Red Mountain Racers win big at home and make waves abroad
By Andrew Zwicker
From right here at Red Mountain and all the way across the pond to Adelboden Switzerland, it’s been a big week for Rossland skiers. At the same time that former Red Mountain Racer Sasha Zaistoff was competing in his first ever World Cup slalom in Switzerland, local world cup hopefuls were tearing up the slopes at Red and posting dominant performances.
Closest to home the Red Mountain Racers K1 and K2 divisions played host to the Teck Slalom event on the Back Trail of Red Mountain with three races in two days. The race was the first of the season for the kinder series and under blue skies and cold temperatures the Red Mountain Racer squad finished the weekend with four gold medals, five silver and four bronze. By the end of the race series every Red Mountain Racer finished with at least one top ten finish for the weekend.
Soleil Patterson, racing in the K1 division (11 and 12 year olds) cleaned house with four podiums. Posting big leads over the rest of the field in all but one race Patterson won both of Saturday’s slalom races and then followed that up Sunday with a second place finish in the morning race and a third victory for the weekend in the afternoon race.
Overall for the women racers, the most dominant skier of the weekend, racing in the K2 category, was a name familiar to many in this country and Red Mountain in particular – Stephanie Gartner.Building on her mother Kerrin Lee-Gartner who grew up skiing on Red Mountain and ultimately went on the win Olympic Downhill Gold in 1992, Stephanie Gartner owned the K2 category, beating out the second place finisher by over four seconds in Sunday’s two run Slalom. Now based out of Calgary and racing for the Fernie squad, young Gartner is already making a name for herself on the circuit and is well on her way to following in her mother’s footsteps.
On the boys’ side, Rowan Stevens had a strong showing with three podium finishes for the weekend including a third in Saturday morning’s slalom, an eighth place finish Saturday afternoon and a strong finish with an eight and two second place finishes on Sunday.
“Rowan was really on the ball this weekend,” commented team coach Gilles Bellerose. “He really raised the level of his skiing and had some fast times.”
In the K2 class ( 13 and 14 year olds) Ian Fry, racing his first race since moving up to K2, didn’t let the older kids he was competing against faze him as he scored two top ten finishes, culminating in a second place finish on Sunday. Impressed with Fry’s result, Bellerose noted that it was “quite encouraging for his future especially as it’s just his first year racing with old
er kids and the first race of the season. That was quite an accomplishment!”
In a weekend that held multiple races in which local athletes were doing very well in, Bellerose was challenged with keeping excitement in check until the final race was completed. Overall, however, he was impressed with the level of competitiveness and sportsman ship shown by his team.
“It was a very good weekend and I’m really proud of what the kids achieved. They showed up and they did better than I expected so they definitely cranked it up for race day. One of the difficult things to manage is after the racers have a good result, making sure they understand the weekend is not finished and to keep racing hard. The kids were all congratulating each other all weekend though. From a coach’s standpoint that’s the most important thing to achieve. On an individual basis we had great results but this is a team and they are all helping each other become better skiers and we win as a team. The kids were really happy. Everyone left after the presentations with a big grin on their face, and they were all looking forward to the next race.”
With every Red Mountain Racer achieving at least one top ten finish in the events dominated by the large contingent of Fernie Alpine Resort Racers both coaches, volunteers and race organizers alike were thrilled with the successful weekend.
“The weekend went very well and we attribute a lot of that success to our team of volunteers,” commented Red Mountain Racers president Don Stevens.
That next race will be in Fernie in just over a month’s time when the Red Mountain Racers will once again be charging for the podium as they work to qualify for the Western championships and the season ending Whistler Cup in early spring.
Providing a heavy dose of motivation to his younger alumni back home 20 year old former Red Mountain Racer Sasha Zaitsoff made his world cup debut, racing against (and beating) some of his childhood heroes. As he stepped into the start gate, a scenario he’d been dreaming off most of his life, Zaitsoff impressed as he kept his composure and finished in 1:01.56, 47th out of 49 finishers.
“I felt pretty confident,” said Zaitsoff to media following the race. “It was really neat to race against all the people you watch on TV all the time.”
Among his heroes and the best in the sport that Zaitsoff beat were Body Miller and Benjamin Raich, both of whom crashed on their first run.
Bellerose was ecstatic over the result. “He had a fantastic weekend. It was actually quite cool this weekend that it was not that long ago that Sasha was racing in races just like were held this weekend. Again it’s another kid from Red Mountain doing well. There is a long history and we can’t forget that Red Mountain Racers is the club that has produced the most national team members over the years.”
With a bit of luck and more strong showings like this past weekend you can be sure it won’t be long until the next great Rossland skier is making world headlines and following in the wake of long and storied Red Mountain racing history.
Full race results from the past weekend are available here
To watch coverage of the event courtesy CBC and see Sasha’s first run click here
