Apex Freestyle Club members are peaking at the right time, according to Kenni Kuroda.
The AFC coach said that as Canadian Junior National Freestyle Skiing Championship begins at Apex Mountain Resort starting Thursday.
Kuroda said his skiers had a good weekend of training last weekend.
“Everybody looked really good,” he said. “I believe they are peaking. This is what we were hoping for, that they would peak around this time.”
With the event being held on their home mountain, Kuroda hopes they take advantage of that.
“I’m looking for some fairly decent results,” he said. “The best in Canada will be here.”
Big air, mogul and slope style skiers ages 13 to 18 will be looking to shine through to Sunday.
Competing in Big Air for AFC will be Rhys Swenson, Cam Kapusty, Koleton Phipps, Josh Visser, Matt Finlayson, Owen Langford and Brayden Kuroda. On the women’s side, it will be Kassidy Todd, Shaina Finlayson and Mackenzie Schwinghammer. Apex alumni includes Riley Culver with the B.C. team and Noah Spence. In moguls, Kuroda said Jordan Kober, an Apex Alumni with the Canadian Sports Institute team had to drop out due to injury. Josh Kober also of CSIT and Connor Spence are competing. For AFC, Matt Finlayson is in as are Madison Parker, Kyle Parker, Kuroda, Anna Spence and Owen Langford. In slopestyle, Matt Finlayson is competing.
Kuroda didn’t want to mention any of his athletes in particular, but said across the board everybody has a good chance of being on the podium if they put down their best runs.
“This is the biggest event for these kids,” said Kuroda, adding that a week later is the B.C. Timber Tour championship. “They are really excited that we’re having it at Apex. Families can see them ski and help with their performances. Usually they have to travel east for this.”
The event is free for the public to attend.
Schedule is as follows:
Wednesday – March 13th – Parade of Athletes & Opening Ceremonies
5 pm Gunbarrel Podium/Okanagan Run – T BAR
Training for all venues – 10am – 2pm
Thursday – March 14th
Slopestyle – Competition – Claim Jumper
Single Moguls Official Training – Kristi’s Run
Big Air – Official Training – Air Site below Kristi’s Run
5 pm Slopestyle Awards – Gunbarrel Podium
Friday – March15th
Single Moguls Competition – Kristi’s Run
Big Air – Official Training – Air Site below Kristi’s Run
5 pm Single Mogul Awards – Gunbarrel Podium
Saturday – March 16th
Big Air – Competition – Air Site below Kristi’s Run
Dual Moguls Training – Kristi’s Run
5 pm Big Air Awards – Gunbarrel Podium
Sunday February 17th
Dual Moguls Competition – Kristi’s Run
5 Dual Mogul Awards – Gunbarrel Podium
The athletes will compete in three age categories
Male/female 4 (youth are 12/13 years)
Male/female 3 (juvenile are 14/15 years)
Male/female 2 (junior are 16 to 18 years)
Single Moguls – Olympic discipline
Speed, turns and air. Competitive mogul skiing has it all. All skiers have had to negotiate bumps, or moguls, at some point and know how challenging they can be. Skill, athleticism and courage of the world’s top mogul skiers makes it look easy as they race straight down the fall line at lightning speeds. The top skiers are covering as many as four moguls per second.
Dual Moguls – World Championship Discipline
Skiers race head-to head in knock out rounds. The added adrenaline of racing side-by-side means skiers often push themselves beyond their limits resulting in either spectacular crashes or some of the most awesome bump skiing.
Slopestyle – Ski Slopestyle makes its Olympic debut in 2014
Slopestyle athletes make their way down through and over a course comprised of a variety of features including rails, jumps and other terrain park features — scoring points for amplitude, originality and quality of tricks. The discipline has its roots in action sports like skateboarding and BMX biking and has very successfully crossed over into the snow sports worlds of skiing and snowboard. Slopestyle is one of the most accessible snow sports, as virtually every ski resort has a terrain park where aspiring athletes can learn to jump, slide and jib.
