Mark Tilston is set to make the jump from Whistler back to the World Cup.
Tilston, who spent the last five years at the Whistler Mountain Ski Club (WMSC) as executive director, was announced as the new men's head coach for Alpine Canada on April 3. The reveal came a day after Tilston posted a farewell letter to the WMSC website.
"I really enjoyed my time at the club and I learned an awful lot here, but at the same time, I'm excited to go back and work on the World Cup and work with some world-class athletes," Tilston said on April 6. "I'm very excited, all in all."
In his announcement on the WMSC website on April 2, Tilston said that marketing and sponsorship director Bob Armstrong was set to take over his role with the club.
With the national team, Tilston will head up a program that has plenty of WMSC content in up-and-comers Broderick Thompson, Brodie Seger, Cameron Alexander, Jack Crawford, Kyle Alexander, and Riley Seger as well as veteran Manuel Osborne-Paradis. While the local connection means Tilston has crossed paths with his new charges, he doesn't necessarily feel he has a head start on how to lead them.
"You kind of have a very superficial knowledge," he said. "You've seen a little bit of their results and you know where they come from. But by no stretch of the imagination do I have a great understanding of them as athletes. As people, to a large extent I do, but not as athletes."
In a release, Alpine Canada high performance director of alpine Phil McNichol said he was thrilled to bring Tilston in to the program.
"We are ecstatic to have Mark join our team and the collective long-term effort to advance our high-performance programs," said McNichol. "His vast knowledge and experience in sport science, the Canadian domestic alpine system and World Cup coaching will have a high impact on the work ahead."
Tilston, who holds a degree in Applied Sport Science from the University of Edinburgh and has prior national team coaching experience with both the British and Spanish programs, recalled that the most significant lessons he took from those experiences is that it's impossible to have a cookie-cutter approach.
"The biggest thing for me that I learned is that every athlete is different. The motivation behind every athlete is different. The challenges for them are different," he said. "In a sport like skiing, you can't take one model and apply that broadly across everybody because they've all got different critical, psychological strengths and weaknesses. They're all coming at it from a different philosophy."
Apart from the mental side of things, Tilston noted that a sport like skiing is one in which those with different body types can be successful, but of course, that means crafting a unique attack for each competitor.
"In skiing, you can have tall athletes, short athletes, heavy athletes and lighter athletes, but they all have to come at it from a different angle," he said.
On that note, Tilston's first order of business when he takes the reins on May 1 will be to get to know more about each racer so they can have a fruitful relationship when on-snow skiing resumes post-pandemic.
"I'll have to meet everybody. I guess it will be virtually," he said. "I'm looking forward to speaking with the athletes, learning more about them and the challenges that they face, and getting that individual perspective of things."
In his half-decade with the WMSC, one of Tilston's major takeaways was seeing how a team comes together to provide for each individual athlete.
"The overwhelming takeaway is really community, whether it's community within the ski club or community within Whistler or community within skiing, the ski club is connected in so many ways to so many individuals, groups and organizations," he said. "It really does only work as a result of that community component.
"The people that are involved in the club and are in all the same communities, I've met an incredible group of people."
Tilston, who is married to local Olympic ski racer Britt (nee Janyk), will stay based in Whistler, at least for now.
"It's definitely a different role and it's more specialized, but ultimately, I don't think I can say enough about how valuable my time at the club has been, both personally and professionally," he said.
