Twelve-year-old Stian (pronounced Ste-on) Langbakk has captured gold in the U13 Slopestyle Snowboard competition at Canada Olympic Park (COP) in Calgary.

Langbakk took the event with a first-run score of 50.2 on Jan.29.

Slopestyle is a judged event with several jumps and rails in one run. The combination of how snowboarders do on the jumps and rails on the run gives them their score.

They use the best score out of two runs. The run with the lower score doesn’t count.

The Star spoke with Langbakk and Snowboard Yukon coach Gabe Rivest before Sunday’s Junior Nationals.

“In that specific event, Stian had two runs only to show what he could do, and he landed his first run perfectly, so that’s what got him the win,” recalled Snowboard Yukon coach Gabe Rivest.

He was in Calgary coaching Langbakk.

“Usually all riders will have what we call a ‘safe run’, which is a run that, for the athlete, is one that the athlete is pretty sure he’s going to win, or has a high chance of landing. And after that, if that athletes lands that safe run, then we usually try to hop it up a notch with some tricks that are a little bit harder that the rider doesn’t necessarily land all the time. And so after doing good on his first run and landing his safe run, we stepped it up a notch and he just – it just didn’t go as he was hoping,” related Rivest.

Needless to say, Langbakk was thrilled with his gold medal win.

“I’m very happy. Excited.”

“I kind of just did my safety run and I landed the tricks I wanted to, mostly, and then on my harder run, I kind of, like, bobbled a bit on it ... my safety run was a lot better.”

“I think it was amazing! He did really well.” added Rivest.

When asked if anybody from Yukon had done this well before, Rivest replied “Not at that age. No”

Rivest has been coaching Langbakk for a couple of years.

“He’s still pretty young, obviously, so it hasn’t been that long.”

Langbakk names Rivest and his dad as major influences on his early success.

Rivest explained what he thinks makes Langbakk so successful at such a young age.

“He’s obviously extremely talented and he’s a hard worker. He’s very coachable and he’s extremely passionate about the sport. It’s huge at that age; that’s all he thinks about, that’s all he wants to do all the time, he just never wants to stop.

“He loves the variety of the sport. He loves jumps just as much as rails, which is nice, especially for slopestyle,” added Rivest.

Langbakk is quite focused when it comes to what he wants to do in the future.

“I want to become a professional snowboarder, “ he stated.

“Being able to go to X-Games ... I don’t know. I just want to snowboard,” he added.

Langbakk had a lukewarm response when asked if he wants to ride for Team Canada.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Yeah.”

As for the Olympics, “I don’t know. But I just want to go to X-Games,” stated the young boarder.

Rivest thinks the young boarding phenom has a lot of potential.

“I think he can take it really far. A big thing with snowboarding is always injuries. It’s always super-hard to predict, depending on how injuries happen or don’t happen, especially at a young age, can make a big difference. But so far, he’s an extremely solid rider. I can definitely see him taking it to the next level in no time. He’s extremely talented and, like I mentioned, he just loves the sport so much.

“I’ve been coaching for about 10 years now in the Yukon and I’ve never coached another athlete that loves it this much at such a young age. He’s so aware of the whole snowboarding world. He knows all the different riders that are in movies, and all the tricks and everything, which is amazing for such a young athlete. I think he’s got really good potential of taking it to the next level,” added Rivest.

He also thinks Langbakk has the potential to be on the national team.

“This weekend is junior nationals, so that will paint a better picture as well, because there should be athletes from all over the country here, but at such a young age, often riders from other provinces, especially in COVID times, don’t necessarily travel, so it’s hard to tell the level across the country, but if things go like they’re looking now, it’s definitely a high chance of getting in the mix of the possible national team in a few years to come.

Langbakk won the U13 category at the Junior Nationals yesterday. Overall, he was seventh in his heat, one spot away from qualifying for the final.