Snow conditions are expected to be ideal when Tabor Mountain hosts the B.C. Snowboard Federation's Like Me Snowboard Series tour event this weekend.
This is the first competition of the season for 15-year-old Evan Bichon, the youngest member of the B.C. snowboard cross provincial team. He'll be among a field of about 100 athletes, including some of Canada's development team racers., taking part in the events, which include a slopestyle competition on Saturday, followed by the snowboard cross races Sunday.
Bichon likens snowboard cross to motocross racing on a snowboard, with gravity as his engine.
"It's fast and it's intense -- sometimes you hit people in the corners," said Bichon. "It's fun, you get so much adrenaline from it. It's going to be great, some people are coming up from the States, so there should be lots of competition and I'm looking forward to that."
Bichon, a native of Mackenzie who now lives in Prince George, is in his 10th season of snowboarding. This is his third year in competitive snowboard cross racing. Bichon and Meryeta O'Dine, who won a bronze medal in a Nor-Am race Wednesday in Mont Tremblant, Que., are the two local athletes entered in the 15-and-older FIS (Federation Internationale Ski) snowboard cross event this weekend. O'Dine, 16, is in her second season as an FIS racer, while Bichon made the jump this season. All FIS events count for points that will determine the B.C. team for the 2015 Canada Winter Games.
Each snowboard cross race involves four racers taking the plunge on a narrow course with banked turns and jumps, covering steep and flat terrain.
"It's a lot different in FIS, it's a lot more aggressive," said Bichon, a two-time junior national age-group bronze medalist. "It does get kind of scary when you're going against really good people on a really good track, you get the butterflies. There's lots of pressure sometimes, but it's so much fun."
In addition to the FIS and masters classes, several open age-group classes will be contested this weekend. Sunday's snowboard cross will be on the slalom course on the eastern slopes of Tabor Mountain, while the newly-constructed terrain park will be used for the slopestyle competition.
Slopestyle competitors are judged on their ability to execute tricks as they slide lengthwise over obstacles such as boxes and metal rails on a downhill course that leads to a series of jumps. Bichon dabbles in slopestyle but spends most of his training time carving corners in snowboard cross. Saturday's competition, which starts at 11 a.m., will be the first-ever provincially-sanctioned slopestyle event.
The Like Me tour slopestyle and snowboard cross competitions are test events for the 2015 Canada Winter Games, which will also include a halfpipe event. The B.C. team for the Games in each discipline will be limited to two male and two female athletes. To be age-eligible for the Games, athletes must be 21 years or younger as of Feb. 13, 2015.
Bichon, a Grade 10 student, attends morning classes for his academic subjects at D.P. Todd secondary school. In the afternoons, he goes to the PacificSport Sport School at the Charles Jago Northern Sport Centre, where he has a flexible schedule and can focus more on physical training while working with 21 other elite athletes from a cross-section of other sports.
"I have way more time for my homework now," said Bichon, who took part in two one-week training camps in Whistler and Big White earlier this winter. "I'm doing more off-hill training now and I feel a lot stronger now."
Bichon plans to follow the Like Me tour to Big White, near Kelowna, Feb. 6-9. He also plans to enter Nor-Am races at Big White (Feb. 21-23), site of the provincial finals (Feb. 26-March 2) and a Nor-Am event at Mount Hood, Ore. (March 22-23).
Bichon is looking forward to watching the Sochi Olympics, where two of his role models -- Canadian snowboardcross team members Chris Robanske of Calgary and Rob Fagan of Cranbrook -- will be tracking down medals. Bichon met them both last year at a Team B.C. camp and the Kessler snowboard he now rides was purchased from Robanske.
"They're both really good guys and they're both going to Olympics this year," said Bichon. "I'm at the provincial level right now. Maybe in a few years I'll be at the national level."
