Decorated ski crosser Marielle Thompson bides her time in race return post-injury

CALGARY — Marielle Thompson has Plans A, B, C and pretty well the whole alphabet for her return to ski cross.

The 2014 Olympic gold medallist and 2022 silver medallist is juggling her desire to race again, and wanting to qualify for February’s Olympic Games, and ensuring her knee is race-ready to be successful.

Thompson tore her lateral collateral ligament off her right fibula during a Feb. 28 World Cup in Gudauri, Georgia.

So less than a year out from the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, Thompson required surgery for that injury, plus a few other problems in that knee.

“Personally, I really want to get back into racing before going to the Games,” said the 33-year-old from Whistler, B.C.

“It’s part of qualifying as well, so I must, but I just want to feel comfortable in my skis and kind of feel like myself again really.”

Thompson got back on snow for the first time since surgery last week in Nakiska, Alta. The first of five World Cups before the Olympic Games is Dec. 9-13 in Val Thorens, France.

Thompson needs to finish in the top 16 in a World Cup to secure a spot on Canada’s Olympic team.

“Normally a return to snow is two, three months kind of thing of getting back up to speed,” said Canadian ski cross coach Stanley Hayer.

“For her to race the first races, that’s really, really pushing it. That’s less prep time than most people and it really depends on the tracks.”

But Thompson owns hard-won expertise in coming back from knee injuries to ski in Olympic Games.

In October 2017, she injured the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in her right knee and required surgery, but managed to compete three months later in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Thompson posted the fastest time in qualifying, but was eliminated in the first round of head-to-head racing.

A year out from Beijing in 2022, she re-tore the same ACL and needed surgery, yet was able to race and earn her second Olympic medal.

“It seems like a story I keep repeating, unfortunately, that the Olympics come around and that year out, I seem to hurt myself,” she said.

“This time, I said jokingly to my coach, ‘well I’ve got two more weeks this time.’ I’m fortunate that I’ve had these experiences that I can draw from and use as my kind of fuel to keep going and try to get back to being my best.”

Thompson’s experience in rehab, recovery and returning to racing under an Olympic deadline is helping her now, said Hayer.

“She’s very motivated is the big thing. She knows what it takes to get back,” the coach stated. “She pushes the program and the timelines quite a bit, but she is so in tune with her body, you almost have to go with her instincts a little bit sometimes.

“She’s someone we can really trust with her feedback, so it’s really easy to work with her and to speed up some of these timelines and things needed to get back on snow.”

Thompson donned figure skates around the same time she started skiing at the age of two.

As skateboarding was to snowboarder Mark McMorris when he was rehabilitating in 2016 from a broken femur, part of Thompson’s mental and physical rehab involved pulling out the figure skates again.

“That was what I did probably a month or two ago, is got back on my figure skates, which was a little bit nerve wracking to start, but then once I kind of got going, it was nice to be able to like feel your edges again, similar to skis and yeah, test the waters,” she said.

“It’s fun just playing around really just seeing what I could do and put my knee into these kind of different positions. It felt good and I was kind of proud of myself.”

Thompson is running for a position on the International Olympic Committee’s athletes’ commission. International athletes will cast votes for candidates during the Winter Olympics in Italy.

“If I can give even a little bit of my experience as an athlete and help other athletes share that voice, I think that’d be really fulfilling,” Thompson said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 24, 2025.