At just 19 years of age, West Kelowna’s Mason Barzilay is already a very accomplished skier, having competed in moguls multiple times at the Nor-Am Cup and Canadian National Champion-ships.
Barzilay comes from a family background full of skiing; both her parents skied competitively, her grandparents and great grandparents skied, and her family has had a cabin at Apex Mountain Resort for three generations.
“It’s something we’ve always done,” Barzilay recalled, explaining she first went skiing at the age of two. “I spent every Christmas at the ski hill at Apex. We had this huge tree, we’d always come up and open presents with the whole family, so that was my parents, grandparents and me, it was a big family event. Then on Boxing Day we would all go skiing, so it was one thing we always did together.”
It was around the age of seven or eight that Barzilay decided skiing was something she really wanted to pursue. Up to that point she had only ever gone skiing with her family, and her parents decided they wanted to have her look at skiing from another perspective, so they signed her up for Jumps and Bumps, a freestyle skiing program.
The Jumps and Bumps program led her to competing in freestyle skiing where she excelled in all of the events, such as moguls and half pipe.
Like all skiers at a competitive level, Barzilay eventually gave up all other events in pursuit of just one; in her case, moguls. The decision to pursue moguls was an easy one for Barzilay, as not only had it always been one of her favorite events due its combination of speed, jumping and tricks, but she was also approached by Team BC to become a member of its moguls team, which she quickly accepted.
Barzilay began skiing with Team BC five years ago, but last year she made the decision to forgo their offer and ski independently, a choice she once again made this year.
“I did receive an invite again this year, and I just decided financially, time wise and in terms of my development as an athlete it was better for me to go my own way,” she described. “Everyone has their own way of achieving their goals. Sometimes they’re a little bit different, so sometimes different things work for different people.”
The choice to go independent has given her control over building her own schedule and choosing her own trainers. This has allowed her time to pursue things like post-secondary education, something she wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.
While going independent has allowed her greater flexibility, it does also provide challenges. Barzilay no longer has the status of being on a team; she now has to prove her skill level on the slopes rather than simply saying she is on Team BC.
For many people, putting the onus on themselves to train and spend time in the gym is ultimately what causes them to slowly see their habits fade away. That isn’t the case for Barzilay, however, as she holds herself to a rigorous training regimen.
The skiing season starts in November, and with the BC slopes becoming hit and miss the closer it gets to summer, Barzilay has a summer routine she sticks to. Her summer schedule includes five days a week at the gym for two-hour dry training sessions, trampolining once or twice a week, and water ramping several times a week in Oliver.
Water ramping is a training activity where athletes go down a wooden ramp on skis, continue into the air off a jump, perform their trick and then land in water.
The hundreds of hours of training all become worthwhile when competition season rolls around. Barzilay usually competes in four or five national and international competitions every year, taking her to places such as Quebec, Colorado and Utah.
When she’s competing, Barzilay has a pre-run mental and physical warm-up routine she completes prior to the competition starting. Her routine involves stretching, doing a few runs of the course, visualizing the run and picturing what needs to go right for it to be successful, and finally going to a happy and calm place in her mind when she’s ready to compete. That doesn’t mean, however, that she doesn’t experience pre-run jitters.
“There’s a certain level of anxiety involved,” she described. “There’s a certain point of mental readiness that you hit, and you feel activated, but there are definitely butterflies, especially in bigger events where you’re competing with someone who’s competed in the World Cup, or in the Olympics. It’s intimidating.”
A little nervousness hasn’t been nearly enough to stop Barzilay as she has already acquired quite a few highlights in her career.
“I’ve medaled in Junior Nationals several times,” she recalled. “My first year going to Junior Nationals I got a bronze in big air. The second time I went I got a silver in big air, and last year I medaled in single, dual moguls, aerials and combined air and moguls.”
Barzilay’s road to success hasn’t been obstacle-free, however, as she tore her ACL at Senior Nationals in Quebec when she was 16.
“I under-rotated my front flip on bottom air, and tore it basically on impact,” she explained. “I had to take a 30-minute ambulance ride down a terrible bumpy road in an ambulance filled with paramedics that didn’t speak English. I sat in the hospital where they told me what was wrong, but I didn’t really understand what they were saying. I traveled back home on crutches, and the road to recovery isn’t an easy one for knee injuries.”
After an ACL tear, it takes an average skier about six months of recovery until they can get back on snow. In her recovery, Barzilay ended up taking off the entire competitive year to rehab. While the painful recovery involved surgery and three or four physiotherapy appointments every week, the process of getting back into competition has added extra motivation for her.
“Looking back I wasn’t as fit as I could have been, and that’s one of the big things that we find,” she said. “Knee injuries are especially more common in girls, and fitness is one of the biggest factors in having a tear. In the past couple years after my injury I’ve completely changed my fitness, I’m a completely different person, and I’m incredibly motivated. I find new ways to get out and be active, and I spend so much time in the gym working on my fitness because it’s one of the most important things in terms of being successful.”
Part of Barzilay’s motivation comes from the goal she has set for herself—this year, she wants to make the National Team. Canada has three National Teams: The ‘C’ team, or development team, is the Nor-Am Cup team; the ‘B’ team is the World Cup team; and the ‘A’ team is the Olympic team. Every athlete begins by making the ‘C’ team, and attempts to work their way up from there.
Currently, Canada holds the Nations Cup and boasts the best moguls skiers in the world. Getting on the Canadian National Team then provides an additional distinction as it means you aren’t just one of the best skiers in Canada, but one of the best in the world.
“(Getting on the team) would mean that all my hard work has paid off, I’ve put so much into this. With all the stuff I’ve had to do to support myself, it’s go big or go home everyday. You put your heart and soul into it, and it would mean my hard work is paying off and my vision of being an independent athlete and my belief that it would help me in my development was true. I took a huge bet, and hopefully it pays off. It would also mean more funding, but it would also mean more traveling too.”
Making the National Team is based 80 per cent on results, with the remaining 20 per cent based on discretion. Coaches will be watching skiers throughout the year, and will conduct a year-end interview with several athletes at Senior Nationals where they will be looking for discipline, motivation and other mental factors.
All of the traveling and training Barzilay does to participate and compete in moguls does bring a financial burden into the equation. She generally needs between $10,000 and $30,000 a year in funding to compete in national and international events, meaning she spends a notable amount of time fundraising. There isn’t much funding available at her level, even if you make the National Team, meaning she has to come up with most of the money on her own. To provide the money she is currently working two jobs, holds bottle drives, and hosts two Warren Miller movie screenings every year. One screening is held in West Kelowna, with this year’s taking place on Nov. 19, while the other is in Victoria also in November.
She is also always on the lookout for sponsors, who can contact her through her website, masonbarzilay.ca.
When Barzilay isn’t training, working or fundraising, you can likely find her in a classroom. She is attending Okanagan College and has almost completed a summer human psychology course, which will allow her to work towards obtaining a degree in human kinetics or kinesiology, which she will begin taking classes for in the fall.
Barzilay also has an interest in being active in her community, as she has helped with political campaigns and raised more than $1,400 for a new skate park in West Kelowna, which was announced in July.
Despite all of the competition, training and fundraising involved with skiing at her level, Barzilay has never lost the simple joy of the sport. She still goes skiing with her parents as often as she can, and every year she eagerly looks forward to going back to where it all began for Christmas with her whole family at Apex.
