MOSCOW — Inspired by watching two-time Olympian Jessika Jenson race in the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, Moscow snowboarder Jessica Woffinden wondered what it’d be like to compete on the biggest stage in sports.

“There was a girl in it who is from the other side of Idaho, Jessika Jenson (from Idaho Falls), and we were kind of rooting for her — rooting for the underdog,” said Woffinden, who saw her fellow Idahoan finish fifth in snowboardcross. “I have a signed photograph from her now (that says): ‘Jessica, follow your dream.’

“I have that hanging up in my room.”

Woffinden, a 29-year-old building aide at McDonald Elementary School, first picked up her snowboard about 10 years ago. She fell in love with snowboard cross, also known as boardercross, which is a fast-paced racing event in which four to six racers speed down a hill at the same time, braving various types of sharp turns, steep jumps and big drops.

But Woffinden’s dream of being an Olympian is on hold.

Like many sporting events across the world, the nationals for U.S. skiing and snowboarding were canceled this spring because of the coronavirus pandemic. The events were supposed to start today at Copper Mountain Resort in Colorado.

“It was a bummer because we had been saving money (and) we had reached out to the community for funding,” Woffinden said. “So many people were so excited, which was really cool for me to see other people get excited about my dream. For it to just be like, ‘nope’ — it sucked.”

Woffinden said she turned to snowboarding as an outlet during a tough time when she was going through a divorce at 23 years old.

“Rather than being depressed, I could really get all my anger out on the mountain,” Woffinden said.

It wasn’t until later that she decided to see what she could do with the sport. It helped that snowboard cross is a newer event that wasn’t held in the Olympics until 2006.

When Woffinden reached out to her area’s ski and snowboard organizations to see about competing in regional events, they were excited to have their first woman in the sport in three years.

So Woffinden raced against two guys from other divisions in her first regional competition last year. Because they were all in separate divisions, they each got first place.

At nationals, it was a similar story — her competitor dropped out, giving Woffinden an easy title.

She was looking forward to getting her shot at real, high-level competition for the first time this month, but now that’s put on hold.

“It’s really challenging because I want to grow in the sport, but I literally have no way to do it right now,” Woffinden said.

But she’s not giving up.

Woffinden has a donated pass from Mt. Spokane Ski and Snowboard park, where she trained this winter. She also purchased a new snowboard from 2018 paralympian Evan Strong that has her reaching speeds she’d never seen before.

Woffinden said she and her husband, Zach, plan to move to the Seattle area later this year after Zach graduates from the University of Idaho with an engineering degree. There, she plans to get connected with a coach and make frequent weekend trips to Mount Hood in Oregon.

After that, she’ll try to get into a Hole Shot Cross Tour or NorAm Tour event to gain points towards World Cup events — whenever races start happening again.

Until then, Woffinden is content to continue training and looking forward to the future.

“I’m a very religious person and I believe God has a reason for all this stuff, and we can only do so much,” Woffinden said. “I see so many blessings through what I’m doing in snowboarding that I just have this more positive attitude in life and towards hardships, or trials or setbacks.

“It’s just like it’s going to be alright. It’s going to work out.”

Stephan Wiebe can be reached at swiebe@dnews.com, by phone at (208) 883-4624 and on Twitter at @StephanSports.