonderful,'" he said, of his arrival to the slants toward the end of June.

"I've skied more than anyone on the group."

Before long, he'll discover it that pays off.

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