Extreme Sports: Snowboarding -- Her Airness

JANET MATTHEWS of Kirkland is a champion big-air snowboarder after just two years as a professional. In summer she trains at Lake Retreat in Ravensdale.

RAVENSDALE - Miles, and a world, away from downtown Seattle lies Lake Retreat, a small lake named for its lodges and its billing as an escape from the big city.

Homes and boat docks line the shore. Ducks swim undisturbed and canoeists paddle with ease from one end to the other.

Suddenly, a scratchy sound breaks the silence. In a blink of an eye, Janet Matthews flies from her man-made snowboard jump, flips and twists in midair, and splashes into the lake. She surfaces with a grin of satisfaction.

"Pretty cool, eh?" Matthews chirps, her helmeted head just above the water.

Another successful "backflip one-double grab," snowboard lingo for a jump with a backflip and 180-degree twist while reaching down to grasp the snowboard twice in midflight.

Matthews, 33, is a champion big-air snowboarder, and Lake Retreat is her summer training ground.

A Kirkland resident who represents her native Canada in competition, Matthews placed third in the women's big-air competition at the ESPN Summer X Games in San Francisco earlier this month. She did so nursing a broken wrist.

In three previous X Games, she took the gold medal last summer, placed third in January at the Winter X Games at Crested Butte, Colo., and finished fifth in winter 1998. All in only two years as a professional rider.

Matthews has worked her way into the elite of the world's snowboard riders through plenty of training, which often brings her to the shores of Lake Retreat for hours of jumping, trampoline exercises and rope-swing flips when she can't get to the snow.

"I'm probably the only big-air jumper that practices on water," said Matthews, her dry suit still dripping from a jump. "I think it will start to be more popular.

"What makes me successful is that I practice all the time. I have to. You want to do the highest degree of difficulty jump but with a solid landing."

With all the training, which includes videotaping each jump and analysis with her husband, Chuck Bass, comes a fair share of injuries.

The jump she uses, a long, wooden structure with aqua-colored boards and an adjustable ramp, has a surface made up of bristly plastic projectiles that Matthews calls "meanies." "If you crash on them, they're pretty mean," she said.

Aside from meanie burns, Matthews suffers from whiplash and has had wood slivers removed from one hand and recently had her dislocated kneecap drained. She had a broken foot while training for the Winter X Games and competed in an air cast, which she kept replacing because the casts broke every few jumps. From time to time, she'll also hit the water hard, much like a belly-flop but more often on her face.

"You take your hits, but you have to train through them," she said. "(Snowboarders) are kind of in this community where injuries are a part of the lifestyle. You just work through the pain.

"I don't think I'm a natural. I'm just good at taking hard hits."

Her devotion to riding snowboards started only in 1996, years after she had starred for the Menlo College (Calif.) tennis team and played in Europe for a year. She also had been a teacher in Toronto and had taken up rock climbing.

On a skiing trip with friends to Colorado that year, she was mesmerized by rider Jon Pearson's flips and stunts with a snowboard. Matthews asked Pearson for lessons.

"I tried six jumps and got a bloody face and bad back," she recalled. "I never landed one."

Matthews continued to practice and decided to become a "half-piper" because the half-pipe is an Olympic event. Then she met Dave Valenti, a long-time ski and snowboard coach. Valenti agreed to coach Matthews in big-air, and worked extensively with her during her first year in the sport.

Matthews was an instant success.

"I was on the (medal) podium almost every time," she said.

Valenti introduced her to Bass, who took over most of the coaching.

"She's been able to train harder than most people and go from being a novice with excellent athletic ability to a star in her sport," said Bass, a former member of the U.S. National Freestyle Skiing Team. "She's really on her own to do what she wants. You really couldn't ask for faster improvement."

Valenti still offers advice, and remains proud of his prized pupil.

"It's pretty impressive to see how much time she puts into it," he said. "She's one of the only women in the world to do a double backflip. When she wants to do something, she does it."

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BIG-AIR TERMS

Lean grab: Mid-air maneuver in which a rider grabs the back of the snowboard during a turn.

Nose grab: Mid-air maneuver whereby a rider grabs the front, or nose, during a turn.

Rodeo five: Jump in which the rider attempts to turn the board 1 1/2 revolutions (540 degrees) while in mid-flight.

Front lawn dart: Jump in which the rider flies straight out, turns upward and then lands nose-first.