Sarah Burke was a Canadian freestyle skier known for pioneering the superpipe event. Born in Barrie, Ontario, she attended ski camps as a teenager in Whistler, at which she met her future husband Rory Bushfield (m. 2010). She won first place in the half-pipe event at the 2001 US Freeskiing Open, being one of only two women to compete. After this, she lobbied ESPN to include a female division in the Winter X Games; this was granted in 2005, and Burke went on to win five gold and one silver medal in this competition. She also won the 2005 FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships. Burke then lobbied the International Olympic Committee to add the superpipe to the 2014 Winter Olympics, at which she planned to compete. Tragically, she was never able to realize this dream, dying at the age of 29 in a training accident in Utah.
Burke accumulated many honors, both in her lifetime and posthumously. She was the first woman to ever land a jump with a 1080-degree rotation during a competition. She won the ESPN 2001 Award for Female Skier of the Year and the ESPY 2007 Best Female Action Sports Athlete Award. She also featured in many skiing films. After her death, Burke was inducted to the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame (2012), Canada's Sports Hall of Fame (2014), and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame (2016).