ASPEN, Colo. (AP)—their calendars say it’s time for the Winter X Games.their hearts tell them it might be too soon.

Less than a week after the death of their friend, Canadian freestyle skierSarah Burke, the skiers, snowboarders and snowmobilers reconvened in Aspen onWednesday to get ready for the start of what is typically one of America’s mostrowdy, raucous celebrations of sports.

If the lead-in to opening day was any indication, it will be a more mutedaffair this year.

“the last thing I really wanted to do was come here,” said Mike Douglas,considered the “Godfather” of freeskiing, who discovered Burke when she was ateenager. “But being here is somewhat comforting and therapeutic because thisgroup is something of a family. So many people here knew her and loved her. Italmost forces you to go through that feeling process a little faster and dealwith it.”

Burke died last Thursday, nine days after an accident in which she landedawkwardly while doing a trick on a superpipe in Park City, Utah.

Instead of hyping new tricks, the athletes used the day before thecompetition to talk about their friend, the risks inherent in their sport andwhy they’re here, even while they’re still in mourning.

Summing it up, early in the day, was a tweet from Canada’s freestyle coach,Trennon Paynter, who sent out a picture from the top of the superpipe with asticker that reads, “Celebrate Sarah”—a tribute reminiscent of the “I ride4 Kevin” stickers that snowboarder Kevin Pearce’s fans plastered across theirboards when he was hurt badly two winters ago.

Wrote Paynter: “Sun is shining on the XGames pipe for the first trainingsession. She is right here with us.”

Burke, who was 29 when she died, pushed her discipline of superpipe skiinginto the Olympics and would have been going for her fifth Winter X gold medalthis week.

Douglas remembers her walking into his ski camp in Whistler, “a cute littlething with a smile and some talent.” Over the years, he helped her develop thattalent and make a name for herself in a sport that was barely getting startedwhen she arrived.

“She got what this was all about,” Douglas said. “She was the type ofperson who does it to be among this community. She would coach her competitionto get better. For her, when the sport did well, that was a win.”

More than a decade ago, these X Games that Burke first defined, thendominated, were created with the goal of offering a look at what the so-calledcounterculture did for fun.

That endeavor made for some great TV, furthered a multimillion-dollarindustry and turned out a few stars—Shaun White, Kelly Clark and Burke amongthem. But along the way, those skiers and riders learned that what they do canbe every bit as dangerous as the so-called mainstream sports—football, autoracing—they sometimes smirked at.

“It’s such a tragedy, but at the same time, I’m not going to be ruled byfear and what-ifs,” said Clark, a two-time Olympic snowboarding medalist wholast year became the first woman to land a 1080 in competition. “we can prepareas much as we can, train as safe as we can and press forward and I think that’swhat Sarah represented, who she was as a person. we can, in a way, honor her bydoing that.”

On Thursday night during the snowmobile freestyle final, the X Games willoffer their official tribute to Burke. But really, the next two years will be anongoing reminder of her life and her contribution.

She took women’s freeskiing on her back, helped get it onto the X Gamesprogram, then lobbied successfully to have it added to the Olympic programstarting in 2014. anyone who’s made a buck—or a friend—or maybe dreamed ofwinning an Olympic gold medal while skiing in a superpipe has Burke to thank forpushing the cause.

“There’s a part of a little of everyone that doesn’t want to do it, doesn’twant to be here” this week, said Gretchen Bleiler, the 2006 snowboarding silvermedalist. “But I think of it this way: there couldn’t be a better place andtime to come together right now to celebrate her and the amazing life she had.”

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