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Halfpipe ski team looking for respect

Self-funded athletes dominate World Cup
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Canada’s five-member ski halfpipe team returned home from the World Cup Finals last week with a lot to be happy about. Sarah Burke and Matt Hayward both won World Cup crystal globes for their overall halfpipe titles, while Mike Riddle and Rosalind Groenewoud placed third overall, and Justin Dorey was fourth.

Together the team won more than 50 per cent of all World Cup medals presented this season, and every gold medal but one. No other Canadian team fared as well on the World Cup circuit this year.

And they did it all with next to no support. The athletes paid their own way to competitions and chipped in to keep Trennon Paynter as their coach and manager. Sponsors at Swix wax supplied a ski tech for events, but otherwise Canada’s medal haul was completely funded by the athletes themselves.

By way of comparison, most European countries now have team funding and coaching by governments and sports organizations. Even New Zealand skiers get more support than the Canadians.

“North American countries, the U.S. and Canada, are pretty much the only ones that don’t support a program through government,” said Paynter.

Paynter adds that he is working to secure funding for the team through Sport Canada and the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association, which is the national sports organization for ski halfpipe, but has been told again and again that funding is reserved for Olympic athletes.

It’s a familiar story that other World Cup racers can relate to, like the Canadian downhill mountain bikers and the women’s ski jumping team, but Paynter says it’s better to invest now because he believes it’s only a matter of time before his sport is included in the Olympic Games.

“It sounds pretty positive for 2014 at all levels, they’re talking within FIS (International Ski Federation) and all the freestyle associations,” he said. “But while everybody I talked to thinks we have a really good shot at 2014, I’m holding out a candle of hope for 2010.”

Given Canada’s performance on the World Cup tour, and the fact that the Canadian athletes also made the podium at X Games, Superpipe, the U.S. Open, and other pro events, Paynter says it’s in Canada’s best interest to push for the inclusion of ski halfpipe in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

“Even if it’s a million to one against it happening, that’s still no reason to give up now,” he said.

There are two objections he hears whenever he brings up the matter. The first objection is that it’s too late to add ski halfpipe to the Games, to which he replies that snowboard halfpipe was added to the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano less than 16 months out from the Games at the request of the Nagano organizing committee.

Paynter believes that the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) could be successful if they applied the same kind of pressure to ski halfpipe, which has been identified by the International Olympic Committee as a way to draw more youth interest in the Winter Games.

“The snowboard halfpipe was the first event to sell out in Torino (2006 Winter Games),” said Paynter. “It really captured the youth market, and I know the IOC has been straight up about its need to appeal to youth.”

The second objection Paynter hears is that the sport is not developed enough for inclusion in the Games. To that Paynter answers that there are more athletes and more nations competing in World Cup ski halfpipe than there were countries competing in World Cup snowboard halfpipe in 1996.

Besides, he believes that FIS did its best job yet with this season’s World Cup event. The events were well-organized, well-attended, and turned heads at every resort they were held.

“On the women’s side, all the top names were out there that you would see in the X-Games,” he said. “A few of the big names were missing on the men’s side… but almost everybody was there that you would see at a top professional event. Also, our guys competed in all the pro events this year and still made the podium.

“I know that every top (ski halfpipe) pro out there wants to see their sport in the Olympics. There is nobody that wouldn’t show up if we put on a halfpipe event in 2010.”

According to Paynter, nobody has made an official submission to the IOC to include the sport but he plans to spend time in the off-season tracking down members of VANOC and Canadian IOC delegates to make a case for the Canadian team. He also needs to find sponsors for his team for next season.

Paynter did not start out as a national team coach, but was hired by the Alberta Freestyle Association to coach a ski halfpipe program when the sport was added to the World Cup calendar. He started to take his athletes to pro events, like the World Ski and Snowboard Festival, and started to aim higher when his athletes like Matt Hayward, Mike Riddle and Rosalind Groenewoud started to win. Sarah Burke, who is from Ontario but lives in Squamish these days, joined the team a few years ago to get in some coaching, and Justin Dorey from Vernon asked to be part of the team this season.

Because the team was competing internationally, the Alberta program cut the team loose a year ago to refocus on the development level. There were no tryouts, no qualifiers, and no criteria, and yet Paynter ended up with the winningest team on the World Cup circuit this year.

With the World Cup improving, Paynter says there is more interest from skiers in his team than ever before. As to what happens next, he wants to let the athletes decide the criteria for accepting new skiers to the program — at least until the program has formal government funding and needs to create criteria for a national team. He will also use the summer to approach more sponsors to help the team cover its costs next season.

“We want to stay together and keep doing what we’re doing one way or another,” said Paynter.