When I first started working with my coach, Daniel Murphy, he talked to me about being committed and asked me if I really wanted to win the Olympics. I have done well in the past, but I don't think anyone would have considered me a huge threat since 2004.

So I asked him, "Do you really think I have a chance at 2010 or are you just humouring me because it's your job to take all the athletes on the team seriously?"

He gave me what I wanted, the brutal truth. He said, "It's going to take a miracle."

He told me anyone who wins an Olympic medal made a miracle happen. Everyone has a task in front of them. Everyone wants to win a medal. I mean, there isn't an athlete out there that wouldn't think standing on the podium would be nice. The thing is do you want it so bad that you would do anything? Do you want it so bad that no one could stop you?

The ones who win make things happen that people would have said are impossible.

The big miracle consists of many smaller miracles. For me, the major ones were: 

- Fixing a technical problem where I would end up crooked in the air, making it nearly impossible to land and then sometimes even landing those crazy crooked ones.

- Overcoming the fear I had. I know no one blames me for sometimes being scared of what I do. But if you're terrified, it's nearly impossible to perform well.

 - Coming back from my concussion. Standing at the top of the hill, about to turn in to the jump, knowing if I miss just a little bit, my Olympic dream is over, yet at the same time, putting that thought aside (nearly impossible) and focusing only on what I control.

- Training only a handful of times in the past year and somehow jumping like I never left. Many of my competitors have said to me they couldn't have come back after sitting on the couch that long to get up and do these difficult jumps so quickly.

The Olympics are all about miracles.

Our venue, which hosts many snow sports, looks like it's spring time. You can see shrubs growing and dirt everywhere, but somehow the organizing committee has made it happen. If I had seen the site a few weeks ago, I would have for sure said it's impossible to get an event off at this location. But here I am, training on a normal site, about to compete in a few days.

You see people competing with torn ligaments in their knees. I don't know how they are standing, never mind doing flips and twists at over 16 metres in the air. I see women doing jumps that only men had done up until this year. I see men adding a whole revolution to a trick that seemed to already have the maximum revolutions in it already. I see managers working at full speed when I know they haven't slept.

People will say something is impossible until someone else goes and makes it happen.

Murf, my coach, has taught me so much in the past four years. He has seen me change not only as an athlete, but as a person. He told me no matter what happens now, I have acquired so much in being completely prepared that I have already won.