Torin Yater-Wallace, the 20-year-old expert half-pipe skier who has been plagued by illness and injury since December 2013, is finally back. At 15, Yater-Wallace became the youngest person ever to win an X Games medal. By the time he was 18, he had secured six visits to the podium in X Games halfpipe, five World Cup podiums, won the Olympic test event in Sochi in 2012, and was a shoe-in for the U.S.'s first freeskiing Olympic halfpipe team. He was also the first skier to land a switch 1800.
In early December of 2013, the freeskier collapsed a lung while receiving acupuncture and missed two weeks of training. He hastily entered the Breckenridge Dew Tour, which acted as the first of five Olympic qualifying contests. After a stellar first day, he crashed during a training run and broke two ribs.
Despite the injury, he was added to the Olympic team in the final spot reserved for coaches' discretion. Yater-Wallace struggled to return to 100 percent, and teammate David Wise of Reno, Nev., took the gold.
After laying low last season and appearing in multiple videos, he appeared in the AFP World Tour at Whistler, B.C., and took home the gold.
But the 2015-2016 season did not begin as expected. In November, Yater-Wallace fell ill with flu-like symptoms. After several doctor visits, his health had not improved. Breathing became difficult and created a sharp pain in his side.
A scan revealed an inflamed liver and gall bladder caused by an infected abscess. His lungs were slowly filling with fluid. He was connected to a ventilator and placed in medically-induced paralysis so his body could focus on fighting the infection.
"It came out of the blue," said Stace Yater-Wallace, Torin's mom to the Denver Post, "We don't even know what caused it. They say 20 percent of the people don't leave the hospital alive with that infection."
The incident forced Yater-Wallace to miss yet another series of Dew Tour events. But last week, doctors told him that his body was free of infection. He plans to compete in the Aspen X Games later this week.
"I'm feeling back to my healthy self," Yater-Wallace said, according to the Daily Camera, "I definitely feel comfortable, and I'm feeling really good right now."
