From the Pipe to Motherhood and Back: Cassie Sharpe Isn't Done Yet

Canadian freestyle skier Cassie Sharpe is an Olympic Gold Medalist in Superpipe, has won the Winter X Games in Superpipe--twice, and won Silver competing in women's halfpipe at the World Championships, twice. Recently, Sharpe gave birth to a baby girl named Lou.

While starting a family usually means stopping virtually everything else in a person's life, it is the opposite for Sharpe. Bringing her daughter Lou along for the ride, Sharpe is traveling, training, and skiing harder than ever. We called her up to chat about being a new mom, and why this changes everything--but not in the way you'd imagine.

Olympian Cassie Sharpe Q&A

Hey Cassie, I just wanted to start by saying that everything you're doing is inspiring, as far as being a mom and training to compete in the pipe. Especially seeing that as another like female skier.

"Yeah, it's kind of crazy, the fact that moms have babies and then it's like, that's your life. I said it from the beginning that even though your life changes when you have a kid, I wanted to integrate her into my life instead of changing my life for her. It's worked out surprisingly well.

I've really enjoyed being able to bring her on the road and go to the gym and do all the fun things still."

Who is supporting you? That sounds like a lot to take on as an individual.

"My mom is actually traveling with us. When we're on the road, when I'm on the hill or whatever, my mom is with Lou at the Airbnb or wherever. She's been almost my whole support, essentially. I would have to hire somebody to do this with me if my mom wasn't able to, because there's no way, like... there's just no way ."

That's kind of cool for Lou to have more family around.

"Yeah, and it's been cool for me, as mother daughter, too, to see my own mom in a different light. Being like, 'holy, you did a lot for us.'

She had three of us, and at one point all of us were under the age of four. Having a 10-month old, even the thought of being pregnant again and being exhausted and going through the whole thing again... and then having a newborn baby and a toddler at the same time? Women are incredible, and insane."

. Yeah. That's so gnarly. When did get back into training?

"Lou is 10 months old. I started getting back into the gym when she was around six months old. I've done three ski trips at this point.

I've gone to Aspen, Colorado to do a shoot , and then we went to Calgary to train the halfpipe for a week and then I just got back from Mammoth. I was there for a week training in the pipe.

From July 1st to 8th I was at Mount Hood training on the glacier. Then, mid-August, we go to Australia to train in Thredbo for two weeks. Then the first World Cup and Olympic qualifier is September 5th in New Zealand."

What was the hardest part of getting back into training?

"It's kind of crazy. Traveling with a kid is crazy, but then traveling with a kid plus all of your ski gear and everything the baby needs and everything you need, it just doubles down. I have a video of my mom trying to help because she has a duffel bag, I have a duffel bag, the baby has a crib, I have a ski bag, we have a stroller and a car seat. It's out of control .

Managing my energy is going to be my biggest factor coming into the season because I obviously need to train and be in the pipe and ski all day, but then when I come home I want to be with my baby and give her attention and love and feed her dinner and take a bath and do all this stuff.

When you're not training for the Olympics and are a mother of a new baby, it's exhausting."

What does a typical day in your training life look like right now?

"Yeah, every day is pretty different. When I'm home, we drive up to Whistler Monday, Wednesday, Friday and we're in the gym from 9:30 till 11:30, usually. Lou has swim lessons and then Tuesday, Thursday we'll go for a big hike. I've got a big hiking backpack for her, and my coach lives up the street from me so we'll go trampoline at his house, take my dog for a walk.

Also, my parents just moved to Squamish. We're over there quite often.

When we're on the road, we generally wake up around 6:30, 7-ish, so I'll get up with her at seven, we'll have breakfast, we'll hang out, then I'll go to the hill around nine. I'll ski from around 9:30 'til noon, come home at 1pm and we'll hang out. She'll have a little nap, have dinner, have a bath. Sometimes I try to sneak in, go to the gym while she's napping, but no day is exactly the same.

Something I've like learned with parenthood so far is that I often have to relinquish any plans. I have to go with the flow because if I set something in stone, it is generally a disappointment because the baby's hungry or tired or crying or something happens where we're not gonna make it. I've always been a pretty big control freak in my life.

Now I try to practice letting go of a schedule and just going with the flow and hoping for the best."

What's the most rewarding part of bringing Lou along as you train and ski and travel?

"I liked when we were in Mammoth, just watching my teammates light up when [Lou] comes around. Like she's just a super happy baby. When we bring her to the lodge or the bottom of the pipe, it's just like a shot of serotonin.

I've always been like a pretty affectionate person. Having a little baby that always wants to have affection and love and cuddle, that's just the best thing ever."

Do you think Lou is going to be a skier or snowboarder? Do you care?

"She'll be surrounded by it, so she'll want to do it. But my husband Justin, he had to retire from halfpipe skiing in 2016 because he had too many head injuries. Just so many concussions, and the last one really messed him up for a while.

Justin is pretty cautious about what sports he wants to put her in. We're leaning towards sports that have smaller risks of head injuries like swimming and gymnastics and he jokes about fencing and chess .

We're not going to push her to be anything like what we we're doing."

Being a mother is a big part of your identity right now, but obviously you're still a skier. Did you know you were going to ski again after being pregnant?

"As soon as I found out I was pregnant I thought I was done. As my pregnancy went on, I was seeing videos and watching everybody progress and I had this little itch. I talked to Justin about it and he was like, 'there's ways around it, there's ways we can make it happen.'

We started talking about it, and then I think at first he thought I was joking , so we weren't really talking about it too seriously. But then we started really diving into like, 'is this a possibility? Can I actually make it happen?'

I watched X Games in January. Lou was five months old. Watching it, I saw the girls killing it and progress and do these tricks. It lit up a fire of envy. I thought, 'I want to be there, I want to be competing against them. I want to be doing those tricks.'

That was where I was like, 'yep, let's make it happen.' That's where I started to push myself, to be like, 'okay, I'm back in the gym, I am back training, I am taking this seriously.'

Now I've pitched a docuseries to a few of my sponsors and hopefully CDC. It will follow my return to the sport."

Coming back into it, do you have personal goals or things that you really want to push for yourself? You've already been to the Olympics... where do you go from there?

"It's so different this year for a few reasons. I am a mother now and the risk reward for learning too crazy of a trick and getting injured and not being able to care for my baby. There's just having to really balance how I train and training smart to reduce the risk.

Also, I'm almost 32 and the girls in my field are 19, 20, 21. I have a decade on these girls. I do recognize that. But then I also think of using that to my advantage. I've done this for so long, throughout my career I have been pretty cool, calm, collected, dropping into the pipe.

If I can train, train, train and slowly progress, get back to my run where I was at and then push it a bit further, like I have no doubt in myself that I can get right back up into the finals. I would love to qualify to the Olympics and then anything from there is a bonus."

Talking about the younger competitors, I know you have a friendly competition with Eileen Gu.

"We're buds. She is very talented and driven and I think it'll be interesting to get back in the pipe and compete against her.

I know that she is on a path of domination, but there are other competitors like Zoe Atkin, Amy Fraser, Rachel Clarke... there are a lot of girls in the field that can still come up and overtake her.

I think that the next few years will be really interesting leading up to Milan to see if somebody can de-throne everything Eileen's got going right now."

Do you have any goals for the next few years outside of competition?

"It's a lot, being on the road, training, skiing, competing, and I'm trying to compartmentalize those things and when I'm on the road training, I'm focused on that.

When I'm home, I am a mother, I'm a wife, I'm a friend, I want to make sure that I maintain my own self-care of seeing my girlfriends and making space for the people that I love and caring for my daughter and taking her on adventures.

For the next few years, I'm just going to make sure to put time and energy into all areas of my life and not just over-focus on one, because being a whole person is really important to me."

Related: Why The Freeride World Tour Doesn't Have More North American Stops

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