Bench Talk / Off The Wire

Yurkiw @ Canadian Ski Racing Championship

Somewhere in a Canadian Ski Team van in the province of Quebec, Larisa Yurkiw's cell phone went off.

And while the quality of the connection wasn't outstanding, it was still good to speak with the Owen Sound skier and get her perspective on her first season on the World Cup circuit.

There's no question, the highlight of her rookie seson was on January 17th in Austria when she won the opening leg of a combined race, surprising even herself.

Part of the personal surprise, by her own admission, was that she committed a tactical error on the slope, yet managed to overcome it and post the fastest time.

Yurkiw readily admits there were other errors over the course of the winter that led to a number of " DNF " and disqualification results.

But she's okay with that, relating those cases are simply part of a huge learning process when skiing on the world's greatest slopes, against the world's greatest skiers.

The other major factor in not finishing or placing is Yurkiw's impatient nature, which is to drive and compete at an all out pace, and in some cases be blindsided by her agressive approach.

How driven is Owen Sound's Larisa Yurkiw ?

So driven that even though she's been at the Canadian Ski Racing Championships this week, what she's really looking forward to most is next year's World Cup events.

I'm Fred Wallace