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Grief and greatness mark historic year in sports
Loss of athletes overshadows record accomplishments by national teams
by Andrew Mitchell
Page 4 of 10
• In snowboarding, the team's biggest results were in snowboardcross where Dominique Maltais won the overall Crystal Globe and Maëlle Ricker, returning from a knee injury that required two surgeries, was second overall. Together they combined for seven podium appearances last year, not including X Games or other races. The team lost Olympic silver medallist Mike Robertson, who announced that he was retiring from racing following a head injury, but Chris Robanske stepped up to win the only World Cup medal in men's snowboardcross.
On the pro side, the big news heading into last season was the approval of snowboard slopestyle as an Olympic discipline. It was welcome news for the team with top athletes like Seb Toutant, Mark McMorris, Spencer O'Brien and others leading the charge.
Caroline Calvé made history as the first Canadian woman to win an alpine snowboarding World Cup race last season. She already has one silver to her credit this season to lead the entire alpine team.
• Winter X Games 16 took place in Aspen in January, and Canadians combined for a total of 12 medals to rank second behind the U.S. (27 medals). Seven of Canada's medals were golden. The medal winners were Kaya Turski (gold in women's ski slopestyle), Noah Bowman (second in men's ski halfpipe), Rosalind Groenewoud (first in women's ski halfpipe), Chris DelBosco and Dave Duncan (first and third in men's ski cross), Sam Daniels and Josh Dueck (first and third in men's mono skier cross), Mark McMorris (first in snowboard big air and snowboard slopestyle), Sebastian Toutant (third in men's snowboard slopestyle), and Dominique Maltais and Maëlle Ricker (first and third in women's snowboardcross).
• For the past two seasons, Whistler has played host to the AFP World Championships — the final events on the Association of Freeskiing Professionals' World Tour. For athletes, it's the last chance to earn tour points and contend for overall AFP titles, or to get noticed if they manage to wrangle a spot on the roster. Mike Riddle won the men's halfpipe contest, Rosalind Groenewoud of Squamish was third in women's halfpipe, Vincent Gagnier was second in men's big air and Yuki Tsubota of Pemberton was third in women's slopestyle.
2012 also saw the creation of a new snowboard event during the World Ski and Snowboard Festival, a five-star TTR World Tour sanctioned slopestyle and big air held during The Shred Show. Vancouver Islander Darcy Sharpe, a 16-year-old who has been training with the Whistler Valley Snowboard Club, secured his spot on the international snowboard scene with a win in the big air event and a sixth place result in the slopestyle.
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