by Coach Cody Ling
The BSF Freeskiing team had their first competition on January 8th at Big Sky Resort. With limited snow at the start of the year and no jumps to train on, the team went in feeling slightly rusty. That did not stop the vibes from being high, and the drive to compete any less. Originally the plan was to have 14U compete in the Cache Park and 15 and older compete on the two large jumps that Big Sky had just finished making that week prior to the competition. A group decision was made a couple hours before the competition to have all athletes compete in the Cache Park and everyone made the best of it! We had athletes from Whitefish, Big Sky, Ennis, and Bozeman all competing in the events.
Our first event of the day was Slopestyle, which is a course that consisted of two rail features and two jump features. After Run #1, there were only a couple athletes that managed to make it top to bottom cleanly. With a lot of pressure going into Run #2, the athletes were able to use that pressure to stomp their second run! With minimal jump training, and it being the first competition of the season, all of the athletes did remarkably well. We had podium finishes from several athletes. For Slopestyle, in the 11-12 Boys Division, Leif Steckmest took home a Silver Medal. In the 15-16 Men's Division, BSF swept the podium. Joshua Jenkins took Bronze, Wylie Mugaas took Silver, and Radd Rainsky took home the Gold! For the Men’s 17-18 Division, Anders Fanning took home the Silver!
Our second event of the day was the Rail Jam. The course consisted of three down rail/box features to two flat box/rail features. Athletes had 30 minutes to put together their most technical rail tricks they had. In the 11-14 Boys Division, Leif landed on the podium again, taking home the Bronze. In our 15-22 Men’s Division, Anders and Radd both landed on the podium for a second time as well, taking home Gold and Bronze medals.
You can find videos of the runs (Thanks to Mike Jenkins for filming) and final results in our BSF Freeski Google Photos folder: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipM2DE3f2quZQs52Wt-N2hhadEK1MBvFSNG1s-Nt8cnfTuXookcvcTkdItjQJWeCAw?key=RW1qZ1YxdW9FV25KbjVBODJMZDdXRzFFcWRBTjRR
