The Sun Peaks Freestyle Club just finished its first year with a high-performance ski team and the club’s management reports it’s been a significant success for the athletes involved.
The team had eight competitions this season and is in its final stretch before spring when training begins for the upcoming season. High-performance director and head coach Chris Mavin said results this season are impressive, considering the high-performance freestyle ski team has only been together for one season.
“We had no expectations going into this year because it was the rookie year for a lot of these [members] competing at the next level. They’ve blown us away,” Mavin told SPIN.
Mavin explained that last season he and the board of directors identified a need for a high-performance team with several athletes capable of competing at the national level.
The team’s last competition for the season will be in Silver Star Mountain Resort for BC Championships from April 6 to 9. After, members will take a two-week break before heading to Whistler for spring training.
“It’s been a very intense season — one of the most competition-dense seasons I’ve known,” Mavin said. “All of our big competitions were split between December and January, then BC Winter Games, Junior Nationals and BC Championships were all packed into three weeks in March and April. We’ve been on the road a lot.”
The team’s most recent competition was the Canadian Junior Nationals in Calgary at WinSport from March 30 to April 2. Jackson Atkinson, Cooper Basko, Ryder McKenzie-White, Kristian Stoll and Gabi Dinn qualified to represent B.C. during the competition. Cooper won U14 slopestyle and Stoll came second in U14 slopestyle.
Earlier season results
Results from the BC Winter Games at Silver Star Resort saw Atkinson come third in U14 slopestyle and second in U14 big air while McKenzie-White came third in U16 slopestyle. Dinn placed second in U16 big air.
In late February, the Timber Tour freestyle competition in Fernie saw athletes on the team competing at the provincial level, with multiple competitors making the podium.
In slopestyle competitions for U14 results, Cooper Basko landed in first place, Atkinson came second and Stoll was fourth. Slopestyle U16 results saw McKenzie-White come second — he also placed third for big air U16.
Separate Super Youth events over the same period as the Timber Tour in Fernie saw plenty of success, too. Quinn Basko placed first in U12 slopestyle, Alexandra Thompson won silver in U14 slopestyle, Patrick Burns won gold in Moguls for U14, Zac Bown placed second for U8 moguls and Logan Bown won gold for U12 moguls.
January saw members compete at the Canada Cup series event at Horseshoe Resort in Barrie, Ont. The event saw Cooper Basko qualify for finals and place 12th. Dinn won gold for slopestyle and big air and also won the best overall results for the Canada Cup series as a whole. Dinn also won gold at the Sun Peaks Canada Cup competition in early January.
Mavin thanked all the athletes for their hard work, as well as Sun Peaks Resort and the community for ensuring the team’s success.
“The facilities [at Sun Peaks Resort] are fantastic. It gives them the ability to continually train and work on making small things better, which then leads to much bigger and better performance[s] overall.”
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