Overcoming trials part of Olympic journey

The day Erik Fisher made the U.S. Olympic team as a downhill skier, he called his mother from France with some good news and some bad news.

The good news was that he was all right, Shelly Fisher said during a Church News telephone interview. The bad news was that he had fractured his hand and sustained a slight concussion when he crashed during a practice run.It happened just three weeks before the 2010 Winter Olympics hosted in Vancouver, British Columbia, Friday, Feb. 12 through Sunday, Feb. 28. However, the 24-year-old Mormon, a member of the Middleton 7th Ward, Middleton Idaho Stake, still made it to the Olympics skiing venue in Whistler, about 75 miles north of Vancouver, British Columbia. He was one of five U.S. downhill skiers competing for the four slots allotted to the U.S. team.

"I just look at it as a part of the sport," Erik said of the injury.

Though Erik's trips home to southwestern Idaho are rare during the winter, he was able to spend some time there the week before the Olympics. With his hand in a cast, he received a blessing from his father, Dave, brother-in-law Brandon Wells and others, according to his mother, and seemed to find some solace in it, she said. He wasn't about to let the fracture and concussion thwart his Olympic dream, she continued, recalling his words, "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I'm just going to go for it."

This story is provided by the LDS Church News, an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is produced weekly by the Deseret News.