Bright's performance 'a miracle'

Bright, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was superb in capturing her country's fourth ever Winter Olympics gold medal in the snowboard halfpipe.

But it was a wonder she even managed to get to Cypress Mountain to compete.

While there was much talk about two concussions just weeks before the Games, mother Marion and fiance Jake Welch revealed on Thursday night that was barely the half of it.

Coming back after shoulder surgery in 2009, Bright endured a horrible run of accidents that came close to cruelling her Games before she even got there.

"If I could take back all those head bangs and everything I would, for sure," Bright said with a chuckle after winning her gold medal. Yet the mirth belied what she'd actually been through.

It started less than two months before the Games.

"She had a shocking accident before Christmas, she dislocated her jaw," Marion Bright said.

"Through her sister (former Olympic alpine skier Rowena) I said 'forget it'".

Attempting a new double corked (two flips), trick Bright landed badly, broke some teeth and had to get her jaw re-aligned.

"I hate it when they hurt themselves, for a mother it is horrifying," Marion said. There were another two concussions and then the well-documented crash before the X-Games in Aspen Colorado late last month.

"She hadn't been on snow since the X Games, they were testing her every day, she had to have her balance right, she had to have her head right," Marion said.

"It's been a terrible lead up to these Olympics. "But that's what it takes to get a gold medal." Welch said the incident prior to the X Games was almost the final straw.

"She had to lay really low, she had headaches for pretty much a week and a half straight," Welch said.

"There was talk that she said that they might not let her (compete) but I think she was always going to do it no matter what."

But Bright has had a track record of bucking the odds. For starters she's an Australian competing in a snow sport taken oh-so-seriously amongst the youth of North America.

Raised in Cooma, she grew up skiing but decided to give snowboarding a shot when she was 11.

She never looked back. Within a few years she was regarded as the best in her craft in Australia and wasn't far away from getting a shot at the 2002 Games at her spiritual home in Salt Lake City as a 15 year-old.

From there she started refining her craft and working with brother Ben who eventually gave his own snowboarding ambitions away to concentrate on making his sister a champion.

By the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin Bright was a strong medal prospect but finished fifth, walking away from the Games unhappy with the judging. From that low point she went on to redefine the sport over the next four years.

Bright became a three time World Superpipe Champion (2006, 2007 and 2008), three time Nippon Open winner (2005, 2007 and 2008), the overall winner of the 2007 Burton Global Open Series and winner of the 2007 TTR Women's World Tour as well as taking out two X Games titles.

With it came snowboard and clothing sponsorships, a feature in a video game and kudos as the most technically gifted rider women's rider in the sport.

Her relationship with the Winter Olympics may have been a little frosty before Vancouver but after all she's been through you suspect that may have changed.