Snowboard Yukon’s Comp Team spent March 17-21 at the Winsport facility in Calgary training and competing in slopestyle at the Alberta Provincials and Junior Nationals.

The slopestyle discipline involves the athletes doing tricks on a series of jumps and rails that are then judged. The best of two runs counts. The field is divided into heats, with the top athletes from each heat reaching finals, where they get a chance to do two more runs to determine final ranking.

Thirteen-year-old Stian Langbakk, fresh off his fifth place at the Canada Winter Games in P.E.I., led the way with a gold medal in the U15 category at Alberta Provincials. At Junior Nationals, he had an even better performance, placing an incredible sixth of 71 overall (17 & under). He landed four technically difficult runs on the day. The judges particularly liked his final run in which he cleanly executed four of his five tricks “switch” (opposite from his natural stance).

Seamus MacDonald had an excellent performance at Alberta Provincials, earning a silver in the U13 category with two solid runs that included some huge 720s on the jumps. He had another good performance on Tuesday, narrowly missing the podium in the U13 category at Junior Nationals and placing 4th.

Riley Boland, in her last Juniors, ended on a high by landing her qualification run perfectly, spinning her jumps and doing a 180 out of the rail, a trick she hadn’t managed in practice. This earned her 10th in the FIS 17 & under category.

Leo Spiers Leung, Mason Stehelin and Will Stenzig gained valuable experience, as this was their first Slopestyle competitions outside the territory.

The Snowboard Yukon season wraps up on April 1 and 2 with the Yukon Championships. More info can be found at https://snowboardyukon.com

– Submitted by Brent Langbakk