Ontario government naming highway after freestyle skiing pioneer Sarah Burke

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Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke looks on during a news conference at the Winter X Games, in Aspen, Colo., Jan.21, 2009. The Ontario government is honouring Burke by dedicating a highway to the freestyle skiing pioneer. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Nathan Bilow

TORONTO – The Ontario government is honouring the late Sarah Burke by dedicating a highway to the freestyle skiing pioneer.

Highway 93 will be known as the Sarah Burke Memorial Highway.

It runs for 24 kilometres through Simcoe County, the region where Burke was born and raised.

The 29-year-old native of Barrie, Ont., died after a training accident in Utah in January 2012.

Burke was a four-time X Games champion and a driving force behind the inclusion of halfpipe and slopestyle in the Olympics.

The events made their Olympic debut last month in Sochi.

“The Sarah Burke Memorial Highway will provide a lasting reminder of her accomplishments,” Premier Kathleen Wynne said Wednesday.

Burke’s teammates honoured her in Sochi by spreading her ashes on the Olympic halfpipe, high on a mountain above it and near the Olympic rings in the athletes village.

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