Maggie Voisin welcomed home by Whitefish
Whitefish Olympian Maggie Voisin signs autographs for fans Wednesday afternoon following a welcome home celebration for her outside the O’Shaughnessy Center. (Heidi Desch/Whitefish Pilot)
Whitefish Olympian Maggie Voisin hugs Mayor John Muhlfeld Wednesday afternoon outside the O’Shaughnessy Center after he named March 7, 2018 as Maggie Voisin Day. (Heidi Desch/Whitefish Pilot)
Sitting on top of a fire truck Whitefish Olympian Maggie Voisin waves to the crowd gathered outside the O’Shaughnessy Center Wednesday afternoon. (Heidi Desch/Whitefish Pilot)
A table outside the O’Shaughnessy Center holds a few mementos from Maggie Voisin’s slopestyle career. (Heidi Desch/Whitefish Pilot)
Whitefish Olympian Maggie Voisin thanks Whitefish for its support while speaking into a microphone held by her uncle Jeff Raper during a celebration ceremony Wednesday afternoon downtown. (Heidi Desch/Whitefish Pilot)
Whitefish Olympian Maggie Voisin’s talks with young fans Wednesday afternoon outside the O’Shaughnessy Center. (Heidi Desch/Whitefish Pilot)
Wednesday officially became Maggie Voisin Day in Whitefish.
Friends, family and community members from her hometown gathered on the afternoon of March 7 to welcome Maggie Voisin home from the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Voisin, 19, recently returned to Montana after finishing fourth in the slopestyle competition in her second trip to the Winter Olympics.
Along with her family, Voisin took a celebratory ride down Central Avenue on a fire truck before a ceremony outside the O‘Shaughnessy Center where Whitefish Mayor John Muhlfeld read an official proclamation in her honor and the Whitefish Winter Carnival Royalty knighted her.
Muhlfeld recalled being outside shoveling snow on Somers Avenue the day he first met Voisin while her parents pushed her down the street in a stroller.
“I remember how proud of you they were that day,” he said. “This community is so proud of you today.”
Muhlfeld officially proclaimed March 7, 2018 as Maggie Voisin Day listing a highlight of her long list of career accomplishments — from learning to ski at age 3 to joining the Whitefish Mountain Resort freestyle team at age 10 and then going onto to win the USASA national slopestyle championship at age 12, qualifying as the youngest member of 2014 U.S. Olympic team, becoming the first American woman to win gold at the XGames this year and finally taking fourth at the 2018 Olympic Games.
Before sitting down to sign autographs for her fans, Voisin thanked her hometown.
“The community of Whitefish, my entire career, has been so supportive,” she said. “It’s nice to celebrate with the town.”
Reflecting upon her second trip to the Olympics, Voisin said she’s grateful to get the opportunity to compete this time around saying it was a “completely different experience.” She broke her ankle during a training run at the 2014 Olympics and was unable to compete.
“I feel like a true Olympian,” she said. “It was great to stand at the top of the Olympic course and think about all the sacrifices I’ve made to get there — it makes it really special.”
Prior to Wednesday’s celebration, her mom Kristen Voisin set out a table of mementos from her career. Medals Voisin has earned sat alongside the gloves and boots she wore during the opening ceremonies for the PyeongChang Olympics, and a blue jacket that Voisin wore when being named to the Olympic team. Next to it all were Voisin’s K2 skis, helmet and her lucky pink ski poles that she used in PyeongChang.
“I used the ski poles in the year leading up to the 2014 Olympics, but not at the Olympics,” she said. “They became kind of joke as my lucky poles with their pink flower baskets. K2 stopped making them so I’m holding onto those. Hopefully I can keep them as long as possible.”
Voisin says her second trip to the Olympics is just her first chapter.
“The best is yet to come,” she said. “This experience gave me more motivation to keep going.”