Doug Neuman/WN

Kara Siegle does a 360 during Friday afternoon's slopestyle competition at the Alberta Winter Games which were hosted at the Tawatinaw Valley Ski Hill.

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Freeriders miss the podium at Winter Games

Locals post personal bests

Westlock-area athletes failed to make the podium at the Alberta Winter Games skiing and snowboarding events hosted at the Tawatinaw Valley Ski Hill Friday and Saturday.

Dapp’s Levi Foster was the only local athlete in the snowboarding competitions, while five members of the Tawatinaw Valley Freeriders represented the area in the skiing competitions: Jaret Foster, Jesse Keats, Klayton Potts, Emma Siegle and Kara Siegle.

Freeriders club president Toni Siegle said while none of the riders had a podium finish, they all had exceptional performances.

“In the slopestyle competition, every single one of the kids from Tawatinaw had a personal best score,” she said.

“Really, that’s the most you can expect of any athlete — just to go out there and do the best they can.”

The moguls proved to be more of a challenge, since the mild weather meant the skiers only had a few weeks to practice.

“Because of the lack of snow, our kids didn’t have a lot of time to train on moguls,” she said.

“I don’t think any of them had a huge expectation they’d do super well.”

Coming off their final runs, however, the riders didn’t show any indication they were disappointed with how they ran the course.

“I felt it was really good and really clean,” Keats said just moments after coming off the mogul course.

Jaret Foster said he was happy with his performance over the weekend and was satisfied that he’d given it his all.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he added.

The level of skill shown by some of the athletes from across the province was jaw-dropping, with several successfully pulling off complicated and difficult inverted tricks.

Siegle said she was not at all surprised at the difficult tricks she saw, since provincial competitions often feature such impressive moves — none of which would be possible without the hard work coaches put in.

“It’s really no surprise Alberta’s putting out the calibre of skiers we are,” Siegle said. “The level of commitment the coaches have for their athletes is really just exceptionally high. They make huge commitments to their kids.”

The other side of the coin is that the event couldn’t have happened without the volunteers who came forward.

Having hosted an event of this magnitude, Siegle said the club could consider hosting a club competition at the hill in the future, but that decision would have to be made by the board.

For full results from the weekend’s events, see www.albertagames.com.