The ACA U16 Rising Stars Camp is now underway in beautiful Panorama, B.C. Led by Dusan Grasic, Alpine Canada’s Director of Domestic Sport, the Ontario crew is led by veteran Georgian Peaks coach Andy Holba. Below is a recap so far from the slopes…

AOA U16 ATHLETES

Kyle Blandford, Toronto Ski Club
Zach Hyland, Craigleith Ski Club
Oleksa Mojsiak, Georgian Peaks Ski Club
Mackenzie Wood, Georgian Peaks Ski Club
Sydney Basil, Alpine Ski Club
Ashley Campbell, Georgian Peaks Ski Club
Annie Deeks, Craigleith Ski Club
Lauren Hunter, Georgian Peaks Ski Club – unable to attend
Elizabeth Sullivan, Alpine Ski Club

submitted to AOA by Andy Holba…

DECEMBER 5TH — Another very FULL day. SG in the AM was superb.  Clear, -5, firm, grippy. Dusan set a beautiful, easy, flowing SG right down the middle of one of the best SG training hills in the country. The kids responded with, clean, on line, well balanced turns.    More fantastic learning. Our GS session was on the same hill, 42 gates long.  AWESOME stuff.

Then….. THE BEST part of the day happened.

Manny Osborne-Paradis “dropped by” and did a 2 hour session with the kids explaining line, technique and a WHOLE bunch of other amazing topics, including dealing with pressure and being an athlete on a day to day basis.

He also simplified, from an athletes perspective, THE MOST important things needed to be a successful ski racer.

From my point of view, he HIT the BULLS EYE on EVERY topic.

In time, the kids attending will realize just how lucky they are. The snow, the hill, the weather, the video, the sets, the simplified coaching.

Very professional.

DEC 4TH –– Another great day on snow again today. The snow was fast and grippy, they all seemed to be more and more comfortable on the big skis. The focus and awareness levels are very high, lots of attentive learning going on.

We had 10 runs on the SG track this morning, they are ready to be eased into SG gates tomorrow.  After lunch we then did 8 runs on two separate, 30 gate, GS courses, with video. Safety is our #1 concern, so much so that the coaches were on hill after today’s afternoon GS training and set top to bottom, both sides, double width fencing.

They went straight to a 10 minute dinner in their ski clothes, then on to the 7pm athlete meeting. It’s good for the kids to see how hard people will work for them if they show the effort and focus themselves.  Which they are.

Photo above with Ontario CAST racer Candace Crawford.