Whitefish's Maggie Voisin returns to Olympic stage

WHITEFISH — Maggie Voisin straightened her multi-colored K2 skis, leaned forward slightly and took flight, spinning around and sticking the 180 with the grace expected of someone who does this sort of thing for a living.

She proceeded to hit another small ramp and spin smoothly back into a forward-facing position, eliciting oohs and aahs from the 25-or-so youngsters following the tracks of their hometown hero through the fluffy powder.

It was a chilly December day, and the trees were blanketed in fresh snow from top to bottom. Through them, you could occasionally catch a fleeting glimpse of the T-bar that hauled a young Voisin up the mountain time and time again as she perfected her craft on the terrain park beneath it.

“This is where it all started for me,” Voisin said as Chair 2 at Whitefish Mountain Resort carried her back to the mountaintop for another run.

Much has changed for the Whitefish native since her days as a beginner on Big Mountain.

She’s delighted in triumphs, endured hardships, traveled the globe and become one of the most famous women’s freestyle skiers in the world. At the ripe age of 19, she’s a two-time Olympic qualifier and will be in PyeongChang, Korea next month competing with Team USA.

One thing, though, has never wavered through it all.

“It’s what I love,” she said.

Voisin’s love for skiing dates back to a time before she had the strength to wrestle ski boots onto her own feet.

Kristin Voisin, Maggie’s mother, remembers those days well.

Among Kristin’s favorite pictures of her daughter is one in which Maggie is standing in her dad’s red and white ski boots, which come up to her thighs, bearing only a diaper.

“We’re a ski family,” Kristin said. “We had the kids on the mountain early.”

Maggie was hooked from the start.

As children, she and her younger twin brother, Tucker, would join a group of friends in the morning and hike to the SNOW bus stop near their home with only skis and lunches in hand. Some days, they wouldn’t return until the resort turned the night-skiing lights off.

“There’s just so much skiing, such great skiing, different kinds of skiing,” Maggie said. “(Whitefish is) one of those places I feel like is just special. I wouldn’t want to grow up anywhere else. I grew up living in the outdoors pretty much, winter and summer.”

Like any child, Maggie dabbled in many hobbies.

She was a figure skater for four years and also took part in Tommy Moe ski races on Big Mountain.

But when the time came to decide what athletic venture she wanted to seriously pursue, Maggie just couldn’t overcome the allure of the terrain park.

“Maggie’s passion,” said Billy Marcial, one of her childhood freestyle coaches, “is flying.”

Maggie joined the Whitefish freestyle team at age 9, and Marcial, not far removed from his own collegiate skiing career, moved back to his hometown and began coaching the team soon after.

Her natural talent and enormous potential were evident immediately.

“We would have days in the terrain park where we would try to one-up each other, and she would always beat me,” Marcial said. “She was a 12-year-old doing things that 25-year-old grown men were having trouble doing.”

Marcial was not unique in his inability to top the rising star. Just ask Parkin Costain, a close friend of Maggie’s.

With Tucker’s help, Costain urged — and eventually convinced — Maggie to join the two of them on the freestyle team. He realized his mistake when she landed a 720 her first year on the squad.

“I hadn’t done (a 720) yet, and she was a girl,” Costain, now a professional skier himself, said. “I was like, ‘Oh no, what have I done?’

“She could have beat every single boy on the freestyle team.”

Once Maggie conquered the circuit of local events, she and her family began traveling to competitions throughout the western United States and Canada. As she continued to win bigger events against better competition, everyone around her slowly came to the same realization.

“You don’t need to go to school,” Marcial said. “You’re going to be a skier.”

The U.S. Freeski Team coaches concurred.

Less than two years after moving to Park City, Utah, to train with the best skiers and coaches the country has to offer, a 15-year-old Maggie stood at the start of the competition course as the top American skier in Sochi, Russia, the youngest American in 40 years to qualify for the Winter Olympics.

It was the day of the Opening Ceremonies, and she launched herself down onto the course for a routine practice run.

Only, it wasn’t routine, because no run down an Olympic terrain park at incredibly high speeds while twisting, turning and spinning is ever routine.

Maggie slipped on a rail, slammed her leg against it and left the scene with a break in her fibula just above the ankle.

In a matter of seconds, she went from a medal favorite to a spectator.

For Maggie, the Games were no longer fun.

“It was one of the most devastating...”

Her voice trails off, and she corrects herself.

“Definitely was my most devastating low.”

“It was heartbreaking for her.” Kristin said. “Even though you have to put on this façade and this mask in the public, deep in her soul, she was hurting. At a young age, that’s a lot to go through.”

Maggie promised herself that day she would be back at the Olympics in 2018, but a painstakingly long rehab process led to only more disappointment.

In her first event back from her broken leg, Maggie landed awkwardly and tore her ACL at a Dew Tour event in Breckenridge, Colorado.

Yet time heals all wounds, and that’s never been truer for Maggie.

Her voice is light and carefree when she speaks about the injuries now, conveying a sense that what’s done is done, that she is at peace with it all.

“I always believe that with any low or whatever, that there’s always something positive to take away from it,” she said. “Honestly, from my injuries, I have just grown so incredibly much. I wouldn’t take anything back from my career.”

Though crushing at the time, Maggie and those close to her argue that the injuries may have been a needed wake-up call for the young skier.

“I’m not made of rubber,” Maggie realized. “I had to take care of my body, and I think learning that at a young age is going to make me have that much longer of a career.”

The girl who once couldn’t touch her toes now swears by her pilates and yoga regimens. Whereas she used to reach for whatever was nearest when hungry, Maggie now holds herself to a strict diet full of quinoa, avocados and greens. She’s a self-proclaimed gym rat, and she meditates regularly to stay mentally sharp.

“The whole thing,” said DJ Montigny, a U.S. Freeski coach who has worked with Maggie for more than five years, “has just become her lifestyle.”

The past four years and everything they’ve contained — the injuries and comebacks, maturation and evolution — culminated in a single phone call between mother and daughter the afternoon of Jan. 13.

Maggie, overcome with emotion, collapsed at the bottom of the course at Aspen Snowmass after putting down a second-run score of 89.00. It was enough to give her a spot on the podium at the U.S. Grand Prix event, but much more importantly, enough to secure a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.

She borrowed a friend’s phone and dialed Kristin, who was perched on the edge of Whitefish Lake during the event because she just couldn’t bear to watch.

“She told me she made it,” Kristin said, tears welling up in her eyes as she recalled the moment. “There were some tears of happiness and relief and joy and all that.”

The upcoming PyeongChang Games, long banished to the do-not-discuss list in the Voisin household for fear of jinxing a potential trip, are no longer unspeakable.

The flights are booked. Anticipation is sky-high. As Kristin said, the family is ready to “absorb the whole experience.”

But make no mistake, Maggie is no longer the happy-to-be-here 15-year-old that appeared in Sochi four years ago.

“You’re not going over there just to play around,” Kristin said. “You’re going over there to win.”

These Winter Games provide Maggie an opportunity to represent her country and the sport she loves on the world stage, tasks she doesn’t take lightly. But they also present a shot at redemption, a chance to atone for the missed opportunity four years ago that has stung ever since.

There could very well be more Olympic bids in Maggie’s future, but the trials of the past four years have taught her that taking such things for granted is a fool’s errand.

Her eyes are fixed on the present. Everyone else’s are glued to Maggie.

“I’m really back,” Maggie said. “I feel the rhythm. It’s unbelievable to kind of feel that again. You go through highs and lows as an athlete. I feel something good coming.”

Sports reporter Evan McCullers can be reached at 758-4463 or emccullers@dailyinterlake.com.