Mount Washington Freestyle Club sent five athletes to the 2014 BC Winter Games in Mission: Mei Pond and Hannah Benischeck from Whistler, Todd Heard from Duncan, James Dunn from Nanaimo, and Erin Sketchley from Campbell River.
Skiers competed in two different events: moguls and slopestyle. Now that Canada has a number of Olympic medal in these events, Canadians are familiar with them.
Moguls are scored with 50 per cent for the turns, 25 per cent for the jumps, and 25 per cent for speed. After the first day of moguls, Island skiers finished with excellent results: Mei won a gold with a score of 16.32, Todd a silver with a score of 17.70, Hanna a bronze with a score of 14.99, Erin a fourth with a score of 13.56, and James an eighth with a score of 7.39.
The second day of competition was slopestyle. After sliding on rails and hitting a number of jumps, Island freestylers finished strong: Erin won gold with a score of 26.6, Hannah also won gold with a score of 23, Mei scored 17.6 to win a bronze, Todd earned a silver with a score of 62, and James did not have a clean run and finished tenth with a score of 16.6.
The next competition is in Silver Star in March. So some of the kids will be training with a special guest coach, Mike Richards, at the Podium of Life Snow Sports Academy on Mount Washington over the next couple of weeks.
– Podium of Life Snow Sports Academy