 Alison Gannett Women's Winner [click for bigger image] |
Canadian Freeskiing Championships
Whistler/Blackcomb, BC, Canada
January 4-8, 1998
We stand corrected. It ain't extreme. This is free skiing, as the man who would know, Shane McConkey, pointed out.
Free as an 18 wheeler running down a mountain pass with no chains, or a 70 foot launch — whatever the recipe, it's pure art and guts. No gates, ramps or groomers, just natural rock faces created by Mother Nature herself, a cliff filled canvas just waiting to be spattered by these proficient line layers.
They are the best free skiers on the planet right now, and we hauled our butts up to Whistler (not reluctantly) to catch the shots we usually watch in ski films. North America's top free skiers competed at Whistler/Blackcomb, picking lines down the Couloir Extreme area the first day, and on the challenging terrain of Diamond Bowl on Blackcomb Glacier for the final day of competition in the First Annual Canadian Extreme Free Skiing Championships.
After convincing Zoner Hans, our snowboard information excavator, to quit waiting for his girlfriend to call, he joined me for the coverage, tossing his board in the truck as any honest freerider (and reporter) should.
Shane McConkey Day 2 [click for bigger image] |
"It was a two day competition of cumulative scoring," said McConkey, "There were two runs yesterday, one run today, and yesterday on both runs I lost a ski. I put it back on really quick, but I was way out yesterday. So, even though I won today, there's no way I would have been able to catch up and take first. I caught all the way up to fourth place, but that's about all I could do," he said. [Click to hear Shane's RealAudio interview]
Even first place overall winner Gordy Peifer commented on McConkey's last run, "It was pretty sick. Shane is mental, the guy goes off and his runs yesterday were sick. He upped it a little more today. He's the man." [Click to hear Gordy's RealAudio interview]
Gordy Peifer Men's Winner [click for bigger image] |
Crested Butte local, Alison Gannett, took first place for the women after two days of solid runs.
"For the first time in my life I stayed in my body and actually skied down the run," said Gannett. "Usually I'm like an angel watching myself go down the run, but today I was all there, yesterday I was all there and the day before," Gannett said. [Click to hear Alison's RealAudio interview]
Last year's World Extreme Skiing Champion, Wendy Fisher, placed second in this comp, followed by local Wendy Brookbank in third, Jackson Hole resident A.J. Cargill (certified river guide, horse mistress and food executive) fourth, and Chris Hutchenson fifth.
The competition factor adds a new angle to free skiing, where the only requirements are to leave the starting gate and cross the finish line.
"Normally when I'm free skiing, I just rip it up," said Gannett. "In these competitions, it's a different experience. It's harder. There's a lot of pressure and it's hard to ski the way you normally do when you're coming down because you know if you fall, you're out," she said.
Whistler locals fared well in the competition, with Brookbank taking third for the women, and Jeff Holden, the top Canadian, coming in fifth in the men's — for a total of six locals in the top 20.
Notable newcomer Rex Wehrman, of Durango, CO took second place over last year's World Extremes Champion Brant Moles who placed third.
To top it all off, Blackcomb was breathtakingly beautiful. During our first morning, bright and early on the Wizard Express lift, rainbows greeted us from steam clouds rising up from the valley, anchored by vast mountain ranges that only British Columbia fosters in this part of the globe. The next leg of our morning commute on the Solar Coaster Express brought sun devils and a paper-thin plane of cloud which segued to sunny blue skies for both days of competition. Races were postponed one day due to weather, which put finals on Thursday the 8th.
"The World Cup of Extreme Free Skiing is a natural for Whistler/Blackcomb," said McConkey, president of the International Free Skiers Association (IFSA). "These mountains are the essence of the word extreme."
The skiers faced three days of grueling competition on increasingly difficult slopes. The field was narrowed each day, with only the top skiers advancing to the finals, where IFSA sanctioned athletes, including McConkey, Moles, Gannett, and former Olympians Fisher and Jeremy Nobis, joined the other qualifiers to vie for the championship and US$7,500 in cash prizes.
I wouldn't want to be a judge for this type of riding. Who's to say who wins? Extreme is subjective. Free is relative. Here, runs are judged on the difficulty of line choice, control, technique, fluidity and aggressiveness. But, ultimately it's all good.
— Michelle Quigley, Mountain Zone Staff
