Competition starts today in the B.C. Freestyle Timber Tour at Tabor Mountain Ski Resort.
The slopestyle event of the freestyle skiing competition goes from 1:30 to 3 p.m. with the moguls competition set for Saturday, followed by the big air event on Sunday. Each skier in slopestyle and moguls gets two runs and the big air skiers will have two cracks at the jump, which is part of the slopestyle course at Tabor.
More than 65 athletes from seven clubs, including the Yukon, have signed up to compete in the second stop on the provincial Timber Tour.
"It's amazing, we're so stoked, the park is in great condition," said Camille Douglas, executive director of the B.C. Freestyle Ski Association. "We're totally impressed with what the guys at Tabor Mountain and the club here have done with so little snow."
The Northern B.C. Freestyle Club reformed during the 2011-12 season after a six-year hiatus, with a new group of parents, including former Olympian Scott Bellavance.
James Hudson is wearing two hats as club president and head coach overseeing a group of young skiers that's grown from 11 in 2011-12 to 25 last season. Freestyle skiing will be part of the 2015 Canada Winter Games and that's boosted local interest. There are now 33 kids aged six to 16 involved in the club, with another 15 on the wait list. Club membership has been limited by the number of coaches.
"The sport is growing fast," said Hudson. "It's all parent-driven and all volunteers. We don't have any paid coaches but one day that will probably happen because some of these kids are advancing pretty quick. We'll either have to train our coaches more or find someone who is willing to come up here and work with some of these higher-end athletes."
Hudson and club coach Ryan Milne built a wave tank at Tabor for the kids to practice moguls on a less intimidating terrain. The club has received some grant money through the Canada Games Society, which paid for fencing, radios and other equipment that will be in use at Tabor this weekend.
B.C. Freestyle has also stepped up to provide course marshals and a technical team from other clubs in the province to make sure the courses are safe for the athletes.
Hudson doesn't expect any of his athletes to make the grade for Team B.C. at the Canada Games but this weekend's Timber Tour competitions will introduce them to athletes of that calibre.
The local competitors can also look to the recent past for inspiration.
The Central Interior Freestyle Ski Club once boasted 130 athletes and dominated the province as the largest freestyle club in Canada, hosting the junior national
championships in 1994.
P.G. moguls specialists Bellavance, Chris Wong, Jennifer Simm and Garrett Simm earned their way to the World Cup scene. In aerials, Brad Suey, Tron Rouleau , Lance Rouleau, Amy St. Amand and Jay Nachbaur flew the Prince George flag in World Cup events in Europe, Asia and North America.
Their international prominence reached new heights in 2002 when Bellavance competed in the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, followed by Wong in the 2006 Turin Olympics. Rob Kober, coach of the Canadian men's Olympic moguls team in Sochi, is a former head coach of the Central Interior club.
But after a couple of bad snow years, combined with the trickle of older athletes leaving town to train with national teams, the parents who had worked so hard behind the scenes organizing club events at the Hart ski hill and Tabor Mountain stepped away from the sport and in 2005 the club died.
