During last week’s opening ceremonies at the Pyeongchang Winter Games, NBC’s cameras caught Bend’s Laurenne Ross — smiling, laughing and thoroughly enjoying herself amid the jubilant celebration of her U.S. teammates.

And why not?

After nearly a year coping with bouts of intense pain, fear and doubt — all countered by a relentless determination — Ross had arrived in South Korea, ready to compete in her second Olympics just 10 months removed from a devastating knee injury.

Ross, 29, is set to race in alpine skiing’s super-G on Saturday (Friday evening Pacific time) and her U.S. coaches may enter her in the downhill, set for Wednesday (Tuesday evening Pacific time).

Reached via Skype while competing in Europe before heading for South Korea, Ross reflected on her long road back from injury — she tore the ACL and meniscus in her right knee March 27 at the U.S. championships in Maine.

“There were multiple times where I wanted to quit, I wanted to give up and just get out of the pain, and stop pushing myself,” Ross said. “There were a lot of times where I questioned what I was doing.”

Because the injury was so severe, and the surgery so complicated, there was no widely agreed upon rehabilitation strategy.

“I pretty much went at my own pace,” Ross said. “So at times I would go through pain, and I would go through doubt, and I had to trust in the process and trust in my program in order to come out and be confident that what I was doing was right.”

The day she was injured, Ross slipped on a right turn on an icy track and fell onto her right hip.

As she began to stand up on her skis while still sliding, she hit a pile of snow and caught the outside edge of her right ski the “perfectly wrong way,” she said.

Shortly after, she underwent surgery in Vail, Colorado, to repair the knee. She called it “the worst injury I’ve ever had to deal with. I basically destroyed my knee.”

Intense rehabilitation sessions — many of them in Bend — took up much of her spring and summer. Her father, Rob Ross, a family physician and the medical director of community health strategies with St. Charles Medical Group in Bend, also helped with her recovery, providing range-of-motion and resistance exercises that were painful but effective.

“I actually went over to her house most days during April and tortured her, because she was going for physical therapy, but she needed someone to come torture her knee for her pretty hard,” Rob Ross said. “Oh, it was horrible, because she would be crying and I would feel terrible … it was pretty emotional.”

But all that pain and hard work paid off, as Ross was back training on snow by October and back racing on the World Cup circuit in early December, just in time to qualify for Pyeongchang. She finished eighth in a World Cup super-G race in France on Dec. 16, and she posted four more top-30 super-G finishes this season. She also had respectable 13th-place and 17th-place finishes in World Cup downhill races in January.

“I hadn’t had that much training, and I was still uncomfortable going fast, so it was really difficult to find that drive to try and push myself, and to want to go fast again, because I was just sort of terrified the whole time,” Ross said.

Her father figured that the mental obstacles of returning to racing would likely be more difficult than the physical challenges.

“She essentially had no training before the season, so … the big question was the mental effects of having that big of an injury and overcoming that,” Rob Ross said. “I think that’s the biggest thing, which she has done. And it just goes to show you her dedication and work ethic. It’s pretty amazing, actually. I was in Vail after her operation, and she was in so much pain she couldn’t do anything. And then over a course of a few months, it’s like brutal physical therapy … it’s just amazing.”

Laurenne said that during her recovery a return to the Olympics was always in the back of her mind. (She had finished 11th in the downhill at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.) But her goals in the days and weeks immediately following the injury were more basic: to walk normally, ride a bike, and do not get too far ahead of herself.

“So to make the team was really incredible and really special to me,” she said. “It was definitely one of my big goals, so I’m stoked.”

Ross added that she does not usually set objective goals for races, but she believes she has a chance to win a medal if she skis her best on the slopes of the Jeongseon Alpine Centre.

“Obviously, it would be awesome to bring home a medal, but I’m just gonna get out there and ski as fast as I can,” she said. “And I know if I ski really well and do my absolute best, then that’s definitely a potential. Hopefully I can kick it into a little higher gear and start to get comfortable going fast again.”

Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Ross got her start in skiing near Calgary when she was just 2. Her father had been a ski racer and was eager to get his three daughters on the slopes at young ages.

The family moved from Edmonton to Klamath Falls in Southern Oregon when Ross was 5, and she began skiing and training with the Bend-based Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation. On winter weekends, the family would drive the 140 miles or so from Klamath Falls to Bachelor.

Ross was involved in a range of other sports, but skiing eventually won out over another love, gymnastics.

When she was 15, Ross had another choice to make: race for Canada or for the United States? All five members of the family have dual citizenship.

She chose the U.S. and was named to the U.S. Ski Team just after graduating from Klamath Union High School. She has now been on the team for 11 years, racing on the World Cup Circuit since 2010.

Ross moved to Bend about seven years ago, about the same time her parents moved to Central Oregon. Her mother, Janey Purvis, is also a family physician.

Ross said her parents are expected to be in South Korea to watch her race.

Last season, before the injury, Ross placed fifth in the world championships downhill and finished fourth in the downhill at the Olympic test event in South Korea. She was the second-most accomplished American speed racer (downhill and super-G) behind Lindsey Vonn during the two years before her injury, and she was finishing up another solid season when she crashed in Maine.

Vonn — the two-time Olympic gold medalist who has won four World Cup overall championships and this year is competing in her fourth Olympics — has come back from injury many times.

“Her injuries to her knees have been pretty terrible, so she’s given me a lot of really good, useful advice, and that’s been incredibly helpful,” Ross said of the 33-year-old Vonn. “When I started skiing again, she really helped me figure out what to do on the bumpy courses where the right-footed turns were difficult, and how to approach certain venues.”

Ross added that she is still struggling with pushing her limits, as the subconscious fear that lingers from her injury often kicks in during races. But she learned a lot about herself during her comeback, so she knows she has the potential to surprise herself — and maybe even the whole world — at these Winter Games.

“I am sometimes too committed or too dedicated,” Ross said. “I tend to overdo it; do too many workouts or too much therapy. But I think that commitment really is paying off now. For my injury, it was unlikely for me to be racing this season, so I think that was all worth it.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0318,

mmorical@bendbulletin.com