Havelock’s Spalding sets his sights on 2026 Olympic Games in Italy
Nineteen-year-old is making a name for himself on the snowboarding circuit
At age 19, Cameron Spalding has established himself among the world’s elite snowboarders.
The Havelock area product finished his second full season on the FIS World Cup senior men’s circuit ranked fourth in slopestyle, up one spot from his fifth-place finish last year. His 112 points were behind only fellow Canadian Liam Brearley, who placed first at 229 points, Ryoma Kimata of Japan at 180 and countryman Taiga Hasegawa at 140. He is also ranked seventh in the World Snowboard Points List, which incorporates results outside the World Cup schedule.
Spalding started his season attempting to defend his 2022 world junior slopestyle championship in September in New Zealand, falling just short with a silver-medal performance. He was edged out by Hasegawa.
“I was a little bummed, to be honest,” said Spalding. “After winning the previous year and going back, I was definitely not trying to do anything else but win. My run was good enough for sure but I had … too many instabilities. I just couldn’t quite get it done. All in all, it was still good experience. I can’t complain.”
He picked up his second career World Cup podium result, placing third at the first event of the slopestyle schedule in Lax, Switzerland. It matched a third-place result that highlighted his rookie season.
“That contest is pretty amazing,” he said. “It’s the biggest one on the circuit in terms of prestige from previous years. It was one of the better contest runs I’ve put together. It felt good.”
Brearley placed first and Kimata second.
Weather played havoc with the World Cup schedule, resulting in the cancellation of the next three events, two for a lack of snow, in Calgary and Czech Republic, and one in Mammoth Lake, Calif., because of unsafe wind conditions.
The next stop was in Tignes, France, where Spalding placed eighth. He completed the season in Silvaplana, Switzerland, reaching the finals, where he wasn’t able to put down a complete run and finished 13th.
He was generally pleased with his slopestyle season.
“It was a step in the right direction, moving up from last year,” he said. “Of course, there are some things I would have liked to have done differently and some things I would change here and there. It was good experience. I felt good about my riding the whole time. Every contest I went to, I felt like I had a run that could have put me on the podium if I did it well. Obviously, it’s not going to happen every time, but it’s nice for your confidence to know you can do it.”
Spalding also competed on the Big Air World Cup circuit but said he didn’t have great results. It’s not his primary focus. He competed at events in Chur, Switzerland; Beijing, China; and Edmonton, where he reached semifinals, placing 11th overall.
“The big airs were a bit of a struggle. I didn’t really do too great in any of them,” he said.
You don’t have to convince Spalding that global warming is a thing. It’s a growing concern for outdoor winter sports competitors and organizers.
“This was the weirdest winter I have ever seen in my life, across the world and not just in North America. Nowhere had any snow. It’s a little bit concerning for sure if I want to look 10 years down the road in my snowboard career and think that winters are going to get shorter and shorter,” he said. “I hope this was just a funky year that will happen once in a while or won’t happen again. Based off of how I’ve seen snow pack and glaciers especially, declining over the past five or so years of travelling, it definitely doesn’t look like we’re moving in the right direction.”
In the past, Spalding said any events cancelled were more about safety conditions due to wind or visibility and not a lack of snow.
It’s a nightmare for organizers and not much better for competitors who are on the hook for travel expenses to get to events only to have them called off, sometimes just hours from the start.
“You get amped up for this contest,” he said.
“You get there and can have two practice days. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re not. That’s just how it goes,” he added.
“Then contest day rolls around and the weather sucks and it gets postponed or called off or you try again another day and it doesn’t work, it sucks. It’s not what you are there to do but you are at the mercy of Mother Nature being at high elevation in the mountains with lots of weather rolling around. You can’t expect perfect weather every time. It’s just part of it,” he said.
Spalding will spend his spring in Whistler, B.C., training before returning home for some time off this summer.
He hopes to get in a bit of wakeboarding, although he’s not sure if he’ll compete. He had hoped to do some snowboard training on the B.C. glacier like in past summers, but the deterioration of the glacier has led to cancellation of all training there.
In August, he’ll head to Australia and New Zealand to resume training in preparation for an important 2024-25 schedule as qualifying begins for the 2026 Olympics in Italy. The world championships will be held in Silvaplana next February or March.
Based on past Olympics, Spalding expects four spots will be made available to Canada for men’s snowboard and he’d like to lock one up next season and not have to go into the Olympic year still trying to qualify.
“You never know what is going to happen,” he said.
“You could always have a bad tumble and get hurt or somebody could learn a bunch of new tricks and start doing well. You can never get complacent. You always have to be pushing.”