It was hard for Squamish’s Aleisha Cline to watch her sport’s Olympic debut from the sidelines. After all, the ski cross racer who became known as the sport’s Lady Dominator had returned from a four-year hiatus in large part because of the chance to compete on home snow at Cypress Mountain.

But Cline struggled to find her form on the World Cup circuit in the months before the Games, though she wowed in winning the World Cup event at Cypress last season and sped to three subsequent top-10 finishes.

The mother of two battled through the beginning of this season, but wound up without one of the hotly contested spots on Canada’s Olympic freestyle ski team.

But on Saturday (March 6), Cline put all of that aside and rocketed onto the podium in the first World Cup race after the Olympics, capturing silver in Branas, Sweden, for her first medal of the season.

“I can’t even put that into words,” she said of her feelings about earning this silver after the Olympic heartbreak.

The Swedish course, which Canadian head coach Eric Archer said produced “a bit of a drag race” and lots of passing action, played to Cline’s strengths as a great glider. She used solid starts and stayed close in the turns before excelling in the gliding sections, beating the likes of Olympic silver medallist Hedda Berntsen of Norway in her head-to-head races en route to the final.

France’s Ophelie David, the top-ranked women’s ski cross racer in the world, edged out Cline for the gold medal, but the silver was sweet for Squamish-based athlete. She said she enjoyed the few days of racing in Sweden, because at this point, all the pressure was off.

“I think there was a lot to deal with leading into the Olympics; she just felt a little more free today. I think it helped her performance for sure,” Archer said.

“Every time I’ve done well, it’s been one of my kids’ birthdays,” Cline joked, as Saturday marked the 23-month anniversary of her daughter’s birth. She also has a four-year-old son whose birthday is fast approaching on Friday (March 12). The next World Cup ski cross race is Thursday (March 11).

Cline, whose current home mountain is Whistler Blackcomb, was a dominant force in the developing years of the sport. She starred on the X Games scene with four gold medals to her credit, and as a six-time World Cup medallist between 2002 and 2004.

She returned as an inspiring force and challenger for an Olympic spot after a nearly five-year hiatus from the World Cup scene, during which she gave birth to her two children.

“It was definitely difficult to watch (the Olympics), because of course that was the goal; it was the whole reason for coming out. But I didn’t ski to my potential the month before,” Cline said, adding that her teammates who made it to the big show deserved their berths.

She said she didn’t go into Saturday’s race expecting that she could win a medal — “I don’t think anything like that these days” — but she’d be happy to turn Saturday’s performance into a trend. Beyond the rest of this season, Cline isn’t sure about her future in racing, given how important her family is to her, but she’s not closing doors to any opportunities.

“I’m open,” she said.

Chris Del Bosco of Sudbury, Ont., who earned notice in his Olympic race with his last-gasp push for gold and subsequent crash for fourth place, won some redemption on Saturday, too, as he captured the silver medal in the men’s race. Though battling a head cold, Del Bosco felt strong in speeding through to the final round, where he and the other two challengers came within half a ski of catching winner Michael Schmid of Switzerland.

Del Bosco said he was “looking for a little redemption here. It definitely helps a little bit, (but) we’ll have to wait a few years for the real redemption.”

Del Bosco now sits second in overall standings behind Schmid.

Whistler’s newly minted Olympic ski cross champion Ashleigh McIvor finished 13th in the women’s race, a bit clouded by what Archer called her “Olympic gold-medal hangover.”

“She was exhausted when she got here,” he said, after a whirl of media and duties after her golden performance, and it proved difficult to get in gear to race in Sweden.

Whistler’s Julia Murray, who raced on an injured knee at the Olympics, is done for the season, Archer said. She’s had knee surgery and emailed the coach the day before the Branas race to say everything went well, Archer added.

Meanwhile, Canada’s mogul-skiing stars returned to World Cup competition in Inawashiro, Japan, where 2010 Olympic silver medallist Jennifer Heil of Spruce Grove, Alta., secured another silver in Sunday’s (March 7) event to win her sixth straight World Cup medal and keep her in first in the overall standings.

Pemberton resident Kristi Richards finished 17th in the competition, which was turned into a one-run contest without qualifying due to fog. The weather also forced the cancellation of Saturday’s events and Sunday’s men’s competition.