Some of North America’s top ski crossers gathered at Red Mountain on March 11 and 12 for Red’s first-ever FIS Ski Cross Freestyle NorAm Cup.
The course and the mountain got top marks from Ski Cross Canada’s director, Chad Weir. Red’s course had “great flow,” he said, with “fast roller sections and good transition zones between technical features.”
The 1760-metre cross course, one of the longer courses on this year’s NorAm ski cross circuit, has been under construction throughout the winter for use by boarders and skiers. It features both flat and steep stretches with jumps, rollers, and sharp turns.
As is standard for cross events, athletes raced in timed qualifying heats and were then separated into groups of three or four to race head-to-head while negotiating the technical terrain at speeds in the neighbourhood of 40 km/h.
Weir is pleased that the sport is growing in Canada and the world, with ski cross included as an official alpine discipline by FIS since 2006. International attention was focused on its inclusion in the Olympics last year and spectators have been enthralled by the combination of alpine technique, big air, and strategy.
Weir noted “Canadians are currently producing some of the best ski cross competitors in the world.”
Red Mountain has played its role in Canada’s rise in the ski cross world, operating as a training ground for the last three years and hosting Japanese, French, and Australian skiers as they prepared for the Olympics last year.
In fact, Red’s reputation has grown to the point that the resort secured a spot on the World Cup this year, but organizers at the resort decided the economic climate was not right to secure the large sponsorship dollars needed to host the event, and snowmaking would also be necessary to build Olympic-size features.
As it is, Red’s first NorAm ski cross event attracted lots of rising stars to a course that challenged their abilities.