Freestyle Whistler alumni Skye Clarke and Steven Kahnert will be heading to the Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne, Switzerland next month.
Clarke, a 17-year-old slopestyler, found out she'd be going in early December, receiving official confirmation on Dec. 14 that she'd be going to Switzerland.
"I was super excited, obviously," she said. "It's pretty crazy to think about."
Clarke earned experience on the international stage in 2019 when she competed at the FIS Junior World Ski Championships in Sweden, finishing fifth in slopestyle and 12th in big air. While the experience made her realize how wide the freestyle skiing world truly is, having attended something similar helped lessen the butterflies for her trip to the Youth Olympic Games.
"I would be a lot more nervous if I hadn't been to Junior Worlds this year," she said. "I definitely learned a lot from Junior Worlds. I met so many cool people, and they're all so nice and they just really love skiing."
Despite her initial success at the Junior Worlds, Clarke is keeping her expectations in check going into the Youth Olympics.
"I'm going to go in, try to have fun and just ski the best that I can," she said.
After working on a handful of tricks on the trampoline in the offseason, Clarke is still working to get them nailed down while on snow. She hopes to get some additional practice time over Christmas in an attempt to have them dialled before heading to Lausanne.
"I've tried some new stuff, but I feel like I haven't gotten it nailed down yet. Hopefully soon I can get them nailed down," she said.
Clarke has had an encouraging start to the season so far, taking second place in her first event of the season in the Canada Cup at Mount Sima, Yukon.
Another Freestyle Whistler alumnus, Steven Kahnert, also qualified to go to the Games. Kahnert, who has competed in both halfpipe and slopestyle on the NorAm Cup circuit, is now part of the BC Park and Pipe Team.
Kahnert said he was "pretty surprised" when he discovered he had made the team earlier in December.
"It was something that I thought I'd never have the opportunity to do, especially when you get to go across the world and go skiing," he said. "It's pretty crazy to me."
Kahnert said he'd been in consideration since the summer, but was initially named to the team as the first alternate. When a teammate was injured, he was called into action. With the potential to take part, Kahnert said he tried to avoid thinking about it as much as possible and focus only on what he could control.
"I'm not thinking about that. I just go skiing and have fun and whatever happens, happens," he said. "I just want to enjoy it, have fun, and ski as well as I can."
The 16-year-old described the cork 900 as his favourite trick, but said his approach is currently based more on his amplitude than what he can pull out from his bag of tricks.
"In the halfpipe, I like to go big and that's one of the things that's fun about it for me, trying to go as big as I can, and push myself in that way," he said.
In his first NorAm Cup of the season at Copper Mountain Resort, Kahnert opened with a 28th in the halfpipe on Dec. 20 before jumping to ninth in the second contest on Dec. 21.
"I was down there with a bunch of good guys, having fun skiing. I didn't put too much pressure on myself, since it was my first time back in the pipe this year. I was just skiing, having fun and getting back into the rhythm of it," he said. "It's the absolute best pipe I've ever ridden. It's really nice. It had just snowed a bunch right before we got there, so it wasn't too icy."
By the end of the season, Kahnert hopes to secure himself a slot on the Canadian NextGen team.
