Mrs Hodges is right: Katie Ormerod is an inspiration to all of us
Katie Ormerod went to my school, St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Brighouse. I know this because Mrs Hodges, our headteacher, has told us – the whole school – lots of times. Mrs Hodges says that Katie is an inspiration to us all.
When the opportunity came up to write an article about a sports person of my choice, there was no choice, I had to write about Katie!
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So, who is Katie Ormerod? I decided to find out what she is famous for and why she is so special. If you follow winter sports you might already know the answer …
Katie Ormerod is a 21-year-old professional snowboarder from Brighouse, who started the sport at the age of five at the ski and snowboard centre near where I live in Halifax. The ski slope is so cool I even had my seventh birthday party there. It was fun doing snow tubing at my party but I bet that snowboarding is even better and a lot harder.
The more I found out about Katie the more I thought this was true because Katie says when she does a jump she feels like she is flying, so that must be really exciting.
Since starting out in Halifax, Katie has continued snowboarding and travels all over the world to train on the snow five to six times a week. Her favourite place to snowboard is Laax in Switzerland because the snow park there is lots of fun. I would like to visit one day as I went to the snow park at Chill Factore in Manchester but Laax looks even more awesome for sledging.
Katie is so good at snowboarding that she has taken part in big competitions around the world. Her greatest achievement is becoming the first Briton to win a Big Air World Cup gold medal and being the first female to land a double cork. She did these things after she had left my school so she hasn’t been able to show her gold medal at our celebration assembly. When we take our awards in Mrs Hodges tells us if we persevere, we might get to the Olympics one day and guess what ...
Katie is so amazing that she qualified for the Winter Olympics!
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BUT, just before she was able to compete, she broke her wrist and heel whilst she was there. Katie said that she felt heartbroken because she had worked really hard and was at her strongest and fittest when it happened. She was even more disappointed because she thought that qualifying was a dream come true and she loved the feeling of being in the Olympic Village with the world’s best athletes.
Because Katie never stops doing things she must have been really bored whilst she was injured so she taught herself to play the ukulele to keep busy. I found this an interesting fact because we take ukulele lessons at my school so at first I thought this was where she learned to play but I’m more impressed that she taught herself while she was in recovery.
Mrs Hodges always tells us that a “fail” stands for a first attempt in learning and I think she must have told Katie the exact same thing when she was at my school because despite being so upset about breaking her wrist and heel, she hasn’t let her injury stop her. Katie has persevered and worked very hard to get back on the slopes and will participate at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. I will be cheering her on. She really is an inspiration to us all!