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Yukon boarders ride to strong results at provincials

Whitehorse’s Ethan Davy won two silver medals at a B.C. provincial event in January. Now he has a gold medal to add to the set.
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Whitehorse’s Ethan Davy won two silver medals at a B.C. provincial event in January. Now he has a gold medal to add to the set.

Davy took first in snowboardcross at the Ride On Provincial Snowboard Series at Big White Ski Resort in Kelowna, B.C., on March 5.

“He’s really good all around, he’s a really good slopestyle rider as well,” said Yukon head coach Bert Faulds. “He’s super humble and just likes to snowboard. He really doesn’t care what he’s riding, if it’s slopestyle or boardercross, he just likes to be snowboarding.”

Davy raced to gold out of 21 boarders in the under-15 male division. The 15-year-old took first in his qualifier, semifinal and final. His previous medals were also in snowboardcross, and also at Big White.

Davy was one of seven Snowboard Yukon riders to compete this past weekend at the event that featured 180 boarders with teams from as far away as Quebec.

“We had seven riders and everybody did really good. For some of them it was their first competition,” said Faulds.

Competing in the same division, Yukon’s Sammy Mather tied for eighth, Ben Machtans tied for ninth and Syth Charchun tied for 10th.

Yukon’s Jacob Nickel tied for eighth in under-13 male. Teammates Ben Shier and Asher Brault placed 14th and 15th, respectively, out of 16 in the tougher FIS (International Ski Federation) category.

“FIS is a little bit higher level competition and the guys who raced (Shier and Brault) don’t have racing boards, and everyone they raced against had racing boards,” said Faulds.

Team Yukon also produced strong results the previous day in slopestyle.

Mather placed fifth out of 26 boarders in the under-15 male. His result also put him 12th overall out of 58 boarders and was the only Yukoner to make the final.

“He had the second highest rail score out of the entire competition, but he fell on both his final runs,” said Faulds.

On the three rails Mather hit a 50/50 to front 360 out; 50/50 to back 360 out; and a lip slide to out fakey. On the three jumps the 13-year-old launched to a switch back 360 before a front side 180 followed by a back 720.

Mather won a silver in slopestyle at a B.C. snowboard series a year ago in Mount Seymour in North Vancouver.

“The weather wasn’t really in our favour for a slopestyle competition but everyone definitely did really well,” said Faulds. “Last year we went to the same series in Seymour but the course was no good and we got 42 centimetres of rain. So this was a little bit better for everyone to get a little bit more competition experience.”

In the same division as Mather, Machtans took sixth, Davy 11th and Charchun 24th.

Nickel grinded out a 12th place finish in under-13 male. Shier claimed 12th and Brault 14th out of 17 boarders in under-19 male.

Many of the above boarders will be back in action — a lot closer to home — when Snowboard Yukon hosts the Yukon Snowboard Championships at Mount Sima March 18-19.

Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com