Date: 13th of January 2008

Final day of a big completion weekend with the moguls skiers having a dual mogul event here in Silver Star while some of the boarders headed to Big White for another slopestyle event. The bluebird skies that greeted us this morning definitely made the getting everyone out of bed process that much easier.

Another big day for the mogul skiers with the BC champs continuing. The cancelled halfpipe competition was fortunately replaced with a dual mogul event also held on the same course as Friday’s single mogul event. Silver Star had again turned on the goods with blue skies making for a great day of competition. Unfortunately Jack was forced out during training with a niggling knee injury. The runs began with Bryn, Brodie and Alex C advancing with Alex E skiing the run of his life to advance to the next round, a great effort in his first ever dual event. Alex W scored 2 byes to advance effortlessly to the quarter finals where he was unlucky to be beaten. Bryn was also unlucky to draw some tough competition in the quarter finals and was also beaten. Alex C was skiing like a champion advancing further and further up the list but unfortunately Alex E was letting the skis run a little too much on his second run and took a number of small falls and was convincingly beaten by his opponent.

As the afternoon continued on Alex C managed to rack up 6 competition runs ending in 8th place.  Brodie and Alex W were the last of the competitors with Brodie unluckily drawing the top skier in the competition. After one last shot at the podium he was beaten and finished in 4th, just out of contention for a medal. In a way Alex W was one of the luckiest competitors of the day. Skiing two runs, but losing both of them he still managed to finish in 6th place. Well done to all the guys and a big thanks to Silver Star Resort for putting on a great competition. The group now looks forward to a couple of weeks training on the competition course.  A massive congratulations must go out to Brodie Summers who last night picked up a bronze medal at thye presentations in the single moguls event held on Friday.

Today the boarders were in high spirits after their day trip to Big White yesterday. The sun was shining this morning so the group went to the park to continue working on their  new tricks. They arrived to find a new barrel stall had been put up and went straight to work on it. Beggsy started the charge with a few tail blunts and some frontside 360 nose bonks.  Henry did some tail blunts and tried some 180s on. Jamie was spinning onto and off the barrel and Jay having a good go as well. After the barrel session the group headed up to the up flat box where Rowan, Steve and Emma all started tail pressing with frontside boardslide style. Dave and Jordy started trying 5-0s and Jordy even had a crack at a few boardslides, a huge step considering he didn't even want to hit boxes over a week ago. Oli was doing some nice nose presses with a nollie out. The group hiked all morning slowly working their way down through the park sessioning each feature before moving on to the next one. Henry and Jamie hit the down bar, then everyone went over o the flat to down boxes with a gap between them.  All the group hit this feature for the first time including Dave, Jordy and Rowan. Emma stepped up to the flat down rail and did a 5050 to boardslide on her first attempt. Then the group all went down to the longest box in the park a 32ft flat box and conquered it as well before heading in for lunch. After the break the group took the video camera out and filmed all the tricks they had learnt during the morning. The pace was a lot slower as everyone was really tired from the morning and yesterday's big day but that didn't stop Jamie and Emma who charged all afternoon. The group returned at 3pm absolutely spent, I'm sure they will all enjoy the sleep in tomorrow and the day off snow.

Matesy and Jack did the journey to Big White again today for the second event of the dual header Slopestyle event. The weather was much better than yesterday and both guys rode really well. Matesy was unlucky not to win and came in second after a run that consisted of some tech rail tricks, a cab 5, frontside 720 tail grab and a backside 720 Indy grab. Jack had a great day perfecting backside 360s off the jumps in training. He also had a really solid run lifting his ranking considerably from yesterday. He pulled combos on the rails, frontside boardslides a backside 360 a frontside 360 and a frontside 540. He rode really well today and just missed out on a podium coming in fourth.

This morning, the alpine/snowboardcross group headed out on soft boots to work on some boardercross techniques. They headed out to Whiskey Jack in the morning cutting into the terrain park and then onto lower Big Dipper. They worked on body position and carving on the soft boots. When in the park they worked on absorption and pre-jumping bigger rollers. Ash did well today adjusting her body position and she is now starting to feel more comfortable getting air off rollers. Chrisy worked on cleaning out her carves and getting air and confidence off rollers. Greg was doing good carves on the hill and hitting the rails in the park. Julia kept being really aggressive in her carves and is much more confident when catching air over the rollers. In the afternoon they group tried the little mini boardercross course but unfortunately it will need a bit more work due to all the snow we had last week.. It s really bumpy and after one run in it we decide to head back to the rollers in the snow park. The sun was out this morning and it was really nice.

Chris’ freeriders were amped with the blue sky and freshly groomed park. They did a big warm up run and stretch before they hit the park.   Hamish learned reverse 270 off the flat bar as well as lip slides while Nick was working on his style on the battleship box as well as lip sliding the down flat down box and the down bar.  All the rest of the crew were in smaller groups hitting up the boxes of their choice and doing the odd full lap.  The goal for the girls is to build their confidence so they could hit the bigger boxes in the afternoon. After lunch they headed out straight to the park to build on the morning session.  Chris worked with Mike, Piers, Bridgette, Annabelle, Kate, Marnie, Kate, and Bassett.  The group moved down the park practicing on the boxes building up for the big box at the bottom of the park.  The first few tries by each were straight on attempts to get a feel for how it slides.  Annabelle was first up to hit it sideways and nailed it.  Piers, Bridgette, Mike, Kate and Marnie all sessioned it for a few tries and by the end of it mostly everyone was sliding it sideways start to finish.   

Lunch today was chicken noodle soup and sandwich buffet and the Sunday night roast beef followed up for dinner…. Yummy!

Tonight’s activity was swimming and diving down at the Vernon Rec Centre. Beggsy and Min took two van loads of kids down for a few hours of fun.

Pinky today goes to Jay Ghattas who managed to wipe out the entire fenced section in front of the ticket office at the bottom of the Comet Express this morning in front of a packed lift line.

That’s it for today, until tomorrow

Stowie