Whitehorse Daily Star

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Photo by Marissa Tiel

AIR TIME – Miguel Rodden practises on the Yukon Freestyle Ski Team’s new dry ramp. The facility was officially opened at Mount Sima on Sept. 24.

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Photo by Marissa Tiel

ALL THE WAY UP – Argus Huggard climbs the stairs with his skiing kit slung over his shoulder.

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Photo by Marissa Tiel

DISMOUNT – Miguel Roddan slides off the air bag during training at Mount Sima.

Dry ramp improves quality of summer training for Yukon freestyle skiers

Yukon freestyle skiers will need fewer trips out of the territory for summer training thanks to a state-of-the-art snow-less ramp.

By Marissa Tiel on September 29, 2016

Yukon freestyle skiers will need fewer trips out of the territory for summer training thanks to a state-of-the-art snow-less ramp.

The ramp, which cost $215,000, was paid for in part by grants obtained from Yukon Lotteries, the Community Development Fund and fundraising efforts by Yukon Freestyle. It was officially opened on Sept. 24.

Members of the government, athletes and parents were on hand Saturday for the ribbon cutting ceremony at the ramp, about a quarter of the way up the Mount Sima ski hill.

Freestyle Yukon team member, Niko Rodden, took the first jump to demonstrate how the ramp worked.

He buckled his helmet, clipped into his skis and slid a few feet down the ramp before pointing his toes downhill and picking up speed on the Neveplast surface.

The artificial Neveplast is an Italian product that simulates snow and has been used around the world. A Minnesota ski hill recently covered its hill in the product to offer fall skiing to its customers.

Rodden hit the ramps and twisted in the sky, flying 20 feet in the air and another 40 to the air bag below, securing a topsy-turvy view of Whitehorse in the valley far below.

“It’s generally pretty soft,” said the 17-year-old, after expertly sliding from the massive air bag. “We keep the air bag just at the right stiffness so it absorbs the fall.”

Before the installation of the ramp and air bag at Mount Sima, members of the Yukon freestyle team had to travel either to Whistler, B.C. or to Red Deer, Alta. in the summer to utilize their fair-weather ramp facilities. Both Whistler and Red Deer are water ramps, so instead of landing on a giant bag of air, the skiers land in a pool of water.

There is only one other air bag and ramp combo facility in Canada. It’s located in Nova Scotia.

Similarly, families there had had enough of travelling away from their home base to train.

If skiers want to do any inversions on snow in competition, they have to prove that they know how to do them safely, said Yukon Freestyle club president, Lynda Harlow.

The air bag will help those athletes get certified to perform the inverted tricks at home, instead of travelling Outside for the opportunity.

“Safety is huge,” said Harlow. “If you go out and do something you’re not trained to do, you could be seriously injured.”

The ramp is also helping more developed athletes work on increasingly difficult tricks.

Rodden is trying to nail down his double cork 1080 – two full flips and a spin.

“I’ve never really done it to snow,” he said, “but I think using this airbag will make it easier for me to get that trick.”

With a shrinking snow season, the ramp has proved beneficial already this summer, with the athletes joining new head coach Graham Pollock at the Mount Sima jump.

“It’s been really beneficial just to be able to train in the summer and just lock in our tricks that we’re working on before the snow hits,” said Rodden. “It really gives us an advantage over other teams that don’t have facilities like this.”

In the winter the jump can be covered in snow and the air bag still used as the athletes transition into snow season.

This winter Mount Sima will host Yukon’s first-ever Canada Cup, a Freestyle Ski Canada sponsored event that will bring together 80 athletes from across Canada. The competition will run from November 26 to 27 and will be the first of the season in North America.

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