{"id":5334,"date":"2014-01-29T15:39:55","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T20:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=5334"},"modified":"2014-02-26T15:22:56","modified_gmt":"2014-02-26T20:22:56","slug":"auroras-livingston-lands-spot-on-olympic-snowboard-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroras-livingston-lands-spot-on-olympic-snowboard-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora\u2019s Livingston lands spot on Olympic snowboard team"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jeff Doner<\/strong><\/p>\n

After breaking his collarbone on New Year\u2019s Eve, Aurora\u2019s Derek Livingston had some doubts about his chances of making Canada\u2019s Olympic snowboarding team.<\/p>\n

But those doubts disappeared last week when he was named to the final roster.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really know how to explain it, but it has been a dream of mine for the last four years to go and it\u2019s still hard to believe that it\u2019s actually happening,\u201d he told The Auroran before leaving for Switzerland on Monday night to train with his team. \u201cI guess it won\u2019t really set in until I\u2019m there.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a speedy recovery from the broken collarbone, Livingston was cleared to participate in the final Canadian qualifier in Quebec City two weeks ago, where he earned enough points to secure his ranking.<\/p>\n

But, he admitted that leading up to that, things got a little tense.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a stressful month up until last week,\u201d he said. \u201cLeading up to the last event I was expecting [to make the team], but then, after the collarbone break, that shattered my world and I didn\u2019t even think I was going to be able to compete in the event. I got in touch with a couple really good surgeons and they did an amazing job along with my team and my physiotherapists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a couple days after my event, and before the announcement, I was on the bubble \u2013 so that was a really stressful few days.\u201d<\/p>\n

He felt like things started to turn around when his coach and high performance director called him in to have a heart to heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me to stop stressing out. That was just a huge weight off my chest. It felt amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

It turns out that was the best advice he could have gotten, as just a week later he and 19 other athletes were added to the team.<\/p>\n

He has been snowboarding since he was eight years old, but really started to specialize in halfpipe in 2009. That year he was named to the national team and just fell short of a spot for the Vancouver Winter Games.This year, he feels as though Canada has a chance to dominate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in halfpipe, this is the event where we\u2019re going to peak and we\u2019re going to show the world what we\u2019ve got and lay it all on the line,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Since his inclusion on the Olympic team, Livingston said he is amazed with the outpouring of support from friends, family and the community as a whole.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s crazy the kind of support I\u2019ve been getting,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople I don\u2019t know have been messaging me on Twitter and Facebook, people I haven\u2019t seen in more than five years are messaging me as well. I\u2019m getting tons of notifications and support from the community and it is amazing. That\u2019s when it first starts to set in, how crazy this is, how awesome of an opportunity this is.\u201d<\/p>\n

His dad, Pete, has watched his son\u2019s career progress over the years and couldn\u2019t be any happier to be able to watch his son compete on the world stage.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s pretty awesome,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s rare that someone gets to go to the Olympics, so it\u2019s cool when it\u2019s your own son. There was always a chance, but you don\u2019t really realize how big it is until you hear the announcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pete said when Derek was younger, he never really talked about going to the Olympics; snowboarding was just about having fun and competing.
\n\u201cThen he went to Canadian nationals and was named to the national team,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was like one more stumbling block removed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unable to book a last minute trip to Sochi, the family is eager to watch their son on TV when he competes. They plan to be surrounded by friends and family when Derek hits the half pipe in Sochi.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be a nail biter, no doubt,\u201d said Pete. \u201cThis whole thing has been like a rollercoaster all along, but now the rollercoaster has gotten a lot bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

With tons of support behind him, Livingston is headed off to Sochi to compete in something that now comes naturally to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the announcement it was awesome and I felt excited to be with my friends and represent Canada, but then I got all this response from everybody and it just made me feel so good and so excited to go and do well at the Olympics,\u201d said Derek.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll my training from the last five years has led me to this moment and this is where I\u2019m going to show the world what I\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After breaking his collarbone on New Year\u2019s Eve, Aurora\u2019s Derek Livingston had some doubts about his chances of making Canada\u2019s Olympic snowboarding team.<\/p>\n

But those doubts disappeared last week when he was named to the final roster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2014-01-30-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1o2","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-05 10:42:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}