A pair of Whistler Mountain Ski Club (WMSC) alumni helped Canada top the podium at the Junior World Championships team event in Are, Sweden, on March 12.
Stefanie Fleckenstein and Jack Crawford teamed up with Jeffrey Read and Ali Nullmeyer to defeat top-ranked Austria in the finals. The third-seeded Canadians had edged Poland, knocked off Sweden and nipped Germany en route to the championship round.
Individually, Crawford was tantalizingly close to adding to his medal collection, taking fourth-place finishes in both downhill and giant slalom events.
Crawford, meanwhile, posted a top result of 14th in the alpine combined.
Nullmeyer claimed a silver in slalom, placing just 0.09 seconds back of winner Camille Rast of Switzerland. Fellow Canadian Sam Mulligan took fourth in the men's super-G and Read placed in the top 15 in four separate races in Sweden.
Full results are online at www.fis-ski.com.
Squamish snowboarder earns bronze at FIS Worlds
Squamish's Chris Robanske teamed up with Vernon's Kevin Hill to hit the podium at the FIS Snowboard World Championships at Sierra Nevada, Spain on March 12.
In the relay-style boardercross team event, the first-ever at the world championships, Robanske crossed the line behind American Nick Baumgartner and Spaniard Lucas Eguibar.
"It's been the hardest year of my life on the tour. Things haven't been clicking, not going well. I had bad luck, kind of a little bit of everything," Robanske said in a release. "I told myself: 'We will be attacking [today], giving everything we have.' So we took that, we believed in our team which is behind us, and today it worked."
To this point in the season, Robanske had a season-best ninth in Feldberg, Germany, in February. In the individual boardercross event in Spain, he placed 42nd.
The World Cup season will wrap up in Veysonnaz, Switzerland later this month.
Meanwhile, Laurie Blouin, of Stoneham, Que., earned slopestyle gold, impressing the judges with tricks like a cab double underflip and a frontside 50-50 180 out.
"I'm pretty happy. It's been just an incredible week here," she said in a release. "I didn't expect it, you don't want to be too sure of yourself. But I worked so hard, and that just proved to me that the work that I did was worth it."
It was Blouin's best-ever result, topping her previous best of second on the World Cup tour in Seiser Alm, Italy earlier this season.
Francis Jobin was the top Canadian on the men's side in 11th.
Canadian boarders medal at X Games
Mark McMorris continued his comeback story at the X Games in Oslo, Norway on March 11.
After suffering a broken femur last season, Regina's McMorris has recovered and won the big air event at the X Games, landing a backside triple cork 1620 switch to nail down a score of 85.00 to snare the win. He edged out fellow Canadian Max Parrot of Bromont, Que., who was just one point back in second.
On the women's side, Spencer O'Brien of Courtenay placed fifth.
Meanwhile, Sebastian Toutant came up big on his second slopestyle run on March 10.
The native of l'Assomption, Que., stomped his second run to score an 84.00 to earn a snowboard slopestyle bronze behind winner Sven Throgren of Sweden and Stale Sandbech of Norway. His impressive run included a cab 1260 nose grab, a backside 1440 mute and frontside double cork 1080.
McMorris placed sixth and Bromont, Que.'s Max Parrot took eighth.
WBFSC skiers attend moguls nationals
The Whistler Blackcomb Freestyle Ski Club (WBFSC) was well represented at the Canadian National Junior Championships for moguls at Le Relais, Que., on March 10 and 11.
Eleven local skiers attended, with nine coming from the WBFSC and two from the Whistler Blackcomb Freestyle Development Program also getting the call.
Maya Mikkelsen, competing in the women's U14 category, narrowly missed the podium in both the moguls and dual moguls events with fourth-place finishes in both. Cassidy Butterworth and Lynette Conn hit the top 10 in single moguls, taking sixth and eighth, respectively, while Butterworth was also sixth in the dual moguls.
As for the U16s, Jessica Linton and Raine Haziza were sixth and seventh, respectively, in both events, while Ava Dunham suffered an injury in training and sat out.
On the men's side, Oscar Van Dongen took a fourth-place finish in the dual moguls while Philip Kang placed ninth. In single moguls, Kang was sixth while Van Dongen was eighth.
Owen Ternoway, celebrating his 18th birthday over the weekend, placed 18th in both events in his division.
Complete results are available at www.freestylecanada.ski.
Field 31st at NCAAs
Former WMSC skier Charley Field didn't quite put together the runs she'd hoped for at the NCAA Championships at Cannon Mountain in Franconia, N.H., on the weekend.
The Pembertonian, representing the University of Alaska-Anchorage (UAA), was 31st in the slalom and did not finish the giant slalom.
As a team, UAA finished 11th overall. The University of Utah eked out the win over University of Colorado and University of Denver.
