She says she lost her skis while traveling in Canada by herself as a junior high student and got a pair of mogul skis from a fellow Japanese who happened to know about her predicament.

The petite girl, who has since grown to 155-centimeter tall, stayed on to watch a freestyle skiing World Cup race and found the sport ''cool.''

That was January 1993.

Uemura immediately made up her mind and switched over from Alpine skiing, something she had been doing since age 4.

Since then, she has become a regular fixture on the freestyle skiing circuit, both in Japan and overseas, and placed third in her debut at a World Cup race in 1996.

Uemura's carefree style on the slopes has so captivated her fans that last December she was featured in a TV commercial. ''I am a candidate in the Olympics -- just four years after I started,'' she quips.

Now a third-year senior high student in her hometown in Hakuba, one of the Olympic venues for the Nagano Winter Games, Uemura likes to make a fashion statement when she takes to the slopes.

On the day of the freestyle skiing women's moguls elimination race Sunday, she sported a five-color fur piece on her head.

''She doesn't care what other people think of her,'' says Aiko's mother, Keiko Uemura, who runs an inn at the ski resort in Hakuba.

Wednesday will prove whether Aiko will be carefree enough and good enough to elevate her to the medals podium from her 13th place finish in the elimination round. (Kyodo News)