Michelle Roark

303 Magazine, April 2009

Dressed from head to toe in ski gear, Michelle Roark enters the coffee shop and makes her way to my table. I extend my hand, then change my mind and go for a hug. Roark possesses the kind of friendly demeanor and exuber­ant energy that draws a person in.

She apologizes profusely for not having had a chance to change, then unzips her black ski jacket to reveal a pink striped scarf and pink sweater under­neath. “I have to wear jackets that make me look like a boy!” she exclaims. “Where’s the sequins?”

Coming from a figure skating background, the inner girly girl in her often butts heads with the ex­terior tomboy skier. “I always try to combine figure skating and skiing,” she says, referring to times when she’s “dressed up” her ski outfits with fur cuffs. A fan of rhinestones and anything sparkly, she wants noth­ing more than “to be on Dancing With the Stars. I want to learn to dance, and I want to wear those outfits!”

This skater-turned-skier is a multiple World Cup champion and a silver medalist who competes for the U.S. Ski Team. Roark’s journey finally landed her in the 2006 Olympics, after she sustained multi­ple knee injuries that kept her out of the 1994 Winter Olympics, as well as out of the1998 and 2002 games. When I ask for details about her injuries, she laughs nervously and asks not to talk about them, worried that talking might bring bad luck. She then knocks on wood and asks me to do the same.

Roark’s ski career is just one of many founda­tions she’s established for herself. A chemical en­gineer (Roark is two classes away from earning a degree from the Colorado School of Mines), she’s created her own line of perfumes, Phi-nomenal, to enhance the ski experience. “Skiing is all about be­ing in tune with all five senses, and I couldn’t find a smell I liked, so I wanted to make my own.” She stud­ied medicinal purposes of essential oils to combine them in a way that would enhance the sense of smell. No easy achievement, considering it takes her a year to develop each fragrance, but she’s up to five fra­grances for women and is working on a second one for men. (read more)