Cassie Sharpe has already been an Olympic, world, and X Games champion. But what is winning? How does someone who has triumphed redefine the power of winning? Do they have to?
If you’re Sharpe, the 33-year-old half-pipe freestyle skier from B.C., the answer is rooted in life experience. As the mother of a toddler — she took three years off competition around Louella’s birth in 2023 — it means reconfiguring your training schedule and reprioritizing many things. You want to be the best mother to your child but you also want to be the best in the world.
When I spoke with Sharpe ahead of the Olympics, she said that her support system allows her to mother a young daughter — Lou for short — and keep up with the schedule of an elite athlete.
She credits her mom, Chantal, and her husband, retired Olympic skier Justin Dorey, with not only helping her physically with Lou, but supporting her as an athlete with very real, very achievable dreams.
Sharpe lives in Squamish, B.C., but she travels for training and competition. When she spoke about her journey to the Milano-Cortina Olympics, she was reflective about what it takes, what it means, and how those things have changed for her.
Ariel Helwani sits down with Canadian freestyle skier Cassie Sharpe ahead of her Olympic competition to talk about balancing motherhood with elite sport and chasing another Olympic medal. She opens up about the challenges, motivation, and what this moment means to her and her family.
When mothers return to their jobs after a maternity leave, there can be an assumption they might not compete in the same way or that their priorities have shifted. The perception can be they are softer, or perhaps motherhood clashes with the sacrifices required to win.
But it is completely possible to be laser-focused and also “be present,” as Sharpe wants to be for Lou. What Sharpe shows us is that changing the end goal is not required. Perhaps tweaking the path is necessary, but that is life.
“Before Lou I’d compete, I’d come home, I’d lay on the couch and I’d scroll Tiktok and just couch rot. it was great,” she said. “And like, now that’s what my competitors are doing, but I’m coming home and I’m taking her to the park. I’m cooking her dinner. We’re going on walks with our dog.”
It doesn’t mean she is not as ambitious, but perhaps your result doesn’t define who you are.
“If I have fun, if I enjoy myself,” she said. “If I can show my daughter that even after becoming a mother I can still make it to the Olympics. That to me, when I decided to come back to skiing, that was what success was.”
Sure, Sharpe’s is not an office job and she is flipping and twisting through the air on skis on a mountain. But it doesn’t matter what the role is — a mother can feel guilty or internalize societal pressure to be with her child all the time. This leads to second-guessing, something that Sharpe also experienced.
She told me about the time she once broke down outside a coffee shop in Coquitlam, B.C.
“I was getting a coffee and I was walking out, and [my mom] was walking in. She said, ‘Hey! How’s it going’? And I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s okay.’ She was like, ‘It’s okay. Is it okay?’ And I just, like, water works, burst into tears,” she said. “I was like, ‘Did I mess up by coming’ back to this? Am I messing up my life? Am I doing it right? Like, I’m so overwhelmed.’ I just cried for 15 minutes in the parking lot.”
Sharpe’s personal eco-system includes her husband, mom, dad, brothers and sister-in-law — and of course Lou — who are all in Italy to support her. Having a place to hang out with Lou in family areas or their “cool, little house in Livingo” are extremely helpful to her. She can be an Olympian but also be in a space to be a mom, wife, sister and daughter. She appreciates the fact that companies are providing opportunities and looking more wholly at experiences.
Many women who have to balance career with family often carry a workload that seems insurmountable. But reframing what matters is critical to being able to navigate with confidence and gratitude despite any self-doubts.
Sharpe put her life into perspective even as she aims for the top spot at the Olympics. “So there’s definitely been doubt and worry and questioning, but it has been like, so cool,” she said. “I’ve travelled the world with my daughter and my mom, and we’ve done some cool stuff.”
At the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, where Sharpe won gold, she witnessed Marie Martinod, a French skier, celebrate her silver medal win with her daughter. Martinod came back from retirement after starting a family. There are more mother Olympians, all amplifying that they are fierce and successful competitors.
One of the most remarkable pieces of Sharpe’s story is despite a podium finish, winning means something different altogether for Sharpe.
“Your golden moments are spending time with your family. It’s like getting your daughter on skis for the first time,” she said. “Coming into these Games, I have a two-year-old daughter. I have my family coming out to support, and it feels really, really different, because I am not relying my entire self worth on the results of these Games.
“I have so much more in my life now. I feel way more fulfilled being at home with my husband and my daughter and my dog and my family and all of those things.”
There is no roadmap to success for an Olympian as each journey is vastly different. But impacting the sport, while changing narratives about competitive athletes who happen to be moms, is evidence Sharpe has already won.
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