She's back...to kick ass...

There was a sliver of hope that Emma Snowsill had been relegated to the ranks of the merely human after she was forced to take 11 months off for injuries, operations and illnesses between June 2009 and May 2010. And that sliver remained after Snowsill could manage just a 6th place in her first race back at the 2010 World Championship series race in Seoul South Korea.

The curtain of her invincibility had previously lifted a few times – when Vanessa Fernandes took many ITU World Cups and a world title in 2008 at the time when Snowsill was off form thanks to illness or injury. But Snowsill’s vulnerability looked greatest when training partner and fellow Emma – Miss Moffatt – beat Snowsill at the Washington DC round of the 2009 World Championship Series and outran Snowy at Hy-Vee for the $200,000 pot of gold later that month.

Those two losses, just before Snowsill decided to quit taking half measures and operate on a lingering labral tear injury last July, seemed to outsiders to be the kind of straight-up defeat that once seemed unthinkable. Then, after 11 months of treatment, rehab and a tropical virus she contracted, the 5-foot 3-inch 105-pound mighty mite prompted speculation that at age 28 she might be on the down curve. After all, how long could anyone expect such a slip of an athlete to remain such a dominant force?

Unburdened by an outsized ego, Emma Snowsill managed to quell all those doubts with a masterful come-from-behind win at Hy-Vee last month for her second $200,000 big win to add to her three World titles, and Olympic and Commonwealth Games gold.

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