'You have to push yourself': Resilient Val Grenier and her Canadian teammates ready to go at alpine ski worlds

With sunshine blasting down on the Zwölferkogel slopes southwest of Salzburg in the skiing Mecca of Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Austria, Canada's Val Grenier zipped down the downhill course on Tuesday morning.

It marked the first downhill training runs ahead of the 2025 alpine ski world championships, valuable time on the mountain for the athletes ahead of the first races at the international event.

CBC Sports and CBC Gem will live stream competition throughout the event, which begins on Tuesday and runs through the final day of action on Sunday, Feb. 16.

More than 600 skiers from upwards of 70 nations have descended upon the Austrian Alps ski community for the biannual event that features the fastest, bravest, and most skilled skiers on the planet.

At 28 years old, Grenier brings a wealth of experience to the event for Canada. This is now her sixth appearance at the world championships, having made her debut at just 18 years old.

"It's a new track to me so it's a little special. I was a little nervous. I was trying to remember all the lines. There's a lot of terrain so it's hard to remember all of it," Grenier told CBC Sports.

"Overall I'm happy with how it went. Understand the line and where to go. How the jumps feel. I was a little bit safe in some sections but for the first training run it didn't really matter."

This sixth appearance almost never happened for Grenier. Almost exactly a year ago she suffered a horrific crash during a World Cup super-G race in Cortina D'Ampezzo, Italy. Grenier required shoulder surgery to repair a fractured humerus and also underwent reconstructive right knee surgery.

"It was really difficult at first when it happened. It was difficult to accept so to see I was going to be out for a while. I