La Parva, Chile
Sept 28, 2013
Twenty two young athletes from BC, ages 15 – 19 will soon be returning home from Chile with a new set of skills, motivation and love for the sport of ski racing. BC Alpine and WMSC collaborated their efforts on a high performance Southern Hemisphere camp where ten select HPP athletes joined forces with WMSC campers for two weeks if spring snow training.
“There’s nowhere else you can get such a clinical, textbook training situation as we get here in La Parva,” boasted WMSC’s U16 head coach Jeff MacLennan, “The kids are a captive audience, surrounded by an atmosphere of excellence with high level teams striving for the same thing – to refine skills and achieve goals”.
An excellent cross section of conditions ranging from frozen spring to soft pack to firm to caulky snow surfaces challenged them through all disciplines in the 12 days on snow. A bonus was 25cm of fresh powder one morning which made for some fun warm up runs and big smiles - many of which were captured on film thanks to Big White Racers’ Derek Trussler and his new camera.
“We have worked closely with Whistler and that has been going well,” HPP Head coach Trussler reported. “There has been solid improvement and progression from all of them and I think those who haven’t been here before are getting a really great cultural experience.”
In the time training at 3000+m some serious mileage was racked up which undoubtedly will bring successful payoffs come winter time.
|
Free Ski |
69 |
Runs |
|
|
|
Sessions |
Runs |
Gates |
|
SL |
5 |
34 |
1402 |
|
GS |
7 |
68 |
734 |
|
SG |
4 |
38 |
708 |
“This has been the most productive camp I’ve ever had here” noted WMSC FIS head coach Ryan Jazic. “Some of the older racers even had a couple days of DH training with the Canadian Men’s Development Team. This was a real inspiration to them.”
Also training were the Austrian Women’s Speed Team, Alberta Provincial Team, US Men’s Development and Western Regional teams.
It was a near perfect combination of circumstances that provided great training conditions for the 100+ athletes booked to train in late September. A low snow season left the lower slopes almost bare of snow and the resort had closed to the public for the season. But the upper slopes were still in excellent shape and mountain manager Raul Anguita saw the opportunity for the teams to capitalize on the situation, so lifts and grooming were organized to run just for the racers.
“I’m really happy with the way things worked out” said Anguita, “No teams went away without accomplishing what they came here to do”.
To wrap up our combined WMSC/BC Alpine HPP camp we held the inaugural “Canine Cup” (named after the many friendly/stray dogs which the athletes befriended and often followed us up the hill each morning). Four mixed teams raced four runs of GS, averaging their team times to crown the winners,. The Beasts took the Cup, beating out Still Not Chile by a narrow 7/100ths of a second! The Outsiders were 3rd while Let’s Get Tropical just missed the podium. Awards will be held later this afternoon on the beach in Vina del Mar where athletes and coaches are taking a well deserved, low altitude recovery break before returning home.
“Ten out of ten” commented Max Kirshenblatt on his camp experience, “I really look forward to returning next year!”
“Eleven out of ten!” upped Max Peiffer, “best camp I’ve ever had”.
This sums it up pretty well and the coaches agree! From Derek Trussler and Rob Boyd on behalf of BC Alpine; Ryan Jazic and Jeff MacLennan for WMSC, we’d like to pass on a big thanks to all the campers, parents and organizations that collaborated and supported this fantastic athletic and cultural experience for our future champions!
Rob Boyd, HPP Coach
Athletic Director - Whistler Mountain Ski Club
2028 Rob Boyd Way, Whistler, BC, V0N 1B2
Tel: 604-932-4644 Fax: 604-932-1180 Web: http://www.wmsc.info