The selling of Deidra Dionne began early

The Edmonton Journal
Thu 23 Jan 2003
Page: E1 / Front
Section: SnowSport
Byline: John Korobanik, Journal Sports Writer
Source: The Edmonton Journal

Deidra Dionne was 14 years old when she began selling herself. She boldly
walked into the offices of a number of local businesses, said she wanted to
ski for a career and needed their financial support to do it. "I remember the day," says Dan Murdock, co-owner of Doormasters in Red Deer who bought into her program from Day 1. "I just had so much admiration for a14-year-old who would have that type of a life goal at 14. The only thing I could compare it to was my own life goals at 14 and they were not very good.

"So when a young kid like that came in with this idea that she wanted to go
skiing and that was going to be her life, well ... my partner and I ... we
didn't even have to think about it. We just said, 'Yeah, sure, go for it.' "

And so she did. Six years later, at age 20 she was an Olympic bronze
medallist in freestyle skiing and basking in the joy of a meteoric rise to
the top level of aerialists. And she came home to Red Deer to thank those
sponsors who have stood by her since the beginning; people like Murdock and his partner Audry Egilsson who didn't politely smile and pat her on the head but instead found a reason to believe in a 14-year-old they considered
courageous.

Dionne considered it practical. "Well, I needed money," she recalled recently. "So my parents said you better get going at it. You learn to sell yourself at a young age if you're an athlete. You have to."

That was about the same time she decided she had to move to Calgary to
pursue her dream, so she told her parents she was heading south to a sports
school and intended to finish school early so she could focus on skiing.
"A lot of parents probably would have said, 'You're 14 years old, you can't
take care of yourself.' But they let me go ... they let me pursue my dream.
They trusted me to do what I wanted and I grew up pretty quickly."

Dionne was in ski boots learning to slide about the same time she was learning to walk, at age two or three. She grew up on the slopes of Canyon
ski hill, tangled with the likes of Jennifer Heil in the moguls and eventually settled on aerials for a simple reason -- it's what she was best
at despite an obvious disadvantage.

Dionne is not a natural aerialist. She doesn't have a gymnastic or trampoline background that makes learning the intricate twists and flips easier for her competitors.
Her big eyes sparkling beneath long dark flowing hair, she admits she came
into the sport at a disadvantage. "I didn't have a lot of talent so I had to work really hard for things right from the beginning," says Dionne, her twin eyebrow piercings back in after being out for the Olympic season. "There was never a time when my coaches thought, 'OK, put all your attention on her, she's going to be the one.' It was more like, 'If you work really hard you can keep up and we will let you continue.' "Then, when I did start to get things I already had that work ethic instilled in me. I don't know any other way than to work really hard and I think that makes a big difference."

And for that she thanks her parents, Fay and Steve, and her brothers,
24-year-old Curtis and 19-year-old Drew. "My brothers taught me how to be competitive," she says matter-of-factly. "I grew up in the middle of two boys. I remember wanting to play road hockey with them. I was thrown in goal and they would shoot pucks at my head, like every little kid. But I spent my life trying to play with my brothers and I think that was a major aspect of me learning how to compete because if I wanted to play I certainly had to keep up."

It is that dedicated work ethic that has enabled Dionne to overcome all
obstacles, to make the national team, to reach the podium in her first two
World Cup events, to win bronze at her first world championship and bronze
at her Olympic debut. And in case she needs reminding of how hard she has worked to get to where she is, all she has to do is what she did last summer -- add a new element to her routine. She figures adding a second triple twisting double could be enough to move her from bronze to gold.

"It's harder for me because I don't have any gymnastics background. Girls in our sport who come from a gymnastics or trampoline background already know how to do the flips and the tricks and it's just a matter of getting the courage to go up. "But it's a much quicker process for them. "For me, I have to start from scratch and work my way towards learning the trick and then being able to perform it well enough to do it in competition. So it always takes me a lot longer to learn new tricks."

Where she has an advantage over many competitors is in the big events, where she has shown, right from the beginning, the ability to perform under the glare of her sport's biggest spotlights. "I really do like big events," she readily admits. "I spend a lot of time thinking about them and I gear my training towards them. When I'm in the gym or running, that's on my mind. So when I get there I know I've done all the work ... and I think I'm a really hard worker so I get the training and the hard work done beforehand so when I get there it's kind of relaxing that I'm finally there.
"And I can just let it happen."

That's why many Canadians were surprised by her Olympic bronze medal, but she wasn't. "I was sitting in Saskatchewan the day she jumped her final jump in Salt Lake City and just thinking that I helped her get there," recalled Murdock. "That's a feeling you can never take away. I said later, she was at a
homebuilders' function, who ever would have known she'd win the bronze medal? "And she just piped right up and said, 'Well, I did.' "