After placing third in 2013 and second last year, Mount Lorne’s Tim Schirmer is finally the open men’s slopestyle champ.
The 16-year-old rode into the top spot in the Yukon Snowboarding Championships on Saturday at Mount Sima.
“It feels good. It was pretty fun and relaxing,” said Schirmer. “It didn’t really feel like a competition because I know everyone here - we were just snowboarding together.”
Schirmer, who has won junior Yukon titles in the past, came so close to the open title last year. He placed second behind his friend Alexander Chisholme by a score of 526 to 525.
The kicker: “He broke his board so I gave him one of my boards and he beat me by one point,” said Schirmer.
To notch the win Schirmer threw down a switch frontside 360 to switch backside 360 to backside corked 720 on the jumps.
“The switch backside is pretty new for riders up here,” said Schirmer. “Not a lot people can do that trick because it’s pretty technical - going in switch and spinning it backside. It’s one of the newer tricks people are spinning up here.”
Adam Waddington, the 2013 open champ, took second ahead of third place’s Tyler Nichol, the designer of Sima’s terrain park.
“The park was spectacular,” said Schirmer. “It was a bit firm. It could have warmed up a bit to soften things out.”
Schirmer and Waddington represented Yukon at the Canada Winter Games and competed at Canada Snowboard’s Freestyle Nationals a couple weeks ago.
Also at the Canada Games for Yukon was Crystal Legoffe, this year’s open women’s champ. It was also Legoffe’s first open slopestyle title.
“It’s pretty awesome. It was an awesome day, my runs were pretty clean, so I had a good time,” said Legoffe. “I’m glad I competed.”
The 19-year-old took the crown by outperforming second place’s Mackenzie Davy and third’s Rachael MacIntosh.
She hit backside boardslides on the rails in the terrain park and performed a front 360 with a tail grab on the jumps.
“I slipped a disc in my back, so I wasn’t doing anything big,” said Legoffe. “I actually learned the backside boardslide last weekend - and backside 50-50s, so I was doing those in the comp today too.”
Legoffe placed sixth in slopstyle at the Canada Winter Games for the highest-ever finish by a Yukoner in snowboarding at the Canada Games, male or female. Making that result all the more amazing was that the Games was her first slopestyle competition.
“This year she’s been training, almost exclusively, slopestyle and progressing like I can’t believe,” said Snowboard Yukon head coach Mary Binsted. “To be at the top of the podium this year was a nice reward for all her hard work.
“This is essentially her first year competing ever.”
What impressed Binsted the most, she said, were the performances from the under-12 boys boarders. High-flying Sammy Mather defended his title from last year in the division.
“I think the big story is our 12-and-under category,” said Binsted. “(They) were riding the entire terrain park with all the big jumps at the bottom.
“Those are very big jumps and we definitely haven’t seen anything like that the last four or five years, so the progression is amazing.”
“Some of the younger riders, in four or five years, are going to be doing top-level competition,” added Schirmer.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com
Results
Open male
1st Tim Schirmer
2nd Adam Waddington
3rd Tyler Nichol
4th Michael Richardson
5th Robert Faulds
6th Brandon Gullison
Open female
1st Crystal Legoffe
2nd Mackenzie Davy
3rd Rachael MacIntosh
Males 15-16
1st Kyle Koski
Males 13-14
1st Ethan Davy
2nd Ben Shier
Males under 12
1st Sammy Mather
2nd Ben Machtan
3rd Syth Charchun