The head coach of B.C.'s snowboard cross team gave his seal of approval to the permanent snowboard cross track at Tabor where the B.C. Snowboard Federation's Like Me Snowboard Series tour stopped last weekend.
"I was really impressed by the course," Linden Ruecker said after Sunday's event. "It's a longer course and takes a bit over a minute to complete, so it's a higher level in terms of length. It's a fast course and very technical and has bumps throughout and our riders liked the challenge of it.
Sunday's snowboard cross event featured a field of 50 athletes in several open age group classes as well as Masters and FIS classes. It was contested on the eastern slopes of Tabor Mountain as riders raced each other in several heats down a narrow course with banked turns and jumps, covering steep and flat terrain.
It's also the host site for the 2015 Canada Winter Games.
"I haven't seen other tracks in northern B.C., but this is definitely on my radar for future training," he said.
Ruecker is in charge of a stable of 10 athletes who range in age from 15 to 19 from across B.C., including 16-year-old Prince George racers Evan Bichon and Mereyta O'Dine.
The provincial team - nine of the them competed at Tabor on the weekend - follows the FIS (Fderation Internationale Ski) Nor-Am Cup Tour, a series of development races at sites around North America during the season from November - April. The team left for Copper, Colorado on Monday.
Both Bichon and O'Dine have found recent success on the competitive snowboard cross circuit.
O'Dine won a bronze medal in a Nor-Am race on Jan. 29 in Mont-Tremblant, Que., while Bichon is a two-time junior national age-group bronze medallist.
They're both FIS racers, meaning any FIS events they enter count towards points that will determine the B.C. team for the 2015 Canada Winter Games.
The B.C. team trains mostly at Big White in Kelowna and at Whistler, which includes a lot of dryland training year-round.
"A lot of riders don't put time in the gym," Ruecker said. "I'd say the sport is 50-50 in terms of being in the gym and on the snow. Our training is sport specific where you have have a strong lower lower body and strong legs to push out of the gate."
Ruecker credits the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the right-around-the-corner Sochi Olympics as giving more exposure to the sport.
"The attention has increased 10-fold and you see more parents involved with support and we're more recognizable at the mountains and by sponsors," he said. "At a smaller location like this [at Tabor], it offers better training locally and fuels the whole sport."
