By Andrew Mitchell
A year ago the women’s alpine snowboard team was practically non-existent. It was a rare event that even one woman would appear in the top-30, while two or three men would make the cut and earn FIS points.
That changed last season when team veteran Alexa Loo hit her stride. She cracked the top-30 in every World Cup race, and placed in the top-10 four times. She made the podium at Kronplatz, Italy, finishing third, then followed up with a fourth place at Lake Placid.
This season she finished 15 th at the season opening parallel slalom in Landgraaf, The Netherlands, and last weekend she followed up with a seventh place finish in the parallel giant slalom at Soelden, Austria. “My first race (in the quarterfinal) went very well,” said Loo, “I built a good lead. Unfortunately I made a small mistake on the second run and it cost me a lot of time.”
Loo lost her next round, but then defeated Heidi Krings of Austria in the consolation round by winning both runs. “I was fired up after making those mistakes,” said Loo.
Meanwhile, national team rookie Caroline Calvé placed 14 th in Soelden after placing seventh the week before, giving Canada two in the top-15.
On the men’s side, things did not go nearly as well. Michael Lambert missed the finals after placing 17 th in the qualifier. He had the 11 th best time in his first run, but was 25 th in his second.
Jasey-Jay Anderson and Matthew Morison did not advance either, finishing 43 rd and 44 th in qualifying.
Both the men’s and women’s alpine teams are returning to North America for a training camp, before heading to Copper Mountain for a World Cup on Nov. 20-21.
