Freestyle skier looking Sharpe
Comox product wins first women’s World Cup half-pipe event of the season
Cassie Sharpe may have jumped all the way from Down Under to the Korean peninsula on Friday.
The Comox skier/snowboarder won the first World Cup women’s freestyle half-pipe of the season in Cardrona, New Zealand, which is also a key qualifier for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
It continued the emergence of the Mount Washington-trained boarder, who broke on to the world scene dramatically in March with her first career World Cup circuit victory in Tignes, France.
“I am really happy to come away with this first event of the season with a victory,” said Sharpe, in a statement.
Kelly Sildaru of Estonia took silver and Marie Martinod of France bronze.
“The competition was fierce,” added Sharpe.
The Islander last season became the first woman in history to land a switch cork 720 in a World Cup run.
“I am going to keep on training hard this fall so that I can continue to push the limits of the sport,” said Sharpe.
Sharpe is part of an avalanche rolling off Mount Washington and across the Pacific into Pyeongchang. It includes slopestyle snowboarder and 2014 Sochi Olympics veteran Spencer O’Brien, a five-time X Winter Games medallist from Courtenay. Also part of Mount Washington’s potential assault on the 2018 Winter Olympics is rising boarder Teale Harle of Campbell River, who won his first career World Cup victory in March at Silvaplana, Switzerland, and Cassie Sharpe’s younger brother Darcy Sharpe from Comox in big air.
All of them came out of the ski programs on Mount Washington.
Whistler, however, remains the undisputed champion of winter sports in this province. Simon d’Artois, from B.C.’s most famous resort town, won the men’s halfpipe bronze medal Friday in New Zealand.
“The fact that this World Cup is part of the Olympic qualification process gave us an opportunity to see how our athletes stack up against their peers from other countries,” said David Mirota, vice-president of sport for Freestyle Canada.
“We emerge from the experience satisfied with the team results early on in the season.”