Aspen, CO – Reigning Olympic and world ski cross champion Ashley McIvor of Canada sustained a knee injury Wednesday during training for the Winter X Games in Aspen. McIvor, 27, of Whistler, British Columbia, has a suspected torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and is not expected to return to competitive action this season.n”It’s extremely frustrating but I’m thankful it’s not last year’s X Games, because that was our last event before the Olympics,” McIvor said during a conference call from her Aspen hotel room on Thursday. “I don’t have a head injury and I don’t have a spinal injury, so it’s OK, this will heal. I’ll be back racing next year.”

McIvor overshot a jump during Wednesday’s training on Buttermilk Mountain, her knee absorbing the brunt of the impact.

“I landed perfectly balanced, I just came down so hard from so high up, something had to give,” she explains.

McIvor will undergo surgery to repair her torn ACL in Vancouver once the swelling in her knee subsides. She anticipates a full six months of rehabilitation thereafter.

This year’s Winter X Games 15 precedes the biennial FIS Freestyle World Championships to be held next week in Park City, Utah, where McIvor, the reigning champion from 2009 in Japan, was among the favorites for a medal. She’ll travel to Utah with the Canadian team to participate in spirit instead of on the race course, where current women’s World Cup leader Kelsey Serwa of Kelowna, British Columbia, will hope to keep the Championship title with Canada.