Race Report by Laura and Hubert Lai

114 athletes took part in last weekend’s Teck Open races, which were hosted at Kimberley on Saturday, February 9 and Sunday, February 10. The Whistler Mountain Ski Club (WMSC) was well represented, with 8 women and 14 men in the field.

Race conditions were firm and the weather was extremely cold throughout the weekend. The low temperatures challenged all the racers, coaches, and volunteers. Many people had frostbite and were using tape on their face to block the wind.

Originally, the organizers had hoped to run slalom races under the lights but the extreme weather conditions made this difficult so, in the end, the
Kimberley event consisted of a total of 2 Super G races for each of the men and the women.

Women’s Super G Race 1 (Saturday):
On Saturday, WMSC athletes comprised 8 of the 50 women who successfully completed the Super G race. It was a stupendous showing for the WMSC women, with four of them finishing in the top 10: Emeline Bennett won the race, with Jaden Dawson and Sara Stiel completing a sweep of the podium. Fiona McInnes came in 5th.

Women’s Super G Race 2 (Sunday):
Sunday was another truly outstanding showing for the WMSC women, with four of them finishing in the top 10: Once again, Emeline Bennett won the race, with Jaden Dawson and Sara Stiel completing a sweep of the podium. Fiona McInnes improved one position for her Saturday result, finishing just off the podium in 4th. What incredible results for these talented and hard-working athletes!

As with all the athletes, double-race-winner Emeline Bennett certainly noticed the cold: “It was hard to feel like your muscles were completely ready because of either not warming up for long enough because it’s cold or staying inside too long be cause it’s cold!”
When asked about the secret to her success, Emeline was graciously modest: “During the week I go to the gym up to four times and then usually only train Saturday and Sunday but I try to get some extra Thursdays and Fridays in, whenever I can. I chug a lot of water before warm up. I don’t usually have two pairs of skis so I like to do some runs on the ones I will race on and I do a lot of visualization and usually take the maximum time for inspection. I have no clue in Super G. It’s my tuck for sure and, other than that, I don’t know!”

Men’s Super G Race 1 (Saturday):
On Saturday, WMSC athletes comprised 14 of the 53 men who successfully completed the Super G race. While the victory went to Grouse athlete, Taylor Nellis, WMSC men crushed the field, with 7 of them finishing in the top 10: Graham Seltzer and Sam Fuller took 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Just off the podium was Matthias Shorter in 4th. Rounding out the WMSC men who achieved top 10 finishes were Adam Usher in 5th, David Wood in 6th, Hayden Harley, in 7th, and Nick Katrusiak in 10th.

Men’s Super G Race 2 (Sunday):
On Sunday, WMSC men were dominant, securing five out of the top 10 places. This time, a WMSC man took the victory, with Graham Seltzer securing the top spot. Grouse athlete, Taylor Nellis, who had won the Super G on Saturday, swapped places with Graham, coming in 2nd on Sunday. Apex athlete, Heming Sola, rounded out the podium in 3rd. WMSC men took the next 4 places, with John Nicolls in 4th, Hayden Harley in 5th, Adam Usher in 6th, and Matthias Shorter in 7th.

Race winner, Graham Seltzer, observed, “This weekend, the line was extremely important. Many people who ski well but do not have the correct line will not be fast. In inspection, you need to find the right line and commit to it unless a coach tells you otherwise on a course report.” He added, “I had two good inspections with good advice from coaches and concentrated on executing my plan.”

He was very pleased with his results, especially because he does not live in Whistler and isn’t able to train regularly on Thursdays and Fridays.
Speaking of the Grouse competitor with whom he swapped positions, Graham was very complimentary, saying, “In the speed event I think Taylor Nellis is the largest competition for everyone particularly on a straight course like both of these ones. This is because he is a pretty big guy and mostly goes straight.”

Calgary, Alta. (Feb. 8, 2019) – Alpine Canada has selected 11 athletes – five women, six men – to represent Canada at the 2019 FIS Alpine World Junior Championships in Val di Fassa, Italy, Feb. 18-27.

The selections were made based on outlined criteria which include their World Junior Rankings and performance in NorAm Cup racing.

“The World Junior Championships provide an excellent opportunity for these up-and-coming athletes to gain valuable international racing experience, as well as see how they match up against their peers from the other top ski racing nations around the world,” said Brien Perry, Director of Domestic Sport for Alpine Canada.

The full list of racers who will compete for Canada is:

Ali Nullmeyer (Georgian Peaks Ski Club)
Amelia Smart (Panorama Ski Club)
Asher Jordan (Whistler Mountain Ski Club)
Beatrix Lever (Club de courses Mont Cascades)
Declan McCormack (Osler Bluff Ski Club)
Jamie Casselman (Team Panorama – Kimberley Alpine Team)
Justine Clement (Club de ski Stoneham)
Kyle Alexander (Vancouver/Whistler Mountain Ski Club)
Marina Vilanova (Montreal/Club de ski Mont-Tremblant)
Raphael Lessard (Club de ski de Bromont)
Selected but unable to attend:
Liam Wallace (Sunshine Alpine Racers)

View the full article here

The race season is about to begin! Calling all volunteers to help with the first net set of the season! Please meet at Garbo Hut at 9:30 a.m. on Friday January 11th to help with the net set up for the U14 Coast Zone Teck Race. With lots of hands, this initial net set up shouldn’t take more than 3 hours. First time parents – this is a great opportunity to learn what needs to be done for race days. There is something for everyone to do. Don’t worry if you can’t carry nets – there are plenty of other things to help with. Meet at Garbo Hut and you will be paired with someone to show you the ropes!

For those of you with athletes training on the 11th, this isa perfect opportunity to help make the course safe for the race weekend!

We are hosting a ski around day for all our new families and everybody else that would like to tour the Dave Murray National Training Centre and see what the Garbo Hut is all about.

It is this Sunday, December 23rd.

Meet at the Club Cabin at 8.30 am or at the lightboard at 9 am.

Hope to see you all there!

Our season has officially kicked off!

Many thanks to all of our members who attended our first ever Kick-off Meeting last Saturday. It was fantastic to see so many of our members, athletes and coaches in one room, and I’ve been overwhelmed by the positive feedback I’ve received from new and old members alike.

Getting everyone together was a great way to start the season, and is a model that we will build on in future years, using the knowledge gained to enable us to keep advancing how best to support our athletes.

And a big thank you to Anders Hestdalen for sharing the vision of BC Alpine with us. It was reassuring to see that we are all working on the same page. We will be posting the slides from the presentations to the website, and for those who could not make it I encourage you to go to the website and review the slides.

I’m aware the volume of information may seem overwhelming, but we have posted everything you need to know on the Club’s website. Please refer to the Member Guidelines* as a starting point.

Again, a huge thanks to you all for your ongoing patience and support throughout the launch of the new website and mobile App. We feel that once all of the pieces are in place it will be a more user-friendly interface and a great resource for us all I encourage you all to try it, familiarise yourself with it and please pass on any thoughts of how to develop it.
As a reminder, the Whistler Mountain Ski Club has signed onto the Responsible Coaching Movement pledge. Among other steps, this means that we have committed to have all our staff and parents complete the Respect in Sport program**. The feedback from parents who have taken the Parent Module has been tremendously positive.

If you have not yet completed the Respect in Sport Parent Module please do so by January 1st. We have had great uptake so far but need to see 100% participation to save us having to follow up with individual parents.
The other big change for 2018-2019 is that we are using the natural split of gender to group athletes with coaches, save for 1st year U12 athletes, who will be a separate group.

Parents, the Head Coach for your athletes group will be your first point of contact, to discuss your athlete’s progress through the year. Please contact your age group Lead Coach for questions regarding the scheduling and programming.

We will be building up technical skills assessments for each athlete through the season, in order to have some clear process goals. This will also serve as a measure of your athlete’s advancement, and that, combined with the fitness assessments align, with our long term athletic development model.

As we move into mid-December, we are still struggling with limited snow here at home. However, most of our U16 team is away at Panorama or Sun Peaks this week, and Henry is investigating taking a group of U14s to Sun Peaks next weekend for additional on-snow training as we do not expect to have sufficient snow coverage on the training centre.

However, there is precipitation and cold temperatures in the forecast, and our partner Whistler Blackcomb has been working hard blowing snow, so we are hoping to have terrain for training in the near future and to be able to run our first club race, scheduled for next weekend.

*Members Guidelines http://www.wmsc.info/organizations/3850/documents/200352

• Respect in Sport Parent Module https://alpine-canada-parent.respectgroupinc.com/