Earlier this month a horde of alpine ski racers descended upon Jasper and Marmot Basin to compete in the first giant slalom race of the season.
Ninety-seven boys and 77 girls from across Alberta, along with their coaches, siblings and parents were on site early Saturday morning to race on Marmot Basin’s busiest day of the year.
The U14 race series is sponsored by Fidelity Investments and overseen by Alberta Alpine, but the real grunt work was done by the Snow Valley Ski Club, Marmot Basin staff and many volunteer parents from all of the clubs.
Each and every race requires 50–60 parent volunteers covering everything from timing, course work and gatekeeping. These events require a huge commitment and thankfully the snow gods, and Marmot’s snow making team, came through and pounded Dromedary with some good, hard snow.
Clear skies and mild temperatures were a nice change from the usual cold temperatures that January brings us and the Jan. 18 race was underway with ladies first at 10 a.m.
Some of the best terrain in Alberta, Dromedary provides exceptional terrain changes and steep pitches with varying fall lines that challenge the best skiers.
The race event consisted of four single run races held over Saturday and Sunday.
The difficult terrain and challenging courses saw roughly 25 girls and 30 boys not finish Saturday, with slightly less carnage on Sunday.
Roughly a third of the racers were unable to finish the courses and Saturday saw several race delays, while Sunday ran much smoother.
Jasper’s Walter Ostrander skied a very smooth, clean run to claim a fourth place finish in the first race, but could not repeat that in the next three. This would be Jasper’s best result for the weekend.
Eli Erb-Beauchamp and Thomas McKenney handled Saturday well and Thomas claimed 32nd place on Sunday morning, which is a great result for this first-year U14 racer.
Saje Rayner had a rough day Saturday, not managing to finish either race, and Sunday was again a challenge, when Rayner miscalculated his line in both races, costing serious time.
The U14 group is off to Nakiska for a speed/ski cross camp this week and in two weeks, Rayner will race in the Alberta Winter Games in Banff as a quota fill athlete for Zone 8 and Ostrander, Erb-Beauchamp and McKenney will race slalom at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary.
Jasper’s U16 team raced in Banff/Lake Louise Jan. 9–11. Slalom events were held at Mt. Norquay and the Giant Slalom at Lake Louise with parts set on the World Cup men’s downhill run. Our U16 racers are: Sadie Howe, Nicole Frechette, Maggie McKenney, Kala Schleppe, Jackie Proc and Patrick Mahler.
Also of note is former Jasper Ski Team athlete Sam Wall, who now races for Banff Alpine Racers.
Proc’s best result was a 13 in Slalom; Mahler 17 in Slalom; Howe 12 in Giant Slalom; Frechette 25 in Slalom; McKenney 27 in Slalom; Schleppe 19 in Slalom and Wall had two third place finishes in Slalom and a fourth in Giant Slalom.
Edmonton’s Michaela Lamb was ill and did not race.
The U16 group just returned from Panorama where they trained for Super G, which is a much faster, wide-open version of Giant Slalom, but not as wide-open as a true Downhill format. They are home this week and then off for a Super G and Slalom Race at Nakiska.
Our U12 group raced at home last weekend in two formats, Giant Slalom and Kinder Kombi—a combination of Slalom and Giant Slalom that sometimes has features such as berms and small jumps. The race saw U12 racers from all over the province.
Alex Rayner
Special to the Fitzhugh
