Yukon’s freestyle ski team is quickly establishing the territory as a powerhouse in the sport.
Members of the Yukon freestyle ski team have now won hardware at three consecutive events in British Columbia.
Every single medal has marked a first for the Yukon Freestyle Ski Association.
The latest chapter in the team’s successful road trip was the B.C. Freestyle Ski Championships at the Silver Star resort outside of Vernon.
Yukon’s Lyndsey Boorse won gold and teammate Aiden Allen won silver in the slopestyle competition at the championships on Saturday.
Boorse’s medal is the first gold won by a female on the Yukon team and Allen’s silver is the first medal won by a male.
“I was excited to get a medal, that’s what I wanted to do in one of the events out of this trip,” said Allen. “So it was good to get this over with.
“I wasn’t really expecting it. The way it worked out was lucky. I was the only who could consistently land what I was doing. Everyone else was falling - maybe it was sketchy jumps.”
Allen, who was competing in the M3 age group, landed a switch 540, a corked 720 and another 540 on the jumps in his silver run. He also hit a switch 540 onto the final rail.
Boorse, who was the only skier in the F3 division, was competing in her first freestyle event. She made the jump from alpine to freestyle at the start of the season after representing the Yukon in alpine racing at the 2010 and 2012 Arctic Winter Games.
“She decided to try freestyle this season,” said Yukon coach Steven Harlow. “This was her first competition and she did awesome.”
Boorse did some straight-air grabs, spreads and double spread-eagles.
“She was going pretty big on each of the jumps,” said Harlow.
Yukon’s Anna Smith was the first team member to make the podium at the B.C. championships with a silver and bronze in 2010.
The Yukon ski squad also produced two other top-10 finishes at Silver Star.
Niko Rodden placed eighth in the M4 division and Josh Harlow took 10th in the older M2 group.
Dylan Reed, also in M2, skied to 11th overall. Allen’s brother Kyran placed 12th and Etienne Gagnon-Geoffroy 14th in M3.
Flynn Krabel took 27th out of 31 skiers in M4.
“There was a lot of guys who didn’t quite get the run they wanted,” said Steven. “The endings were a little harder than we expected, a little bit flatter, so we had skis blowing off. We had guys not used to the jumps, burning out from three weeks of competition.
“Even saying that, we still had an eighth place and a 10th place finish behind the podium (finishers).”
Josh Harlow landed a corked 900 with a blunt tailgrab to win bronze in the big air competition the previous week in the Canadian Junior Freestyle Ski Championships at Apex Mountain Resort outside of Penticton, B.C.
It was the first medal won by the Yukon Freestyle Ski Association’s competitive team at the national level.
Josh also placed third to win his team its first medal at a Canadian Shield Ski and Snowboard Tour event at the start of the trip in North Vancouver. (Last year, former Yukon skier Miguel Rodden won a silver at a Canadian Shield event, but not as a member of the Yukon team.)
“There were mogul and duel-mogul events, but since we don’t have a mogul facility right now, we couldn’t train it,” said Steven of the B.C. championships. “We’re more of a park-pipe team now.”
Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com