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Ski cross team looking forward

New national program a joint effort of alpine and freestyle organizations, snow sports association

None of the candidates for the new Canada Ski Cross team are strangers to the sport, but things will be a lot different this December when athletes head up to the start gates.

For the first time ever athletes will be competing as a team, with skis expertly tuned by a team technician, and bodies kept healthy by a team physiotherapist. Behind them will be staff coaches, and an organization dedicated to providing Canada’s best ski cross athletes with all the physical, mental and financial support they need to succeed.

“One of the biggest changes this year is that we’re now part of a team,” said Whistler’s Davey Barr, who has been competing internationally in ski cross for the past seven years. “We have support coming in from every angle instead of being on our own and having to search for all that support. We have team members that we can rely on, and ask questions, and train beside, which is something most of us have never had.”

Barr’s list of career achievements includes everything from podiums at the X Games, to a win at the U.S. Freeskiing Nationals. Last year he was one of a handful of Canadian skiers to qualify for the inaugural ski cross world championships.

Once ski cross was confirmed as an official Olympic discipline for 2010, Barr decided he was going to do his best to represent Canada.

“When it was first announced for the Olympics I was excited, but even then I didn’t really know what was going to happen,” he said. “Now all of a sudden we have a national team and support. It’s pretty cool to be involved with something that’s so new from the very beginning.”

Barr says the decision to create a national ski cross organizations will improve the way he prepares for races.

“One of the main things that will be different for me this year is just having a coach to advise me, and just the ability to watch video at the end of the day to see where the passing opportunities are, and where all the fastest lines are,” said Barr. “Before you just had to try to picture it in your head, and hope you got it right.

“The technical support is also huge for us, waxing our skis and keeping them tuned for the exact conditions. Getting the hole shot is one thing, but if you do get out of the gate in second and your skis are running, and the guy with the hole shot’s skis are not running, then you’re going to pull ahead.

“There are so many factors in ski cross that can affect your run, and we’re on our way to eliminating a lot of them.”

Peter Smart, the high performance director for Ski Cross Canada, said the entire program had to come together quickly to assemble a team for this season. This past April a preliminary selection camp was held at Cypress to identify candidates. A training camp on the Farnham Glacier this summer further refined the list of candidates. The final team will be announced before mid-December, when the Honda Ski Tour and Jeep King of the Mountain series get underway in the U.S. From there the schedule picks up, with races every weekend in January.

The team will compete in 10 events this season, including pro events like X Games, and World Cup events in North America and Europe. At all events the racers will be accompanied by a ski technician, at least one physiotherapist, and both national team coaches, Eric Archer and Brent Kehl.

Airfare, accommodation and food will be paid for by Ski Cross Canada (SCC), which is also new for the athletes. At this early stage SCC is entirely funded by the Own The Podium 2010 program, with support from Alpine Canada, the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association, and the Canadian Snow Sports Association.

“We’ve essentially just gone through recruiting, athletes and staff, and to a place where we can narrow the list down for the team for the season,” said Smart. “We’ve got a pretty good idea who’s going to be at the team at this point, like Stan Heyer who was second in the world championships last year, and Davey Barr, Brian Bennett, Annik Demers — they were picked for the team before the team even existed because of their international experience.”

The CSS has a marketing manager looking for sponsorship and other funding sources, but Smart says creating a team that’s a solid medal contender at home in 2010 is the team’s first priority.

“Over the next few years, from a team perspective, what we need most is for our athletes to stay healthy and to develop our athletes to become as elite as they can,” said Smart. “Most of our racers have competed in these events for years, as did I, but ski cross was predominantly an event-based sport that usually revolved around something else that was going on. That changed overnight.

“Now it’s becoming an elite amateur sport, and the level of training and discipline is being stepped up and our competitive schedule is being stepped up as well. To be a success our skiers have to be prepared, which means dryland training, having camps on the glacier in the summer months, and having all the support in place… to serve our athletes and their needs.

“I can remember going to events and coming home all beat up and battered, but there was no system to get healthy again and racing again. These athletes will have physiotherapists, trainers, coaches — everything they have on the snowboard team and alpine team, or any other national team.”

On the sponsorship side, SCC’s marketing manager, Andrew Squires, says there is a lot of interest, but it’s been slow finding equipment sponsors and funding partners.

“There is growing interest, but apprehension as well within the ski industry,” he said. “The way the snow was in Europe last year everyone took a real beating on the clothing and gear side, and budgets are strapped.

“As for corporate backing, it’s going to happen soon. You tend to take for granted a lot of things like infrastructure when you set up a program like this so our first priority was putting the pieces in place so we could look professional when approaching people. Most of the people I’ve spoken to find ski cross very interesting — it’s not a fringe sport, but it is a sport with a very distinct kind of atmosphere. It’s more of an extreme, X Games mentality, which appeals to a lot of people...

“Certainly the fact that the Olympic committee adopted this as a full medal sport without the usual probationary period speaks volumes about the potential for the sport and makes it easier for us.”

Squires will be in charge of team communications this season, and keeping the media up to date on Canada’s ski cross athletes. However, he also sees the potential to build interest in the sport from a grass roots level that will keep the public interested in the SCC.

“This year our plan is to go out and speak to different ski hills across the country and maybe get them to host a few events,” he said. “The beauty of the sport is that you don’t need a lot of vertical or large tracts of land, just enough snow to build some tables and berms. We do see it as an interesting and fun sport, and something you can do as a family. It would be great to set up a grass roots Canadian series to develop all those ski racers out there into ski cross athletes, and build excitement for the sport.”

According to Smart, another key to winning in 2010 will be to get athletes onto the new course at Cypress as often as possible. The team got to race on a rough version of the course that was set up for snowboarders at the first recruitment camp, and will have an opportunity to ski the completed course once there is snow on the ground this winter. There will likely be another selection camp as well, with some new athletes that were not able to attend the recruitment camp at Cypress or the camp at Farnham Glacier.

The website for the SCC is www.ski-cross.ca .