Marie-Michèle Gagnon (born 25 April 1989) is a

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

alpine ski racer from

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Born in

Lévis, Quebec Lévis () is a city in eastern Quebec, Canada, located on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, opposite Quebec City. A ferry links Old Quebec with Old Lévis, and two bridges, the Quebec and the Pierre-Laporte, connect western Lévis wit ...

, she was a technical skier focused on slalom. However, since an injury at the start of

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season, she no longer competes in slalom and rarely in giant slalom, focusing on speed disciplines and combined.

Career

Gagnon joined the Canadian national team at the age of eighteen, although a leg fracture halted her progress at the start of her rookie season. She made her World Cup debut in December

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and has represented Canada at two

Winter Olympics The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were h ...

and six

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

. Gagnon's first World Cup podium came in March

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, a third-place in a slalom at

Åre Åre () is a locality and one of the leading Scandinavian ski resorts situated in Åre Municipality, Jämtland County, Sweden with 3,200 inhabitants in 2018. It is, however, not the seat of the municipality, which is Järpen. 25% of the local eco ...

, Sweden. Her first victory was in January

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, a combined event at Altenmarkt, Austria. which was the first podium for a Canadian in a World Cup combined event in thirty years. The previous day she scored her first World Cup points in downhill at the same venue. That season she also took her first top ten World Cup finishes in

super-G Super giant slalom, or super-G, is a racing discipline of alpine skiing. Along with the faster downhill, it is regarded as a "speed" event, in contrast to the technical events giant slalom and slalom. It debuted as an official World Cup event d ...

, finishing tenth and sixth in races in Lake Louise and St. Moritz respectively. At the

, Gagnon crashed out of the slalom run of the combined, dislocating her shoulder, before failing to finish the

and giant slalom, and securing a ninth place in the slalom. She finished thirteenth in the overall World Cup standings and sixth in slalom. In January 2022, Gagnon was named to Canada's 2022 Olympic team.

Personal life

Gagnon was the third of five siblings and left the family home at age twelve to pursue her education and ski racing in

Mont-Sainte-Anne Mont-Sainte-Anne is a ski resort in Eastern Canada, eastern Canada, located in the town of Beaupré, Quebec, about northeast of Quebec City. The mountain is part of the Laurentian Mountains, Laurentian mountain chain and has a summit elevation o ...

and

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is t ...

. Her childhood idols included

Mélanie Turgeon Mélanie Turgeon (born October 21, 1976, in Alma, Quebec) is a skier and former member of the Canadian national ski team. A member of the Mont Ste. Anne ski club, Turgeon joined the Canadian national ski team in 1992 at the age of only sixteen. ...

, Geneviève Simard, and

Erik Guay Erik Guay () (born August 5, 1981) is a Canadian former World Cup alpine ski racer. Racing out of Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, Guay won the World Cup season title in super-G in 2010 and was the world champion in downhill in 2011, as well as in the s ...

. Gagnon has been in a relationship with American alpine racer Travis Ganong since 2008. The pair met through mutual friend Louis-Pierre Hélie; in 2014, the couple moved to a new home in Lake Tahoe,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. They became engaged at the

Matterhorn The (, ; it, Cervino, ; french: Cervin, ; rm, Matterhorn) is a mountain of the Alps, straddling the main watershed and border between Switzerland and Italy. It is a large, near-symmetric pyramidal peak in the extended Monte Rosa area of the ...

on 15 September 2021.

World Cup results

Season titles

* 1 title ( 1 combined) :Crystal globes in combined were not awarded during these seasons, but medals were.

Season standings

Race podiums

* 2 wins – (2 SC) * 5 podiums – (2 SL, 2 SC, 1 SG); 61 top tens

World Championship results

Olympic results

References

External links

* * *
Alpine Canada.org
– national ski team – athletes – Marie-Michèle Gagnon * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gagnon, Marie-Michele 1989 births Canadian female alpine skiers Alpine skiers at the 2010 Winter Olympics Alpine skiers at the 2014 Winter Olympics Alpine skiers at the 2022 Winter Olympics Olympic alpine skiers for Canada Sportspeople from Lévis, Quebec French Quebecers Living people