Olympic skier competes with family, prayers to saint in tow

DENVER, Colo. (Denver Catholic Register) - If U.S. Olympic team cross-country skier Rebecca Dussault, 25, wins a medal at the Winter Games in Turin, Italy, this month, she'll be the first American woman to have ever done so.

The gifted, self-coached Gunnison, Colo., athlete's realistic dream is to place in the top 15. "That would be pretty much the best U.S. women's result ever," she said. "There's about 60 women per race and the sport is largely dominated by Europeans." Dussault's best ever in a world championship competition was 28th. Dussault was the top U.S. finisher at 48th place in Feb. 12's cross-country 15-kilometer pursuit. Dussault skied the anchor leg as the U.S. women placed 14th in the 5-kilometer relay Feb. 18, and she placed 43rd in the 30-kilometer race Feb. 24. But with God, all things are possible - and Dussault is a woman of deep Catholic faith. In 2004, Dussault developed a deeper appreciation for Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, a young Italian outdoorsman who lived an exemplary life of prayer and charity in the early 1900s. She had just returned to ski racing the year before after a short "retirement" to marry her childhood sweetheart, have a child and work in the Dussault family business. When she returned to the ski racing circuit, her family - husband Sharbel and son Tabor, then 2 - went with her. Setting her sights on the 2006 Winter Games, she made Frassati patron of her Olympic journey after realizing several similarities in his and her lives. "He died at 24 and I was 24," she noted. "He's from Turin, Italy, and that's where the Olympics were going to be. He was a mountaineer and we're mountaineers." Last August, as part of their World Youth Day trip with the Denver Frassati Society, a Catholic young adult hiking club, the Dussault family made a special pilgrimage to Turin to visit sites where Frassati lived and hiked. "We were permitted into the home of Blessed Frassati's family and met his younger sister, Luciana, who is 103," Dussault said. "We prayed at the bed where he died, saw his skis and pictures and rosaries and the sanctuary he would run over the mountains to pray at. He was a person of extraordinary virtue. It was great to have that opportunity, to be there at his home." She also traveled to Turin to be the featured speaker at a Feb. 19 event sponsored by a diocesan Blessed Pier Giorgio organization. While her dream is to win an Olympic medal, it's not her first priority. Her faith is. A cradle Catholic born and raised in the Colorado mountains, Dussault's faith became important to her at about age 12, when she switched from public school to a Catholic home-school where religion was a key part of the curriculum. Until then, her exposure to Catholicism had primarily consisted of Sunday Mass attendance. Taught by her future husband's mother, a stanch Catholic, the then-Rebecca Quinn became enthralled with the richness and beauty of the Catholic faith - the sacraments, prayer, Mary and the lives of the saints. "I had something to fall in love with," Dussault said, describing her growing faith knowledge. "It came alive for me and I made it my own." Not only did she fall in love with her faith, but also Quinn eventually fell in love with her best friend and fellow home-school classmate, Sharbel Dussault. They married at age 19. A successful cross-country racer since age 15, the promising female athlete shocked the ski-racing world when she left it in the year 2000 to focus on marriage and family. Three years later, without any training, she entered a 10-kilometer skate race in Crested Butte, Colo., and tied two-time Olympian and undefeated college racer Katrin Smigun. The following week, Dussault beat Smigun in a 5k race. She and husband took it as a sign she should use her God-given talent and return to ski racing - but only if they did it as a family. "God had given me a talent and now he had given me another chance," Dussault notes on her Web site, www.dussaultskis.com. "So here I am back on my skis training hard year round and proving to myself and to others that it is possible to live life to its fullest - be a mom, help run a business and persevere through all the ups and downs. "It is all a matter of God's graces helping me prioritize and schedule my life so that I can accomplish all of my goals." Husband and son haven't missed a race in three years, some 60 in several countries. To make it work, Dussault's husband also serves as her manager, in addition to laboring in the family tent business. Their son, who is home-schooled, is her biggest on-road supporter, cheering, "Go, Mom!" from the sidelines. The two will be there with her at the Olympics. They'll be praying hard, particularly asking the intercession of Blessed Frassati. "Everybody hopes for the gold," Dussault said. "We've been telling people, 'Everything is possible for God.'... If I'm going to win a medal it's going to be by the intercession of Blessed Frassati - and the prayers of many faithful. "Blessed Frassati needs a miracle for sainthood," she mused. "Strange things happen at the Olympics all the time." - - - Roxanne King is the editor of the Denver Catholic Register. This story was made available to Catholic Online by permission of the Denver Catholic Register (www.archden.org/dcr), the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver, Colo.

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This story was made available to Catholic Online by permission of the Denver Catholic Register (www.archden.org), official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver, Colo.