She had cutback on her competitive schedule after those Games of Salt Lake, but injuries the last couple of seasons didn’t help, either. Now, as the Olympic season rolls up (World Cup events began in mid-September in Chile and the three-stop Chevrolet U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix contests, a cornerstone of Olympic selection for freestyle riders, begin Dec. 13 at Breckenridge, Colo.), Clark is anxious to ride.

“I’ve been injured since March 20,” she said as her final fall tune-ups got underway. “I bruised my right femur at the U.S. Open. I thought it was kinda like any other fall – we have so many, but this one I guess I hit right, landed on the deck of the halfpipe and bruised a bone.

“But the femur was so damaged there wasn’t a whole lot I could do. They had to break up the scar tissue. I’m back training, riding a bike, and I’m healthy enough to run for the first time in two years.” She’s played tennis since she was a youngster, but after missing it these last two years, she was pleased this fall to be able to start swinging a racket again.

The femur injury was the second of two serious injuries to her right leg. Meniscus surgery on her right knee in Summer ’04, ran into complications and sidelined her much of last winter. “I’ve done a lot of competing [since ‘02] but I could only do about 10 contests last season,” she said.

She paused – she’s 22 now and, although she never was a motor-mouth athlete, Clark measures her words a bit more. “Y’know, I’m kind glad my season wasn’t an all-time banner season,” she said with a grin, “because it kinda gives me something to improve on, something to look forward to. I’m excited – my body’s healthy and I think I’m in a good place.”

So, if she’s healthy – and she is, if she’s ready to rock & roll – and she is, what advice would she give to the apparent new Olympians, including snowboardcross hotshot Lindsey Jacobellis, the SBX world champion who turned 20 in August, or halfpipe teen queen Hannah Teter, who turns 19 two weeks before the Torino Olympics open? “I’d tell ‘em ‘Just keep remembering why you snowboard. There’s a lot of stuff you can get caught up in, but step back and remember snowboarding’s fun but it also can be challenging. Remember the fun.’”

Did anyone tell Clark that before she went to Park City Mountain Resort and collected the first U.S. gold medal of the 2002 Games? “No, I sorted it out for myself,” she said, recalling the disappointment of watching 1998 Olympic medalist Shannon Dunn and Tricia Byrnes go 1-2 each day, coincidentally at Mammoth where Clark now lives. “The first two Olympic qualifiers [Grand Prix contests] got me ready for it because I got seventh and ninth, so coming off them I felt I wasn’t going to the Olympics.”

But, in storybook fashion, Clark – the 2000 World Junior Championships halfpipe gold medalist and ever the warrior on competition day – picked herself off the floor of the ‘pipe and went on to fold, spindle and mutilate her opposition. She won the next three Grand Prix events to clinch an Olympic spot, then went out on the second day of competition in 2002 and won the gold medal. So, other than some scintillating riding, how did that happen?

“After those first two contests, I thought, ‘Well, I’m not gonna go [to the Games], but I’ll go to the next qualifier.’ I mean, I’d taken the pressure off myself because I figured I was out of it. And without any pressure, I could snowboard pretty well,” Clark said.

“I learned you don’t look too far ahead. Focus on the next step, and just that next step. It helped me out tremendously,” she said. “It’s not to say you shouldn’t have goals because you can reach those goals, and you can dream all the time.”

Vermont is the only New England state without a coastline, but Clark – who born in Rhode Island but would spend winters in Vermont where her parents owned a restaurant - has become an avid surfer. “I spent 10 summer on Block Island [R.I.], living on a boat; my mom’d waitress and then we’d go to Vermont – I had the best of both worlds.” When the U.S. Snowboard Team would train at Mammoth in the late Nineties, she would take time before or after the camp to surf on the California coast. She still enjoys getting in her pickup – that’s the reality from her teenhood dream of a sleek Porsche 911 – and driving to southern California beaches to ride the waves. “It’s only 5-1/2 hours down [U.S.] 395, SoCal, surf Orange County…it’s great.”

She also enjoys working on her two-bedroom condo in Mammoth. “I’ve been here two years and it’s awesome, real nice to work on when I can. I do minor stuff – re-texture the ceiling, repainting, some cabinet stuff…just minor things,” she said.