Kimberley Joines is a para-alpine skier who won bronze at the Terino Paralympic Games in 2006. She has also won the title of Overall World Cup Champion. She was unable to make it to the Vancouver Games, because of an appendectomy and a broken hip caused by falling out of her wheelchair, but this year, she’s back. Although she had another big injury just a few months ago—a collarbone and shoulder injury caused by a major crash while training in Sochi—she’s back and stronger than ever. Here are five things you didn’t know about Kimberly Joines. 1. She’s been training to be an Olympian since she was a kid. “My dad’s a phys ed teacher and coach and he always expected us to compete at the highest level possible in whatever we were participating in. He exposed us to every sport under the sun. And definitely any time we showed any interest in any particular sport, he would push us to excel at the highest level possible in that sport. So for sure, he was trying to raise Olympians from the time we were born. Conveniently, I ended up on that path.” 2. Losing the use of her legs didn’t slow her down for a second. “Honestly, I was in so much pain at the time, it wasn’t my primary concern. And when I got to the hospital, the first thing that crossed my mind was, Well, I guess I get to compete at the Paralympics now. A lot of people go through a depression and feeling really upset about losing the use of their legs. I guess I just didn’t want to allow myself to feel that way, so it was one of the easier ways of distracting myself and jumping right into focusing on something else.” 3. She mastered sit-skiing extremely quickly, but even she’ll admit it’s a challenge. “It is similar in a lot of ways [to regular skiing]. But there are a lot of challenges associated with sit-skiing. Even now, 13 years later, it’s a lot harder to control it. You have an extra 50 pounds of equipment strapped to your butt, so in powder, for example, all the snow will pack in every crack and crevice. So you’ll be carrying your weight, the extra 50 pounds of the sit ski, and then probably an extra 30 pounds of snow packed into it. So it’s just turning on a dime and maneuvering it among tight trees and things like that are far more challenging.” 4. When she’s not skiing, she loves to go camping. “I bought a travel trailer this year. We spent a ton of time in the travel trailer and went camping everywhere and I brought my dry land training with me. My boyfriend is a mountain biker. I kind of drive shuttle for him and our other mountain biking friends. Often we combine camping and mountain biking.” 5. She’s got a whole new strategy to take Sochi by storm, focusing on the technical event. “I had some success in Terino. I mean that was my first Games and I was just kind of new to everything. My technical events were hopeless. I was good at skiing speed because I was willing to go fast, but my technical skiing wasn’t at all there. Now I’m very much the opposite of that. I have gained a lot of technical skills in the past few years.” Read  more about Kimberly Joines and check out our February issue for our full Olympic package. (Photography: JS Labrie ACA)