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Maelle Ricker

Ball still rolling
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In the last couple of weeks great results have been popping up left, right, and centre for the Canadian Snowboard Team, to the point it’s almost hard to keep track of all the successes of the group.

Once a ball gets rolling, the momentum created is hard to stop, and the ball is definitely rolling for Canadian snowboarders at the moment.

Matt Morison, a name that I’ve had to type a lot recently, is still on fire. He got a bronze in Switzerland. He then went north to Russia to claim a nice second place medal. The next stop on Matt’s path of destruction was Japan, where he picked up gold.

Matt has been collecting easily as much cash as he has collected air miles in the last couple of months. In Japan he even took first place ahead of Olympic silver medalist Simon Schoch.

His teammate and traveling roommate, Jasey Jay Anderson, also walked away from the Japan PGS with a fourth place finish under his belt. All in all, these two guys started a chain of great results on the first day of the World Cup in Furano.

Day two of Furano was a blitz of action as well. The snowboardcross course was amazing, almost exactly the opposite style course from the World Championships in Arosa, Switzerland. The course had two corners as opposed to 12, but with 14 jumps compared with five on the world’s course. The only thing the two tracks had in common was the length.

The morning began with a bang. Drew Neilson and I both won the time trials going into finals. Normally one would think this was a good thing, but our wax tech had a different opinion. The only thing on JP’s mind was what happened exactly one year ago to this race date, the Olympic SBX race. And what happened on Feb. 17 th , 2006? Drew qualified first, and I qualified first, and we both went down in finals. Drew messed up his back. I knocked myself silly. So to put it mildly, JP was worried.

Superstitions aren’t normally part of our pre-race preparations. We have routines that we like to follow, but not so much of a routine that it would be classified as superstition. However, JP wasn’t going to chance anything that day. He gave all his riders the mandatory knuckles and went back to his tuning bench to work on the next board.

He also refused to watch any of the heats, something that has now become a part of his “routine”.

Drew and I gave each other our signature deer antler salute in the start gate, another “routine” that has now unofficially become part of our pre-race cycle. I used to squat down in the start gate and make sure my knee was bending accordingly. This was something I did off and on in races to get in check before the gate dropped. Now it is yet another “routine” behaviour at the start line.

I guess my point is this — we all practised our usual pre-game preparations in Japan, things that someone looking in from the outside might call superstitions. But call it what you will, it worked! Not only did Drew and I win time trials, but we also walked away with the races. Simon Bonefonte got up on the podium as well in the third place spot. Canada was still on fire and there was still one more day in Furano.

The third day of the World Cup was the halfpipe. The pipe was not well liked by the riders. And the riders were not well liked by the pipe. The contest claimed many victims. We only had two Canadians competing in the event, both injured by the holes in the walls and the flat light. Dan Raymond and Crispin Lipscomb both put on impressive shows despite their physical outcomes. They both easily made finals and had great intentions for the afternoon.

Dan managed to survive the first run and come up with a fourth place finish. Crispin didn’t even make it past the first hit. He caught a hole on the way up and got spun upside down and out of control into the flat bottom. He fractured his collarbone and now has some rehabilitation to do back in Whistler. Dan separated his shoulder on the exact same hit as Crispin in his second run. Still, he kept his fourth place finish, which is not a bad way to place, considering.

The best part of Japan is not the competition. The best part of this trip was the powder riding, followed closely by the food. Japanese World Cups are always a step above the others. Add a few good powder days and it’s unbeatable!