Snowboarder Kimmy Fasani talks to Transworld

Pretty Tough Team Rider Kimmy Fasani will be appearing in the new all-girl shred flick STANCE. While she rehabs a tweaked spine up in Mammoth, Transworld Snowboarding sat her down to answer some questions. Kimmy talks about the film, her recent injury and her education.

TW: How did your filming go for the new all-girl movie Stance? 

KF: Filming for Stance opened up doors that I never thought would be possible. I was excited but also a little skeptical, that I could dedicate a lot of my season to filming. After X-games [sponsor] DC gave me the okay to go out to Utah and hang with the Stance crew for a couple weeks—which turned into a couple months. As soon as I showed up, we headed into the backcountry and to my surprise that’s where we did most of our filming from February until April. The guys had a lot to teach me because I had only taken my sled out in springtime conditions. I also didn’t have too much experience in powder, so I had a lot to learn in a short period of time.

Throughout the few months I was with the crew, I was introduced to all new aspects of snowboarding. We hit cliffs, pillows, and jumps all over the Wasatch. A couple of the highlights throughout the season include hitting the Heber jump, which is about 60ft long with a gnarly in-run. Another highlight would be the trip to Jackson Hole to meet up with Travis Rice and Dan Brisse.

TW: How are you recovering from your back injury?

KF: My back is healing up nicely. I’m in my 6th week of recovery and have been discharged from Physical Therapy, which means I can start pacing myself at the gym. Here’s what I did to hurt my back: I was out in Utah trying to wrap up the last couple weeks of filming for Stance and we were trying to find cool, unique shots to add to the movie. The weather was milky so we (Jenny Jones, Lisa Filzmoser, Raewyn Reid, Molly Aguirre, and I) went to Park City to hit a dirt gap. As we were building the jump and filling in the landing we tested the run-in for speed for this 30ft step down. My board was running slow, so I knew I had to go a little faster than everyone else. The landing only had about 5 feet of tranny and then we would ride into a groomed run that was dead flat. After a couple more speed runs I was feeling pretty confident that I could hit the landing. In my mind I was thinking, “Just don’t come up short.” I decided to guinea the gap, and as I dropped in my adrenaline was pumping. As I popped off the take off I knew I was in trouble. I was going a little too fast and popped a little too much. My back foot landed in the last foot of tranny and the compression made me wash out onto my butt. Everything would have been fine, but as my momentum brought me onto the groomed run my butt hit the grooming curb.  Immediately I felt my back crunch and I had the wind knocked out of me. I had Molly Aguirre take me to the clinic in Park City and sure enough I had compression fractured my T11 vertebra. The next day was my birthday and I had to make the 8-hour drive back to Mammoth with a fractured back. No fun! Once I got back to Mammoth I got a second opinion. The doctor in Mammoth informed me that along with the fractured vertebra, my 12th rib was out of place on my right side.

My recovery started with four weeks of physical therapy, where I walked on a treadmill in a pool, did some stretching, got massage work, and did some core exercises. Once I was discharged from physical therapy I started riding my road bike, walking my dog, swimming at the pool, and doing yoga. I should be back to normal within a couple weeks.

TW: Lots of riders blow off their education during their shred years, but you got a degree.

KF: College was always a huge goal for me, despite the fact that I was a snowboarder, so after I graduated from high school I moved down to Mammoth and started attending Cerro Coso Community College. My goal was to get an Associates Degree, then consider getting my Bachelors Degree when I had more time. In order to make the community college work with my schedule I took both online and classroom classes. I also only went to school summer and fall from 2002-2005. After I graduated with my Associates degree from Cerro Coso in Mammoth in December 2005, I decided to take a year off. However, in June of 2006 I got antsy and decided that finishing my Bachelors degree “now” would be better than putting it off for later. I had to make time for school if I wanted to finish. So in July of 2006, I registered for school at University of Phoenix online. Committing to this next level of college was not easy, especially with the random schedules we have as snowboarders but UOP made traveling and education possible. I could be anywhere in the world and as long as I had Internet I could submit assignments. I only had to take one class at a time, and each class was only 5 weeks long. I could take breaks in between each 5-week class, and I had 7 years to finish my degree through UOP.  This school made education possible for those of us that are too busy to think about school.

Juggling snowboarding and school was difficult because I wanted to put 100% into both. In the end, I couldn’t do that so I ended up giving both school and snowboarding 50% each. Also, committing to the schoolwork while my friends were out partying or even snowboarding was really difficult because I knew I was missing out on other opportunities. It was also common for me to get extremely stressed if I could not find Internet on trips because not being online could cost me my grade in these classes. I had to sacrifice a lot to get my degree but all my hard work paid off when I graduated in July of 2008 from UOP with a 3.76 GPA and a Bachelor in Science. Now that I have a Bachelors degree, I have definitely thought about going back to get my Masters. However, I am in no rush to continue my education, so I may wait until I have a job outside of snowboarding and see how necessary a Masters [degree] is.

For the rest of Kimmy Fasani’s interview – visit TW Snowboarding.

Olympic Snowboarder Karin Ruby dies in Chamonix climbing accident

 

The world lost of its trailblazing female snowboarders on May 29 to a tragic accident.

Former Olympic snowboarding champion Karine Ruby of France fell into a 20m crevasse while climbing Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Western Europe, located on the French-Italian border. She was training to become a mountain guide.

Lt.-Col. Pierre Bouquin, a police official in Chamonix, said Ruby was roped to other climbers when she fell. Ruby and one other climber, a 38-year-old man from the Paris region, died in the fall, while a 27-year-old man was seriously injured.

The group was descending on the glacier du Geant, next to the Tour de Ronde, when the accident took place, Sayssac said. The injured man was evacuated by helicopter and later died in the hospital.

France’s best known female snowboarder, the 31-year-old Ruby dominated her sport for almost a decade. She has 65 wins on the world cup circuit, six world championships to her name, and two Olympic medals (gold in 1998, silver in 2002).

She retired after the 2006 Olympics, when she was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the snowboardcross event. She was expected to wrap up her mountain guide training in the coming weeks.

In a statement Friday, French Prime Minister François Fillon hailed Ruby as an “exceptional sportswoman.”

“Karine incarnated the emergence of snowboarding in France,” the statement said. “The people of France will hold on to the memory of her talent and her joie de vivre.”

Karine’s funeral took place in the open air outside the church in Chamonix centre at 15:00 on Monday.

A sad day for the action sports community and a reminder that the ‘haute montagne’ is a beautiful, yet unpredictably dangerous place.

Kimmy Fasani – Snowboarding

Sport: Snowboarding
Home: Mammoth Lakes, CA
Birth Date: April 25, 1984
Year Started Riding: 1992
Year Got Sponsored: 2000
Year Turned Pro: 2007
Board Specs: DC BFF series 148
Bindings: Burton Escapade
Outerwear: DC
Boots: DC Mora (double boa)
Favorite Music: Coldplay, M.I.A., Young Love, Lil’ Wayne, Tupac, Cut Copy, The Beatles
Heroes: “Superwoman” A.K.A. my mom
Favorite Movies: Dirty Dancing, Gladiator, Dumb and Dumber, A Knights Tale, Pretty Woman, Walk the Line
Favorite Word: Happy
Favorite Food: Sushi
Favorite Video Game: Old School Mario Brothers on the first-ever Nintendo
Favorite Snowboarding Mag: They’re all favorites…
Favorite Trick: Smooth basckside 180
Favorite Up and Comer: Raewyn Reid, and Bryn Valaika
Other Sports: Hiking, Swimming, Gymnastics
Video Appearances: Runway Film’s See What I See in August 2008, and Float in 2007
Snowboarding Influences: Chris Benchetler, the DC team, girls that step-up to a challenge
Music, traveling, and friends
Inspirations: Knowing that anything you put your mind to, you can accomplish
Favorite article of clothing: Underlayer’s and clean socks
Best thing about snowboarding: Being outside everyday with friends
Worst thing about snowboarding: Injuries
Best place to ride: Anywhere with snow
Worst place to go: A cave filled with spiders
Words of wisdom: Don’t ever become so busy that you fail to realize how very happy you are.

Competitive Highlights: 2009 Winter X Games Slopestyle Women’s Final, 6th Place; 7th, 8th and 9th respectively in the three 2008/2009 Dew Tour competitions; 2007 Rookie of the Year.