KUCERA: CANADA’S SECRET WEAPON
Early Winter 2015 Vol. 4, No. 1
STAMS ACADEMY — THE BENCHMARK OF SUCCESS
GENERATION NEXT
Kingsbury leads a group of hungry youngsters with their sights on PyeongChang 2018 www.snowsportsculture.com / S-Competition
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Cover: Mikael Kingsbury during the 2014 World Cup freestyle event in Calgary, Alberta. Photographed for S-Media by Michel Painchaud.
editor’s note
Sculpting 8 years worth of beautiful art
Alex Bilodeau, one of Canada’s greatest Winter Olympians, is being honoured with a release of commemorative art prints. The good news? The prints, by artist Peter Jurik, are quite affordable, and partially benefit the Canadian Association of Pediatric Health Centres. The not-so-good news? Awe-inspiring Alex has all the time in the world for portrait posing. He’s retired his competition skis, leaving the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association with a moguls-size hole in its big-game lineup. In this issue of S-Competition magazine, we outline the state of the Canadian freestyle — and alpine and ski cross — teams post-Sochi, and ponder what lies ahead for PyeongChang 2018 and the 2022 Olympics. We touch on some of the key snowsports storylines, from the retirement of Canadian Cowboy John Kucera and his transition to coach (Page 6), to the ascent of Whistler speedster Morgan Pridy (Page 7) and another heartbreaking injury to veteran Robbie Dixon (Page 8). And while David Mirota, CFSA’s high-performance director, laments the loss of Bilodeau, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, he can take solace in the fact that even without him, Canada boasts the most talented freestyle contingent on the planet. Sustaining that talent is not an easy chore. The challenges are many. Budget. Climate. Costs. Geography. Travel. Injuries. Commitment. Competition from other sports. Mirota won’t divulge all the secrets of his recruiting game plan, but he makes one thing clear: The star system is obviously a big one, and we’ve been fortunate the past two years that
we’ve been successful on the international scene and Olympics. Getting our next level to feed off that is a no-brainer.” Mirota’s freestyle contenders for the next eight-year cycle are known commodities — the Kingsburys, Dufour-Lapointes, Turskis and Gerrits of the world. But alpine is a markedly different story, with retirements and injuries clouding the national team picture. Ski cross, always a strength for Team Canada, has its own question marks on the road to South Korea, but a balanced mix of veterans and up-and-comers keep the squad moving forward (Page 14). We check in with this issue’s cover athlete, Mikael Kingsbury, as he assumes the throne as king of the Canadian moguls team (Page 10). Kingsbury’s old high school, Liberté-Jeunesse in Quebec, named the gym in his honor this summer. I guess when you’re the three-time defending crystal globe winner, decent things come your way. Despite a twitter feed resplendent with scenes of the Cliff of Moher, private jets, parliament selfies and living large in Miami, Kingsbury also has been busy refining his tricks and honing his physical tools to complement the mental toughness he possesses as “the man to beat” for the next decade on the bumps. Maybe in 2023, after a thrilling performance on the slopes above Oslo, or Almaty, or Beijing, Kingsbury will have time to pose for some artwork. For the next eight years, “Mik” and company will be plenty busy forging crystal and gold. — The editors
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EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Gordie Bowles ART DIRECTOR Aprile Elcich MANAGING EDITOR Don Cameron SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER Paul Morrison, Michel Painchaud, Mike Ridewood, Michael Mastarciyan.
SNOWSPORTS MEDIA INCORPORATED PRESIDENT Chris Robinson, chris@s-media.ca VICE PRESIDENT Mark Kristofic, mark@s-media.ca CONTROLLER Lisa Crowley, lisa@s-media.ca S-Magazine is an independent publication of Snowsports Media Inc., 82 Hume Street Collingwood, Ont., L9Y 1V4. Phone: 416-840-6615. E-mail: info@s-media.ca | www.snowsportsculture.com LETTERS: All letters to the editor should be addressed to editor@s-media.ca” with subject header “MailBag Letter.”
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GENERATION NEXT
Mikael Kingsbury and a crop of hungry up-and-comers from alpine, freestyle and ski cross – as well as their support crew – are shifting focus to PyeongChang 2018 and beyond. The future starts now.
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ALPINE
CANADA’S SECRET WEAPON
F
ans and supporters were gutted when John Kucera announced his retirement from ski racing in late April to pursue a new career as a ski coach. The silver lining, of course, is that Alpine Canada has a much-needed fresh perspective to a program ACA is banking for the future. At just 29, Kucera’s career was cut short after a series of injuries forced the former world downhill champion to make this tough decision, but the Calgarian — who was a poster boy for the Canadian Cowboy mentality of hard work, determination and perseverance — is now invested in Canada’s alpine ski racing future. From the other side of the fence. “I love the sport and I’ve always had a huge appreciation of what coaches do,” Kucera said in a statement. “I pride myself on my hard work. I know I was always good at dealing with adversity. This is a great opportunity to get into coaching. It’s not just that it was there and I took it — it’s something I really wanted to do. With the opportunity being there and the uncertainty around my health, it seemed like the right time.” Kucera’s career was short but spectacular. And his backstory equally impressive. After Kucera’s parents emigrated to Canada from the former Czechoslovakia in 1981 and his dad signed on as a volunteer ski patroller, young John jumped into ski racing, and quickly the financial strain forced his parents to take out a second mortgage on their home to help fund his career. “When all the other kids were staying in hotel rooms at races, we were camping out in the motor home,” Kucera said. “My parents worked so hard to give me the opportunity to race. When me and my younger brother James were both racing, he
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made the ultimate sacrifice when he gave up his career to allow me to pursue mine. My parents didn’t have enough money to have two kids in ski racing. “I remember one summer I wrote almost one thousand letters to sponsors to get enough money to keep doing this thing, and I managed to raise just enough to keep going. Luckily, that was the year I made the (Alberta) provincial team.” The challenges he overcame as a young racer prepared Kucera for the tests he would face as a national team skier trying to establish himself on the World Cup circuit. His first big breakthrough came in 2006 when he won the super-G at the Lake Louise World Cup, a stunning result given that he hadn’t previously had a top 10 on the World Cup. Kucera will forever be synonymous with Lake Louise, the hill where he made his World Cup debut, won his first World Cup race, suffered a devastating leg injury in 2009 and then ultimately completed a successful comeback from injury in 2012. “It was a tough decision to retire from ski racing,” said Kucera, a 2006 Olympian who has three World Cup podiums to his name. “The past four years hadn’t exactly gone the way I would have liked. I’m not healthy and coaching is something I really wanted to do — I have the same passion for it I had as an athlete.” Smart move by Alpine Canada. “Imagine being coached by a world champion, said Paul Kristofic, Alpine Canada’s vice president of sports. “That’s a gift to every racer who is in the program. It’s an amazing thing for someone like him to choose that path. Not many do. It’s not so much about him giving back — it’s about him wanting to be successful. He’s passionate about the sport and he’s ambitious.”
Photos courtesy Alpine Canada.
JOHN KUCERA RETIRES, MAKES THE JUMP TO COACHING RANKS
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THE PIPELINE ISSUE
CANADA’S NEXT GENERATION PRIDY AND YOUNG TEAMMATES AMPED FOR PYEONGCHANG AND BEYOND
The reality, folks, is that the Canadian Cowboys are an aging crew. When the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, roll around, Erik Guay and Jan Hudec will be 36 and Manny Osborne-Paradis 34. American Bode Miller’s recent implication that he will compete again at the 2018 Olympics — at the age of 40 — is a message of hope for the old guard. But clearly, Canada needs to ramp up the “next generation” preparations. Count Morgan Pridy among the prepared. Coming off a season in which he nabbed a 10th-place finish in the Sochi Olympics super-G and a 21st in the same discipline at Kitzbühel, Whistler’s Pridy is amped for his second season as a World Cup regular. He takes tremendous confidence from his scintillating Sochi super-G run, when he seized the lead from the No. 6 start position and ultimately secured 10th place on a day when teammate Jan Hudec soared to a tie for the bronze medal. “That was an awesome day for both myself and Canadian ski racing with Jan’s great finish,” Pridy reflected this summer. “It was my first time crossing the line with the green light, and that is a feeling and moment I will never forget. That race was the first time during the season I had put together almost a complete race, so I knew I had the speed all along, but now I have physical proof, and that means the most to me.” At age 25, Pridy is still learning his craft, and he savors the opportunities to capitalize on the wisdom of his older teammates. “Being around the Canadian Cowboys has been amazing. I get to ski with some of the top skiers in the world on a daily basis, and that is a huge boost when it comes to making improvements,” Pridy said. Pridy has yielded great benefits from dryland training, gym work and on-hill time with John Kucera. “Having access to such a wealth of athletic knowledge and being able to chat daily with a world champion gave me a real leg up, especially as a relatively new member to the team,” the Whistler Mountain Ski Club product said. “I’m very excited to have him around the team in a coaching role, and I think the development athletes who get to work with him are very lucky.” Continued on p. 8
THE NEW PIPELINE: U21 DEVELOPMENT TEAM When Alpine Canada named 10 skiers to its national alpine development team in May, it was a clear message that the organization is shifting some of its focus on the next generation of Canadians striving for World Cup, World Championship and Olympic success. Five men and five women ages 17-21 make up the national development team, a team selected from 26 athletes invited to an evaluation camp in the spring at Sunshine Village, where their abilities were tested in the gates, in the gym, even on a ski cross track. “The philosophy behind this year’s development team is to really take a deep look at the most talented athletes in the country, and give them a multi-year opportunity to develop in our system with quality programming and quality coaches, so that they will be ready to make the next step to the Continental Cup circuit at an internationally competitive level,” said Paul Kristofic, Alpine Canada’s vice president of sports. Mikaela Tommy of Wakefield, Que., Candace Crawford of Toronto, MontTremblant, Quebec’s Valérie Grenier and Roni Remme, a Blue Mountain, Ont., product, head the women’s roster as the only returning athletes from last season’s development team. Tommy and Crawford were named to the Canadian Alpine Ski Team this summer but will race on both the World Cup and the development team. Also named to the women’s team is Jocelyn McCarthy of Spruce Grove, Alta. A fresh-faced roster makes up the men’s team, which includes Jack Crawford of Toronto/Whistler, Invermere, B.C.’s Martin Grasic, Lambert Quezel of Montreal, Brodie Seger of North Vancouver, B.C., and Whistler’s Broderick Thompson, brother of Olympic ski cross gold medallist Marielle Thompson. Like Tommy and Candace Crawford, two members of last season’s men’s development team, Ford Swette of North Vancouver, B.C., and Morgan Megarry of Collingwood, Ont., successfully made the jump to the Canadian Alpine Ski Team this season.
Morgan Pridy
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ALPINE VONN HINTS AT 2018, STRESSES PATIENCE IN HER RETURN
On the heels of a busy PR week in early September — including an appearance on “Good Morning America” with Gisele Bundchen to promote an Under Armour campaign and a courtside appearance at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, star racer Lindsey Vonn announced that her comeback will begin sooner than expected. “I start skiing October 1, and February will be the World Championships in my hometown of Vail, so it’s going to be pretty exciting,” Vonn said. “I feel like I need to be a little more patient. I have to contain my excitement a little bit and take things slower than I did last year. I feel really strong, but I shouldn’t take as many risks in training as I did last year. I need to tone it down in training and then put it all together for the race.” The 2010 Olympic downhill champion stated her plans are to make her competitive return the Dec. 5-7 weekend at Lake Louise, Alberta. Vonn also suggested she is aiming to continue racing through the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, but that there are no certainties in ski racing. “I’m getting older, you know I’m almost 30, so another four years is a little bit challenging in my sport,” said the winner of 59 World Cup races. “But at the same time, I feel good and I’m motivated, so that’s the most important thing.”
DIXON’S FUTURE UNCERTAIN Adding insult to injury, again, veteran World Cup racer Robbie Dixon suffered a severe leg injury while training in Zermatt, Switzerland, in mid-August. The 29-year-old from Whistler, B.C. was completing his first training run of the day. Dixon was in mid-turn when he felt a pain in his lower right leg, as a result of the impact of the quick vibration of his ski on the terrain. He described the discomfort in his leg as pressure, which required him to stop the run. Dixon was airlifted off the glacier to a nearby hospital in Visp, Switzerland. Due to the high forces and speed Dixon was travelling, he fractured his right tibial. The fracture is located just below the location of Dixon’s 2012 injury. Dixon, often referred to as one of Canada’s most gifted speed skiers, joined the Canadian ski team in 2005 and earned 11 top-10 finishes on the World Cup, including four top-five finishes. Dixon missed the entire 2012-13 season after catching an edge and crashing during a downhill race in November 2012 at Copper Mountain, Colorado. He underwent surgery, and through his perseverance, dedication and hard work, Dixon returned to competition in the 2013-14 season. At press time, there was no updates on Dixon’s injury or his future intentions.
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Photo: Jon Selkowitz
Continued from p. 7 Pridy is still a developing talent, but there are five younger athletes on the men’s team this season — Tyler Werry, Erik Read, Trevor Philp, Morgan Megarry and Phil Brown. Read was the 2012 Nor-Am overall titlist. Philp and Brown are emerging threats in giant slalom. Werry has top potential in the speed events, while Megarry has a résumé of top-10 results in both tech and speed events at the FIS and Nor-Am level. On the women’s side, Mikaela Tommy and Candace Crawford are the youngsters on the national team, and they are expected to get starts at both the World Cup and development level. Tommy is a tech ace and three-time Nor-Am winner still seeking her first World Cup points with seven starts under her belt. Crawford was seventh in GS at the 2014 world juniors. Valérie Grenier and Roni Remme are two other athletes to watch in the development pipeline for 2018 and beyond. The location of the 2022 Winter Games won’t be decided until July 2015. But Pridy expects to be a factor, and his attitude might be representative of the entire crop of “next generation” racers. “I think that I am in a good position for both of the next Olympic Games,” Pridy said. “I got very valuable experience in Sochi, and in the next eight years I will continue to improve my craft. As the top speed skiers show now, being in your 30s is not a hindrance to your success at the World Cup level. In a lot of cases, the older athletes are performing the best they ever have. Of course I would like to do memorable things come the next Olympics, but it’s one race of maybe 2 minutes against the best the world has to offer, so claiming to do anything other than my best would be foolish. On that day I will be skiing my race, and if I do that, I believe I can be on the right side of the hundies.”
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THE PIPELINE ISSUE ALPINE SPOTLIGHT ONE TO WATCH: PHIL BROWN A bronze medal at 2011 world juniors and a handful of Nor-Am medals, including the 2013 Nor-Am giant slalom title, have pegged this Torontonian as one of Canada’s stars of the future. A product of the Craigleith Ski Club, Brown made his World Cup debut in giant slalom in 2012 at the classic Swiss race in Adelboden and is likely to be on the World Cup tour this season.
QUOTABLE Your best ski racing moment so far?
Phil Brown. Photo courtesy Alpine Canada.
Lindsey Vonn during her previous return to skiing in Portillo, Chile, in August 2013. Vonn is again planning a comeback for the 2014-15 season.
Competing for Canada in the team event and placing fourth at the 2013 world champs in Schladming. The atmosphere at the event was something I will never forget. It was amazing to work with my teammates and make a run at a medal, missing the bronze by 0.01 seconds.
Worst moment? At the Kirchberg Europa Cup in January 2013. I was struggling and failed to make top 60 for a second run. I wasn’t skiing to my potential for the entire month and this was the icing on the cake. I received a well-deserved stern talking to from my coach at the time, Dusan Grasic. If anyone knows him, you know that he can deliver a stern talking like no other. My season turned around after this, so it was one of those things that just needed to happen.
If you could design your own World Cup spot anywhere in the world, where would it be? I think it would be amazing to have a city event in Toronto. The market isn’t huge for ski racing, but I think if they could somehow make an event out of it, people would show up, and it would be huge for growing the sport of skiing.
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FREESTYLE THE FUTURE IS NOW: KINGSBURY At the Vancouver 2010 Games, he was a 17-year-old spectator. In 2014, a silver medallist. 2018? Making his World Cup debut in January 2010, earning the FIS World Cup Rookie of the Year honours that season, Mikael Kingsbury has been a man on fire since. At his first World Championships in 2011, he took a bronze in moguls and silver in dual moguls, in the familiar position of one spot behind recently retired Alexandre Bilodeau. When Bilodeau took a break from competition in the 2011-12 season, Kingsbury took the reins, quickly becoming an unstoppable force, amassing dozens of World Cup medals and collecting three straight crystal globes as the overall men’s World Cup champion. Bilodeau stepped up one more time at Sochi 2014, exerting his will and executing one of the most impressive moguls runs in history, an emphatic gold-medal performance to become the first Canadian man to successfully defend an individual Olympic gold. Then he retired. On top. “We will miss Alex Bilodeau’s precedent-setting example of being a two-time Olympic champion,” said CFSA high-performance director David Mirota, “but our Sochi Olympians are stepping into their leadership roles. The team is a great mix. Athletes who podiumed in Sochi, strong top-10 results, and the development team pushing from below … it’s encouraging for our future. 2018 in Korea is already in the works.” Kingsbury enters the 2015 season as the one to beat again, and at just age 22, has his sights set on PyeongChang 2018 and beyond. “I have four years and many competitions between now and Korea,” said Kingsbury. “I’ve still got so much to learn and heights I want to reach. I want to have tricks that have never been done before by the time of the next Olympics.” Kingsbury already has 21 World Cup wins and 39 podiums in his remarkable career. He has four World Championships medals that cross the colour spectrum — a gold, two silvers and a bronze — plus his Sochi silver. “He’s the type of kid who always wants to push the bar higher and take the sport to the next level,” Mirota said. “He’s wellrounded. His biggest asset is his competitive mindset and ability to rise to the occasion. He feeds on that.” Mirota expects plenty more from Kingsbury in 2018 and 2022: “Mik already has a wide bag of tricks and can do a lot of tricks that he’s not allowed to do on tour. But the rules are always changing, and whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it should help him have that extra edge and be competitive for a long period of time.”
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THE PIPELINE ISSUE
Photos courtesy of Canadian Freestyle Ski Association.
FREESTYLE SETS UP FOR LONG-TERM SUCCESS What will you be watching this winter? And the next? And the next? Take a cue from CFSA high-performance director David Mirota and tune in to a fascinating reality show that unfolds on and off the ramps and slopes from Canada to the far reaches of the globe. “It’s very interesting once you start tracking an athlete or a particular team how you can see them go through their progression and how they evolve from one Games to the next,” Mirota said. “It’s almost like a TV reality show — there’s ups and downs that are part of the process, and surprises, too.” Unlike the Canadian alpine team, which has a host of newcomers this season and its share of recently retired stars, the Canadian freestyle contingent is relatively intact as the new Olympic cycle begins — aside from gold-medal moguls star Alex Bilodeau. Mikael Kingsbury is the clear ace on the world moguls scene, and likely will be for much of the next decade. But there is plenty of other talent to watch in the rampup to PyeongChang 2018, including five other Sochi medallists — Justine Dufour-Lapointe (moguls gold); Dara Howell (slopestyle gold); Chloé Dufour-Lapointe (moguls silver); Kim Lamarre (slopestyle bronze); and Mike Riddle (halfpipe silver). “It’s exciting times for us, trying to carry on the successes we’ve had these past Games,” Mirota said. “We need to continue innovating. We can’t be complacent, that’s for sure. We have a lot of athletes who have a target on their backs. Sometimes people see that as pressure. But as we’ve seen with Alex Bilodeau the first to defend back-to-back gold in freestyle history, for us, it’s an opportunity, and taking the sport to the next level.” CFSA will take a bit of a longer-term viewer starting this winter. Without overlooking the marque events on the calendar — the freestyle World Championship at Kreischberg, Austria (Jan. 15-25); X Games at Aspen (Jan. 22-25); and North American World Cup events — the organization has time to let athletes develop, encourage skill and trick development, and worry more about progression than podiums. “The first two years of this new cycle, we’ve made a conscious decision of having an eight-year approach,” Mirota said, “so we’re looking beyond 2018 and making sure our athletes’
pathways are evaluated … what’s working and what’s not working, looking for opportunities to stay ahead.” Marc-Antoine Gagnon and Philippe Marquis join Kingsbury on the moguls A group this season, while Maxime DufourLapointe and Audrey Robichaud return on the women’s A group. The talent is abundant at the newer disciplines, with the likes of Howell, Kim Lamarre, Kaya Turski and Rosalind Groenewoud fueling the women’s pipe and slopestyle arsenal, and male counterparts Riddle, Justin Dorey, Alex Beaulieu-Marchand, Alex Bellemare and Simon d’Artois aiming to contend this winter and beyond. The aerials picture is not one of strength in numbers, as Canada boasts only four athletes at the World Cup level — Travis Gerrits, Olivier Rochon and Jean-Christophe André on the men’s side and Sabrina Guerin on the women’s side. But the pipeline features clear potential in development teamers Lewis Irving and Melissa Corbo, as well as 18-year-old Montreal talent Catrine Lavallee, who reeled in gold at world juniors in April under the guidance of former world champion Nicolas Fontaine. “We heavily emphasis where they are in their skill pathway and making sure these benchmarks are clearly established, and keeping athletes on track and not skipping steps,” Mirota said of Lavallee’s effort. “But it was nice last year. We haven’t had a world junior champion in aerials, so it was good. We’ve been hit hard with injuries over the past cycle in aerials, so there’s been a lot of trial and error the past few cycles, and now we’re starting to get momentum from some of those younger athletes.”
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SKI ACADEMIES ARE A VITAL PART OF SUCCESS ON THE SLOPES: THE STAMS EXAMPLE by Max Gartner
T
he year was 1966 and the Austrians had suffered through a disastrous World Championships at Portillo, Chile. It was time to make significant changes. A nation that was built on ski tourism needed to be a leader in ski racing, not an also-ran.
well is ensuring that the overall stress load on the athletes can be well-managed. An increase in the athletic load is compensated with a decrease in the academic load, and vice versa. The “whole person” is developed and nurtured.
The solution was to introduce a new concept: a ski academy that would house the nation’s most talented young skiers under one roof to combine academic, athletic and ski development. This home base would provide a flexible school system, 18 hours of supervised athletic development each week and great coaching. In other words, a recipe for success on the slopes.
Another important piece is affordability and funding. In Stams, the cost per student is 4,000 euros a year for school, training, room and board. This is about 25 percent of the actual cost. About 75 percent of the cost is subsidized by provincial and federal governments. Needless to say, there’s a lot of competition to get into the school. A three-day entry exam is a welldeveloped screening of potential.
Forty-six years later, athletes from Stams Ski Academy have produced 30 Olympic gold medals, 70 World Championships gold medals and 15 World Cup overall wins. More importantly, Stams has produced many successful people with great careers in sport, medicine, law and other areas. It is a winning model that has been copied so many times in Austria and around the globe in a multitude of sports. Most of the great Austrian ski racers of the past 30 years came through that system — Benni Raich, Marlies Schild, Stefan Eberharter to name a few, as well as most of Austria’s great ski jumpers. Current Austrian superstars Marcel Hirscher and Anna Fenninger came through a school similar to Stams that is located in the Salzburg region. Each academy has a well-established “performance culture” as its foundation. The special ingredient that makes the academy work
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GREAT SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE THAT INCLUDES ACADEMIES AS PART OF THE SYSTEM AND GREAT COACHING ARE THE TWO MAJOR INGREDIENTS THAT DETERMINE FUTURE SUCCESS. Top academies are an important part of many successful sports systems around the world. The latest example has been the success of the German soccer team at the recent World
Cup in Brazil. After a disappointing showing several years ago, the European champions revamped their system. Starting soccer academies and an emphasis on developing great youth coaches was the key to developing so many new German soccer stars. In North America, there are quality ski academies. However, the cost to attend is significantly higher than young racers pay to go to Stams. They are run like a business that needs to break even and are NOT (yet) part of an integrated sport structure similar to those we see in Europe. Dr. Steve Norris, executive vice president and chief sports officer at WinSport in Calgary and a longtime advisor to Alpine Canada and many national federations, knows all about academies. He has traveled the world to study the best ones. WinSport has established an association with the Stams Academy with the goal of elevating WinSport snowsport developmental activities across the board, from WinSport Academy programs, to joint programs with allied provincial and national federations, to alliances with identified like-minded clubs, and, of course, the National Sport School. It will be important to find some new funding partners — either corporate or government — to support his efforts. There is real opportunity for Canada to establish a great feeder system for future winter sport success. There’s no great secret to producing ongoing success. Great system infrastructure that includes academies as part of the system and great coaching are the two major ingredients that determine future success. There needs to be a long-term com-
mitment and support for these projects. This is where strong leadership is crucial. Canada certainly has the resources to commit to this. After all, all of Canada stands a little taller when a Canadian athlete is on top of the Olympic podium.
Max Gartner is a graduate of Stams academy (1973-78). During his Stams days, his parents paid $150 a month. Max started with Alpine Canada in 1982 as an assistant coach and worked in many capacities, all the way to athletic director and president/CEO. Side note: Mark Sharp, head coach of Panorama Ski Team and former longtime ACA coach, is sending his son Keegan to Stams this year.
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PARTING SHOT
Mathieu Leduc
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I
t’s not as if the Canadian ski cross teamers haven’t been around the block. They continue to be the worldwide standard for high-functioning, high-producing teams. They have more mettle (and medals) than a Flint, Mich., General Motors factory. But the next generation is quietly tapping on the door, reminding the veterans that they need to work for their spot. At least soon. Olympic gold medallist and World Cup champion Marielle Thompson, Olympic silver medallist Kelsey Serwa and eight-time World Cup medallist Brady Leman lead the veteran pack. They’re at the top of the heap and fought hard to get there, but the youngsters are closing in. Aging veterans Chris Del Bosco, one of the most decorated ski cross racers on the circuit with 19 World Cup medals, and Dave Duncan (World Cup rank of sixth) are also imminent threats for medals. The next wave could include Tristan Tafel, 24, who has quietly battled his way to six top-10 World Cup results, including his first World Cup win in Bischofswiesen, Germany, two years ago. The former national development team alpine racer from Canmore, Alta, suffered a careerthreatening leg injury at the age of 17 but battled back to return to competition, now in ski cross. Comox, B.C., native Mathieu Leduc, despite a knee injury suffered at the end of last season, has been gaining valuable experience on the World Cup courses, and his eighthplace finish at Are, Sweden, last season has him pegged to make a move up the ranks. And Louis-Pierre Hélie, a former speed skier with the alpine ski team (30 World Cup starts), has made the adjustments to his game to suit ski cross since he switched over in 2012. Hélie, from Berthierville, Que., landed a career-best eighth-place at a World Cup in San Candido, Italy, in 2012 and has a handful of top-15 finishes in the 2013 and 2014 seasons. Whoever makes the jump, the standard is high.
Photo courtesy of Alpine Canada
THE YOUNG — AND VETERAN — GUNS OF SKI CROSS
www.snowsportsculture.com / S-Competition 15
Conquer the city. The all-new, agile Audi Q3. Finally, a compact SUV engineered to conquer city life. Whether it’s a tight parking spot, afternoon gridlock, or an impromptu shopping spree, the Q3 was designed to overcome it all. That’s why it’s equipped with features like Hill Assist, quattro® All-Wheel Drive, and generous trunk space.* The city awaits, so conquer away.
audi.ca/Q3 #ConquerTheCity ©2014 Audi Canada. *2015 Audi Q3 models come standard with 473 litres of cargo space and Hill Assist. quattro All-Wheel Drive is available on 2015 Audi Q3 quattro Progressiv and Technik models. European model shown. Some features not available on Canadian model. To find out more about Audi, visit your Audi dealer, call 1-800-FOR-AUDI, or visit us at audi.ca. “Audi”, “Q3”, “Vorsprung durch Technik”, and the four rings emblem are registered trademarks of AUDI AG.