Breaking her leg once was bad enough but Alix Wells was three times unlucky.
The first time it happened, in June 2010, Wells was nowhere near the dangers that come with racing on an icy downhill ski slope. She tripped over her own shoelace on a Prince George soccer field and snapped the tibia and fibula in her right leg. The injury was complicated because the bone split in a spiral fracture which ran from the top of her shin to her ankle.
Wells recovered in time to race that season, but in September 2011 she went to Chile for a B.C. team training camp and fell, breaking both bones again in the same place.
She missed the following season and returned to snow at Mount Hood, Ore., in the summer of 2012 but knew something wasn't right and x-rays confirmed the bone was still fractured. The Prince George Alpine Ski Team racer returned to Prince George and orthopedic surgeon Tim Olmstead, a former national ski team doctor, inserted a steel rod in her tibia and a few months later she was back racing again.
Now, 15 months after her latest surgery and feeling no pain, the 19-year-old feels ready to tackle what's shaping up to be her most demanding ski season, confident her injury woes are behind her.
Last season, Wells improved with just about every race. She won her first FIS-level race April 13, a super-G in Bachelor, Ore., had five FIS podium results, and made the top-20 in four Nor-Am Cup events, including a 14th-place finish in a slalom at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary in March.
"At the end of last season I started getting back to where I left off before I was injured," said Wells, on the phone from Calgary. "It takes a long time to come back from three broken legs and my confidence is getting a lot better. It's taken awhile to get back to the level where I was and I'm seeing myself ski faster than I did last year so that's real exciting."
Wells admits some the problems with her leg are a result of trying to rush back too soon from her injury - against doctor's orders.
"The first surgery I had a plate put in and then I had it taken out and I don't think I waited long enough," said Wells. "I played soccer a week after I had it out and I was supposed to wait six months. I was just bored with sitting around.
"The third time I broke my leg I kind of realized it's a part of the sport, it happens to a lot of people and I wasn't alone. Some people have had seven knee surgeries. The physical stuff is easy to get over because you heal, but mentally you have to build your confidence again and that was the hard part. At first I was always worried about it and just not confident on my skis, but I don't think about it anymore and it doesn't affect me."
Wells is vying for a spot on the national team and a chance to compete next season at the World Cup level. For that to happen, she needs to finish in the top-two in the Nor-Am Cup season points standings.
This summer, Wells went back to Mt. Hood with the B.C. provincial team and she just got back from a month-long glacier camp in October in Italy and Austria. Her first race is on Saturday, a Nor-Am giant slalom event in Aspen, Colo.
"Aspen is a really challenging hill so it's good that we've already had a month on those kinds of hill," said Wells. "The camp in Europe was awesome, it was different training than I'm used to - the mountains are a lot steeper and icier and it's a lot harder."
Wells still calls Prince George home but has been in the city for only seven weeks since May. She'll go to Invermere after the Colorado trip and use that as a base while she races in the area with the B.C. team until the Christmas break. After that, she'll be busy racing until April.
Wells finished her Grade 12 year by correspondence while living in Invermere and graduated a straight-A student. She just finished writing her SAT college entrance exam and is considering scholarship opportunities at several U.S. universities, including Vermont, Dartmouth and Denver.
"You can still be on the national team and go to school at the same time," said Wells. "A lot of the people on the school teams have raced in the Olympics and a lot of them went to Sochi."
