Olympic pin keeps Burke's leg­acy alive

Posted on February 24, 2026

(Eddie Pells, Toronto Star, Feb. 22, 2026)
(Shared by Doug Jackson, SSH Contributor)

Maybe the most pre­cious pin at the Milan Cor­tina Games cel­eb­rates an ath­lete who helped lead an entire sport into the Olympics, but never got to com­pete her­self.

Canada's late, great frees­kier Sarah Burke was a pion­eer in the women's halfpipe. She encour­aged girls and young women to jump into what was, dec­ades ago, almost exclus­ively a men's sport. Later, her lob­by­ing was key to get­ting the event onto the Olympic pro­gram.

But she died at age 29 in a train­ing acci­dent in 2012, two years before the ski­ers deb­uted in the halfpipe at the Sochi Olympics.

Burke was born in Bar­rie, Ont., and moved to Squam­ish, B.C., to pur­sue her ski­ing career.

To hon­our Burke's memory, Canada coach Trennon Paynter had 200 pins made that spell out “Sarah” in red script — match­ing the look of the stick­ers ski­ers put on their hel­mets in Rus­sia.

“She got women into the sport, period,” Paynter said Fri­day. “And then she was a huge driver of get­ting the sport into the Games by act­ively attend­ing (Inter­na­tional Ski Fed­er­a­tion) events when a lot of people didn't know that was the path­way into the Olympics.”

To this day, Paynter said, some still ski with those “Sarah” stick­ers on their hel­mets. But because of the unfor­giv­ing Olympic rules that for­bid those sorts of dis­plays (see the Ukrain­ian skel­eton racer), Paynter came up with a dif­fer­ent way to spread the mes­sage.

He was given the floor before the first halfpipe prac­tice earlier this week and used the time to speak about Burke's impact. He told the ath­letes about the pins. Word spread quickly across the snow­park. He was out within hours. “Every­one in this sport, not only this sport but action sport in gen­eral, is still really pay­ing trib­ute to Sarah and her leg­acy,” said the coach, who plans on hav­ing a new batch made and selling them to bene­fit Burke's char­it­able found­a­tion.

On Sat­urday night, Eileen Gu was sched­uled to drop into the halfpipe try­ing to win her second straight gold medal in the event. Gu's birth­day: Sept. 3, the same as Burke's.

Argu­ably, the most mem­or­able night in this sport's Olympic his­tory was its first night — in the moun­tains of Rus­sia, where Burke's par­ents and hus­band atten­ded the women's con­test and watched the slip crew des­cend the halfpipe for the final time that night in the shape of a heart.

Paynter him­self spread some of Burke's ashes above the halfpipe at the Rosa Khutor extreme park.

French skier Marie Mar­tinod won the sil­ver medal that night. She had retired and had a daugh­ter when, one day, Burke knocked on her door and told her she needed to come back because she wanted the best women out there for the Olympic debut.

Mar­tinod painted snow­flakes on her fin­ger­nails that night to match the tat­too Burke had on her foot.

“I think I didn't say good­bye to Sarah yet and I still have to do it, and now I feel I'm able to do it because I did what she asked me to do,” Mar­tinod said that even­ing.

Amer­ican Nick Goep­per wore the pin — even point­ing at it while he waited for his score in the hold­ing area — dur­ing Fri­day's qual­i­fy­ing round. “She was a com­mand­ing per­son­al­ity and force to legit­im­ize halfpipe ski­ing for both men and women,” he said. “She gave a lot of inspir­a­tion for a lot of young girls.”