Western Canada’s elite U16’s converged at the Sun Peaks Resort for a four-day camp and time trial to kick start the 2012-13 season for this age group.
The Western provincial co-op camp, which ended Sunday, had a total of 36 skiers from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and B.C., commit to plenty of skiing, fitness training, off-hill performance activities and of course friendly provincial rivalry. B.C. had 16 racers and four coaches from around the province in Sun Peaks.
“Despite the soft snow we had a very positive and productive camp,” said Rob Boyd, Whistler Mountain Ski Club’s Sport Development Manager and Team BC lead coach for the camp. “We had two days of slalom with three timed runs and over 1,000 gates trained, and two days of GS with about 250 gates - one successfully timed run before the course conditions became too dangerous to continue.”
At the conclusion of the times calculations, B.C. was awarded the provincial title, with a healthy lead over Alberta thanks to strong performances from Whistler Mountain Ski Club's Jack Crawford, Riley Seger and Max Peiffer, Grouse-Tyee's Antonia Wearmouth, Apex Mountain Racer's Meg Cumming and Windermere Valley Ski Club's Courtney Hoffos.
On the last day of the camp the skies cleared to showcase the 40 centimetres of powder snow that had accumulated. “We had a couple runs of untracked champagne Okanagan powder ... I let the parents know that their kids would return home with new smile lines etched in their faces,” said Boyd.
“We had a strong provincial group and I suspect they learned a lot from the experience.”