With less than a year to go before the Winter Olympic Games, the pressure on Canadian athletes is mounting. We recently caught up with Canadian Freestyle Skier Ryan Blais while he was in Thailand, relaxing after a demanding FIS World Cup Circuit. Thanks to our friends at Optimum for facilitating the interview.

SkiREBEL magazine: Tell us a little about yourself and how you got started in Aerial skiing?
Ryan Blais: I grew up skiing on a very small ski hill where the parking lot was at the top. I was a bit of a dare devil and there wasn’t much terrain so me and my friends would huck ourselves off of any hit we could find.
It didn’t take long before the ski hill was routinely pulling our passes for breaking the rules. One of my ski friends saw a brochure for a water ramp camp in Red Deer where you could learn how to do back flips into a pond. It took about 5 minutes of discussion to round up 3 buddies to go with.
14 years later I’m still hucking myself into the air. Not much has changed, I just take a lot more air now and minimize risk!

SR: Where do you call home now?
RB: Grande Prairie, AB. I don’t get home as often as I would like but GP will always be my home. I am very involved in the community because they have been very supportive of me and my Olympic pursuit. I have spent a bunch of time in Quebec this year to train with other members of the Freestyle Team.

SR: You mentioned training; what’s the time commitment for an athlete, such as yourself, trying to qualify for 2010 and what does that consist of?

RB: We train full-time for eleven months of the year. The majority of our technical training happens in the summer (May to October) at the National Water training center in Lac Beauport Quebec. The water ramp is a safe atmosphere where we can learn and perfect our tricks so that they are ready for competition in the winter. Once the snow falls our team spends two months at Apex Mountain in Penticton for a pre-season on snow camp that helps us prepare for the upcoming world cup season. Once the competition season starts in December we are pretty much in a new ski resort every week for two and a half months straight. We end the season with National
Championships at the end of March and then I get the whole glorious month of April off to relax at home in Grande Prairie.

SR: Are you finished competing for this season?
RB: We just finished competing at the 2009 World Championships in Japan.
I had a very disappointing competition and unfortunately ended the season on a low note. We had a ten day break before the start of the next training camp and Nationals so I decided to book a quick trip to Thailand on Aeroplan points. As I write this I’m sitting in an internet cafe in 37 (c) on Phi Phi Island in Krabi Province!

SR: How do you feel about your season?
RB: I’m happy with how well I trained this season and was happy that almost two years off due to various injuries didn’t result in too much rust. I am, however, disappointed on the whole with my lack of solid results in competition. My primary goal this season was to get back on the podium again and put myself in a solid position for 2010. I didn’t manage to hit the podium all year but instead had to settle with multiple top 10 finishes, my best placing being a 4th at Cypress Mountain. This was my first season since my rookie season that I didn’t hit the podium and I am very dissapointed because my training has shown that my jumping was at a good enough level to be on the podium.

SR: How does that play out in terms of qualifying for 2010?
RB: This season is an important season for qualifying for 2010 but next year is even more important. Results from next year have a higher bearing on qualifications so I am a bit relieved that I still have next year to climb back onto the podium. Our Canadian Aerials team is very strong and I expect that whomever qualifies for the team will be in contention for Gold in 2010. I expect and know that I am good enough to be on this team!

SR: Talk about the contribution Canada Post has made to Freestyle Skiing in Canada?
RB Canada Post has been the title sponsor for our team for the majority of my career and it’s been great to see how the partnership has grown over the years. In the beginning, I remember the relationship being a bit stuffy and forced, kind of like when you first meet someone new, maybe a new colleague. Then we got to know each other and learned to loosen up a bit and be ourselves around each other. Now the athletes are pumped when the Canada Post people are around, we can be ourselves, we can show our disappointment, share our joy, talk about the pressure we’re under etc. They have become a group of individuals that we can lean on! They are a company of great people that has fallen in love with our sport and the athletes on the team. Canada Post has backed it up with large financial contributions. They have gotten to know us very well and believe that we are a team that will make Canada proud in 2010; and to them we will owe a lot of credit!

SR: We posted a press release on our website about CatchAir.ca and the CatchAir Freestyle game. Explain to our readers a little bit about CatchAir and your involvement.

RB: Yes, Canada Post approached our team at the beginning of the 2008/09 season and asked where we interact online. The obvious answer was Facebook and our personal blogs. So Canada Post built the website CatchAir.ca where our team can keep our fans up-to-date on everything on and off the mountain. From there they built a great Facebook game application where you can learn a little bit about Freestyle and each time the game is played CP will make a donation of $0.25 to our team.
You can also become a fan on out Facebook page and be automatically entered to win a laptop autographed by the team.

SR: Where is your favorite place to ski?
RB: Favorite place to ski is Whistler, favorite competion is anywhere in Quebec!

SR: What is your go-to jump?
RB: My go-to jump in not my hardest jump but it is the one I’m the best at and the one that has the coolest feeling for me. It’s called “Full, Full, Full” and it’s a triple twisting triple back flip. When you hit your take off just right and your rotation is on track you can coast through the trick with close to no movement. If you set everything just perfectly you can sore through the air in perfect form, never having to move to break form.

SR: What are some things you enjoy doing outside of training and competing?
RB: I’m very much a nerd and spend a lot of time on my computer. Lately I have been learing a bit about web design (hence my new website @ www.airblais.com). I also spend a lot of time reading in the summer months. Although I don’t get home to Grande Prairie often I am very involved in my community. I am the Founder of the Come Fly With Me Foundation, Sports Ambassador for the 2010 Arctic Winter Games, Honorary Spokesperson for KidSport Grande Prairie and a member of David Suzuki’s “Play it Cool” program.

SR: What’s next for Ryan Blais and the Canada Post Freestyle Ski Team?
RB: The most exciting time in Canadian Amateur Sports history is just around the corner and I can’t wait for us to be a part of it.

The revered skiing superstar Bode Miller will be featured on HBO this Tuesday when Real Sports host Bryant Gumbel debuts a new series by unfolding the complicated and mysterious career of the world downhill champion.

In an exclusive sixty minute interview on HBO, March 17th at 10 p.m., Miller will get into the story of how he decided to become an independent racer for the United States and his consistent determination to stay the world’s best. In the documentary titled Bode’s Word, Gumbel will focus on the future expectations from the skiing legend.

With the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver drawing near, U.S. ski fans are starting to wonder what to expect from skiing superstar Bode Miller – or if they should expect anything at all. Arguably the most talented American skier ever, Miller has proven himself a winner time and time again, but he’s always done it on his own terms. Now, still smarting over the way he was treated by the media and U.S. ski authorities after his disastrous performance in the 2006 Torino Olympics, Miller, 31, sits down with correspondent Jon Frankel in this REAL SPORTS/Sports Illustrated profile to discuss his reasons for leaving the U.S. Ski Team to compete as an independent on the World Cup circuit, and explain his decision-making process.

Here’s an extract of the interview:

Bode Miller on the breaking point between him and the U.S. Ski Team:

Bode Miller: “They brought me in and they said, ‘Okay, we’ve done our thinking and here’s the two proposals.’ The first option was for me to reintegrate myself into the ski team, not live in my motor home, and pay my own way.”

Jon Frankel: “What was option B?”

Bode Miller: “Go on my own and do the same thing.”

Bode Miller: “I was like, ‘Okay, meeting’s over. Good luck guys, have fun next year.’”

Jon Frankel: “How good are you?”

Bode Miller: “When I ski at my very best, there’s not a guy in the world that can beat me. I’m asking, you know, my body to do things that no one else asks. Not another athlete in the world, not another ski racer, maybe even in history. And when it works, it feels like a miracle, and it’s awesome. And it’s inspirational. And it’s worth the wait. It’s worth the risk.”

As part of Canada Post’s ongoing commitment to the Canadian Freestyle Team, an exciting Guitar Hero© style game has been launched on Facebook. CatchAir lets Canadians from coast to coast challenge their friends to perfect the flips and tricks that have made Canada’s freestyle team the world’s best. Each time a challenge is made on CatchAir between February 16 and April 1, 2009, Canada Post will donate $0.25 to support the team. Money raised through playing the game will be added to Canada Post’s ongoing financial commitment to the National Freestyle Team as title sponsor.
Continue reading ‘Canada Post promotes Freestyle Team’

Ole Einar Bjorndalen Becomes World’s Greatest Ever Winter Sportsman
Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjorndalen clocked up his 87th World Cup Win and gold medal in the Biathlon World Championships in Pyeongchang, South Korea on Tuesday.
The incredible tally from the 35 year old beats the total accumulated in the 1970s and 1980s by Swedish slalom skier Ingemar Stenmark, who won 86 World Cup gold medals.
Bjorndalen won the first three World Championship gold medals in a row in the Sprint, Pursuit and Individual events.
Biathlon is one of the world’s most challenging and exciting sports. Cross country skiers race laps, carrying heavy rifles on their backs, and then shoot at targets in a succession of lying and standing positions. Race too fast and the heart rate becomes too great to hit the targets, resulting in penalties and losing the competition, but go too slow and you lose the race anyway.

John Kucera of Calgary this morning became the first Canadian man to win the downhill gold medal at the World Alpine Championships.

Starting second on the Bellevarde course on a day with ever shifting conditions, the 24-year-old Kucera skied a nearly flawless run, hitting the finish line in 2:07:01. He then endured a long, nervous wait, while each of the world’s best downhillers tried – and failed – to beat his time.

the first stage of the Freeride World Tour 2009, the Nissan Russian Adventure, took place and were a resounding success in Krasnaya Polyana ski resort near Sochi in Russia, the site for the 2014 Olympic Games.
Everything was perfect to make this event a success, large amounts of fresh snow, blue skies with no clouds in sight and riders ready to take on an impressive face for the first competition of the season.
Continue reading ‘Freeride World Tour kicks off in Sochi’

The daughter of Dave Murray has followed in her dad’s skis — sort of
Whenever she skied as a girl, which was most days in Whistler, Julia Murray always finished by racing down the course named for her father. And when she started to beat her mom, a three-time freestyle world champion, Murray knew she was on to something.

Canadians take five of six podium spots at World Cup ski cross final


The Canadian freestyle ski cross team was in a rapturous mood Friday, taking five of six podium spots in the men’s and women’s ski cross final at a World Cup event on Cypress Mountain.
Chris Del Bosco, a Colorado-born skier with dual citizenship, finished first on the men’s side with Stanley Hayer, of Edmonton, and Davey Barr, of Vancouver, finishing second and third respectively.

Julia Mancuso veers off course at world ski championships in France

Julia Mancuso is so frustrated, she’s skipping the downhill at the world championships.
She veered off the course in disgust during the downhill of the super-combi race at the event on Friday.
Trailing the leader by nearly two seconds, Mancuso headed off course within sight of the finish line and came to a stop to pause for reflection. The Olympic giant slalom champion hasn’t won a race in nearly two years, bothered by a bad back and equipment changes.

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