After a short, intense season with 10 World Cup dates and a World Championships in about 13 weeks, an exhausted Canadian Freestyle Ski Team returned home last week to compete in the Bell Canadian Freestyle Ski Championships.
However, with the development team, provincial teams and strong club team members in the field at Mont Avila, Quebec, the national team members picked it up one more time.
The single moguls event kicked off the nationals on Friday. Surprising no one, World Cup title winner and World Champion Jennifer Heil demonstrated why she’s the best in the world right now with a strong run from top to bottom.
"Many of my friends, family and sponsors were here, so it’s just great to perform in front of them all," said Heil. "The motivation was to put on a great show."
According to silver medallist Stéphanie St-Pierre of Victoriaville, Quebec, Heil accomplished her goal. "She really made us look like crap," she joked.
Third place went to Whistler’s Sylvia Kerfoot, who has improved with every performance this year, and placed sixth and eighth in the dual moguls and single moguls at the world championships.
In the men’s moguls, the field was shocked by the performance of Alexandre Bilodeau, 17, of Rosemere, Quebec. Bilodeau, a member of the development team, was fourth after the qualifier, and nailed the win in the finals with a doubled twisting backflip.
Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau of Drummondville had to settle for second, but tipped his hat to Bilodeau.
"I’m very happy with the way I skied, but he’s such a great athlete with tremendous talent," said Rousseau. "We really believe he could be one of the best."
Chris Wong of Prince George finished third.
Marc-André Moreau, Canada’s top men’s mogul skier this season, decided not to compete on the icy and technical course to rest an ankle injury.
In the aerials contest the following day, Kyle Nissen of Calgary landed one of the best jumps of his career to take the gold medal. Warren Shouldice of Calgary was second, and Ottawa’s Jeff Bean third.
The 2005 World Champion, Steve Omischl, finished fourth after trying two new jumps, including a quad-twisting triple somersault with two twists on the last flip.
The women’s title went to Toronto’s Veronika Bauer for the fourth consecutive year.
"It feels great," she said. "At the same time it feels really bad when I had a poor performance and still won."
Elise Pallard of Edmonton, a member of the development team, took the silver medal, while third place went to Melissa Prefontaine of Grande Prairie, Alberta.
The nationals also featured a halfpipe contest for the first time.
Fifteen-year-old Rosalind Groenewood of Calgary took the women’s title, followed by Chelsea Henitiuk of Jasper and Gillian McIver of Ontario. Matt Hayward of Red Deer, Alberta, also 15, took the men’s title, followed by his Alberta teammates Mike Riddle and Mike Henitiuk.
The nationals wrapped up on Sunday with the dual moguls. Alexandre Bilodeau won the gold medal once again, surprising himself.
"I wasn’t expecting that," he said. "I was expecting at least one podium, but not two medals."
He edged out Chris Wong in the final heat, while Jean-Francois Therrien of Laval, Quebec claimed the bronze over Garrett Simm of Prince George.
In the women’s dual moguls, Elisa Kurylowicz of Manotick, Ontario took the gold medal after Whistler’s Sylvia Kerfoot made a costly error in the middle section.
"I kind of lost it," she said. "I was ahead and I was pushing it through the middle section when I got backseat a bit… and kind of blew out and off the course. I made a big GS turn to get back onto the course and finish, but I’d already lost it at that point.
"It was kind of disappointing, I know I had the potential to win, but at the same time I’m really happy for Elisa. She had a great run, and it really would have been close no matter what happened."
Kerfoot returned to Whistler this week for a two week break, and is looking forward to doing a little freeskiing. At the end of the two weeks she’s heading to a conditioning camp with the rest of the national team.
Although this year’s schedule was tight, with a lot of events in a short period of time, Kerfoot says the coming Olympic year will be even more hectic.
"We usually have about three or four events up to the time where the Olympics are being held, but this year it looks like five or six events. They’re all really important events for making the team, so every race is going to count," said Kerfoot.
In addition to training and skiing, Kerfoot will be working to qualify a few new jumps for next year to up her degree of difficulty, including off-axis 720’s and full back flips. At least one of these jumps will be needed to be competitive next season, which means she’ll be spending a lot of time on water ramps this summer.
"In two weeks we’ll be training again and getting ready for next season, but it felt really good to finish with a strong national championships weekend, as tired as I was."
Third place went to Jennifer Simm of Prince George, who edged past Stéphanie St-Pierre in the small finals. Jennifer Heil elected not to compete.
