Noelle Pikus-Pace was the world’s top-ranked skeleton racer on Oct. 19, 2005, when her right leg was broken in a horrific crash during a training session in Calgary, Alberta. She was standing near the end of the track when a bobsled with an inexperienced driver at the controls couldn’t stop in time and smashed into Pikus-Pace, sending her flying.
The injury not only dashed her chances of competing at Turin, but also nearly ended her career. A documentary, titled “114 Days,” records her amazing six-week recovery from the compound fracture in her leg, a career-threatening injury. After the 2006 Olympics, she has kept training and won the World Skeleton championships in 2007 by the largest margin in history. Then, Pikus-Pace skipped the 2007-08 season to have her daughter Lacee, before returning to competition in 2008 in a bid to qualify for Vancouver. [1] The injury, the time off and her new role as a mother have all contributed to provide Pikus-Pace with a new perspective as she prepares for the competition to open at the Whistler Sliding Center on February 15, 2010.
“Going into 2006, I think I just viewed the Olympics a little bit different than I do now,” she said. “Back then, it was more of just something that fell into place. I was first in the world, and it was expected of me to go the Olympics and to win a medal.”
- AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
Noelle graduated from Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, with a bachelor’s degree in community health and physical education in 2005, and received her MBA from Colorado Technical University in December 2007.Pikus-Pace is a 2001 Mountain View High School graduate who played basketball, softball, soccer, along with track and bobsled, and also began her training in the sport of skeleton. When she graduated from Mountain View, she took a track scholarship to the University of Utah.
She married Janson Pace in the summer of 2002, and transferred to Utah Valley State, where she continued to pursue track and skeleton. That year, she finished third in the overall America’s Cup Skeleton races, broke the college high jump record and was named the NJCAA National Discus Champion.[2]
