Medals in honour of Sarah Burke

Freestyle skier Sarah Burke, who died two years ago in a training accident, was remembered in Sochi today.

Dara Howell won gold and Kim Lamarre grabbed a bronze in yesterday’s freestyle skiing finals. Both Canadians say the win was in tribute to Burke.

Dara Howell: “I hope a Canadian can bring home a medal for Sarah, and yesterday to be that person I wasn’t quite expecting it. And it’s such an honour now that she’s definitely looking down on us and smiling and just proud that we are trying our best and pushing the sport as hard as we can.”

Kim Lamarre: “I go way back with Sarah, so she kind of started as an idol at the age of 13, and then around 16 we kind of started becoming friends and over the years we had a very special friendship.”

“I feel like I was very grateful, I got to know her on that level and yesterday when I was dropping in looking at the sky, like ‘Sarah, please help me do this, we’ll do this together,’ So that when I did land I had in my heart a great feeling of love and being able to actually get on the podium and honour her in a special way meant a lot to me.”

Howell won yesterday’s competition after putting together a strong first run, with a score of 94.2.