We are very excited to announce the winner of the Style Of Sport “We Love Winter” Snowboard Giveaway. Kaitlin Carmel (funny name coincidence) has won the brand new GNU B-PRO GOLD KAITLYN FARRINGTON snowboard. This Limited Edition board is the signature ride of 2014 Olympic Women’s Half-Pipe gold medalist, Kaitlyn Farrington. Congrats Kaitlin, and thanks everyone for all your submissions and great reasons to love winter… we do too!
On an unexpected note, last Friday Kaitlyn Farrington announced her retirement from competitive snowboarding due to a degenerative spine condition called congenital cervical stenosis, a narrowing of the canal formed by the vertebrae through which the spinal cord runs. When we spoke to Kaitlyn in early December, she told us about a back injury that was going to keep her off the contest circuit for a while, but a recent MRI revealed a much more serious condition. According to ESPN, a fall on a jump in Austria in October, by far not the worst of her career, left her numb from the neck down for a few minutes. She recovered fairly quickly, and in fact was able to snowboard the next day. When she returned home to Salt Lake City, she began physical therapy, but with lingering issues, she decided to see a spine specialist who diagnosed her condition.
“I thought I was too young to hear the word ‘retirement,’” she told ESPN. “There’s so much I still want to do in the halfpipe. I thought I’d be pushing the sport for many more years and try to make the Olympic team in 2018. But the risk of snowboarding in a halfpipe or hitting jumps is too high. It’s been tough to accept, but I’m retiring from competitive snowboarding.” The good news is while she can no longer compete, she can still snowboard and enjoy what she loves so much about winter.
We are big fans of Kaitlyn’s here at Style of Sport, and expect nothing but greatness from this young champion. In her typical upbeat manner she told us, “Thank you for all the support and I’m looking forward to always having 100% FUN as I take on my next endeavors!”
Attitude is everything! And to the other Kaitlin… enjoy the ride!
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS WELLHAUSEN