Girls-only freestyle ski team producing results
The snow piles are rapidly melting at their home base at Hart Highlands Ski Hill but ski season is not over yet for three girls from the Northern B.C. Freestyle Club.
Twelve-year-olds Ella Vonah and Autumn Knudsen, and 11-year-old Carla Van Zyl are on the snow at Whistler this weekend learning the tricks of slopestyle and moguls from Olympians Jenn Heil, Kristi Richards, Yuki Tsubota and Kalissa Lolos.
They’re part of Freestyle BC’s inaugural Girlstylerz skill development camp, a three-day event for girls only. The national team guest coaches are joining forces with Freestyle BC junior coaches to offer onsnow instruction on the moguls course and terrain park as well as airbag and trampoline training and yoga.
“They’re going to work on everything freestyle related,” said Northern BC Freestyle Club girls team coach Jess Hudson. “It’s taken awhile for the coaching to kind of realize girls learn differently than guys do. We have different bodies and we have to train differently. This is the next generation of athletes who are there, these Olympians, who have had the ability to be trained as a girl and now they’re passing it on to these girls at the camp.
“For the three I have at this camp, these are girls they’re watching on TV. When they’re studying videos this is who they’re looking at so it’s a huge celebrity moment for them as well.”
Hudson, the Hart Highlands Winter Club general manager, started a girls team at the club four years ago to try to keep young female skiers interested in slopestyle and moguls.
“We were losing the girls at about 12 years old and it kind of seemed it was the aggression of the boys pushing them out with the tricks the boys were willing to do,” said Hudson. “The girls-only team has helped us retain girls within the club and now we’re starting to see results as we move into becoming a (competition/development) team.”
Vonah, Knudsen and Van Zyl, all of Prince George, trained throughout the season at Hart Highlands and Troll Mountain near Quesnel and put their skills to the test March 13-15 at the Kootenay Freestyle Classic at Panorama near Invermere. Vonah was a double-medalist, winning gold slopestyle and silver in moguls, while Knudsen won the silver medal in the U-14 slopestyle event and Van Zyl captured slopestyle silver in the U-12 age category.
“Ellah has a ton of potential for moguls, she did really good in slopestyle too,” said Hudson.
“Autumn and Carla both were the only girls in their age category to hit the big line, and that was quite an accomplishment because the other girls they were competing against were only going down the learner line.
“I give much of the credit to the Hart Ski Hill, which increased their park and brought in a lot of features. The girls are able to make tons of laps in the terrain park so when they see features in other hills in (slopestyle) competition they’re not scared of them, they’re pretty familiar with them.”
In other club results, Aidan Hartford won silver in the U-16 boys slopestyle and moguls events.
The girls team had seven athletes this year, including three from Quesnel, and Hudson expects the team will add at least three more members for the 2019-20 season. The girls from the Northern BC Freestyle Club are starting to get the attention of provincial team coaches and Hudson says that could be the start of resurgence of future national team talent being produced in Prince George, retracing the tracks laid down by former national freestyle team members Jay Nachbaur (aerials), Scot Bellavance (moguls) and Chris Wong (moguls), Bellavance, in 2002, and Wong, in 2006, both competed in the Winter Olympics.
Now with 50 members, Hudson says growth of the club is stretching the capacity of the coaches and she’s trying to coax Bellavance to return to the club as a coach now that his eight-year-old daughter is showing an interest in freestyle.
“I work on him every day,” laughed Hudson. “I’m hoping next year Scott’s back. He’s kept all his coaching (certifications) up. He would be a huge asset to have.”
The Hart Ski Hill installed snowmaking last year and work will continue this summer to add another pipeline for the snow jets and create more runs and features as soon as the temperature dips below freezing in the fall.
“We’re hoping to move towards more summer activities and perhaps get an airbag and look at the options of a water ramp so lots of these teams can continue to train all year,” said Hudson. “There are lots of teams in the north but we’re all stuck as to where to go. Our closest competition was in Panorama, a nine-hour drive.”