The Serwa name is one that’s woven into the very fabric of skiing culture in the central Okanagan, pretty much from Day 1. Serwa Construction has been active in all aspects of road building, commercial, and residential projects even before Cliff and his partner Doug Mervyn punched a road up the rugged Mission Creek valley to the broad, shoulder-shaped mountain known to locals simply as Big White.

Kelsey Serwa, Cliff’s granddaughter, grew up racing on the local slopes with the Big White Racers, eventually landing a spot of Canada’s national team and competing in both Europa and World Cup events. Several years ago, she literally crossed over to the muscular, combative world of ski-cross racing. Canada has been very strong in ski cross since its inception, and Serwa has been right up there on the podium with other Canadian stars such as Ashleigh McIvor.

Serwa raced in front of her family and parents in the 2010 Winter Games, ultimately finishing just out of the medals in fifth place, though she roared back a year later to win both the X Games and the World Championships in ski cross. Then, two major setbacks happened in 2011. Serwa went down hard at the world championships at Alpe d’Huez — an injury which required reconstructive ACL surgery. Morale was further dampened by the death of well-loved teammate Nic Zoricic at a ski cross event in Grindelwald in that same season.

In 2012, she returned to the whoopers (those big rolling jumps) and banked turns and won the 2013 pre-Olympic test race at Sochi. And while that might make her the odds-on favourite, she re-injured her knee again last year at the final event of the season.

Kelowna-based Edge Digital Media has just dropped a sweet eight-minute video that does a great job of introducing us to not just Serwa’s accomplishments, but the trials she’s faced over the past three seasons as well. The video also showcases some of the offseason activities possible, such as wake surfing on an all-cedar Wefi board behind the Surf Kelowna wakeboard boat.

As the video shows, the pretty 24 year old has shown indomitable spirit and determination to come back from her injuries. Everybody in Kelowna and at Big White will be cheering her on.

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