SNOWBOARD STAR GRONDIN TARGETS MEDAL IN BEIJING
Canadian teen chasing World Cup crown and junior title after breakthrough win
It's an improbable hat trick, but Canadian snowboarder Éliot Grondin won his first career World Cup gold medal on March 4, and has a chance to follow it up with his first overall title and a world junior championship later this month.
The latter event, to be held in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, seems like a bit of unfinished business for Grondin, given the silver medals he won in snowboard cross at the 2018 and 2019 world junior championships.
“In my mind, I just want to go there and win it,” the 19-year-old native of Sainte-Marie, Que., said Sunday from Zurich.
“I got second two years in a row. It's my last year. The goal is to go there and bring the gold home.”
If he also has to make room in his luggage for a Crystal Globe, emblematic of a World Cup overall title, so much the better. With only a March 20 race in Veysonnaz, Switzerland left on the schedule, Grondin sits second, 62 points behind Alessandro Haemmerle of Austria.
Grondin made a dramatic move up the standings by winning the first of two races in Bakuriani, Georgia on March 4. That left him just eight points in arrears, but the gap widened a day later when he made a costly mistake and wound up in 25th place, while Haemmerle finished third.
That bronze was the 22nd World Cup medal of Haemmerle's starry career. The 27-year-old is also the two-time defending World Cup snowboard cross overall winner, and has been on the circuit since 2010, when Grondin was just nine years old.
“I remember just a couple years back I would do training, then go back to the hotel to do video, and I would always look at his video, how he rides, trying to learn from him,” said Grondin. “And I've been pretty lucky in the last few years to get a chance to train with him. It's pretty crazy. He was an idol for me when I was younger, now I get to be friends with him and spend time with him training in the winter. ...
“It's pretty exciting. I came into the season thinking I didn't really have a chance for the globe and I just wanted consistency in my racing, being in the top eight at most of my races, and I've been in pretty much every big or small final all year long. To be that close at only 19 years old feels pretty surreal.”
To win his first World Cup gold, and just his third medal overall, was a significant milestone.
“I didn't really expect it when I came into the first World Cup this year but I got second,” he said.
“I knew my riding was good and I was fast, but to podium the first race was pretty surreal. So I knew the speed was there.
“I got to Georgia and something was feeling right. I wasn't riding my best in training and (qualifying), which always happens to me. And when I was in the semifinal I kind of had the feeling I could do it.”
He has also finished fourth and eighth in a snowboard cross season that usually starts in December, but was delayed and shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Grondin and the rest of the Canadian team have been in Europe since Jan. 8, living, training and racing in a secure bubble environment. Grondin said he's been tested for COVID-19 about 25 times and the team hasn't had a positive result yet.
“It's better to be here now. At home I can't do much. I can't see my friends. Here I'm lucky enough to be on a team with such great teammates in a safe environment. I can have fun and travel and get to race every couple of weeks.”
Grondin has improved by leaps and bounds since finishing 36th at the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018. With less than a year to go before Beijing 2022, his expectations are much higher.
“I'm going to Beijing expecting to come back with a medal. ”