Word & Photos by Brian Finestone
Whether you are a fan or not, the Olympics are coming and the mainstream media wants in. The hype around snowboarding with the addition of Slopestyle to the roster has brought unprecedented attention to riders who have previously dodged the mainstream. Canada has a powerhouse of talent in the slopestyle scene with Mark, Seb, Max and Charles who all seem to be peaking at just the right time.
In the lull between pre-Olympic contests, the National Slopestyle team held a training camp at Blackcomb Mountain to give the crew some good jump practice before X Games and Sochi.
Despite a season that has had unprecedented warm temperatures and a lack of natural snow, WB threw all of the snowmaking power they had into making a Sochi replica slope course for the team. The lack of storms rolling through and extended sunny days meant a perfect stretch for towing the crew with sleds for maximum training time. While Mark McMorris , Charles Reid, Matts Kulisek, Darcy Sharpe, Tyler Nicholson along with Brook Voigt and Breanna Strangeland got a solid week of training in, It was Seb Toots who got the most out of his time in Whistler. Toutant stuck around for an additional week of sunny weather to train on a custom built 65' jump built to his specs. "That jump is the best jump I have hit in a long time, it had lots of airtime and almost no impact when you hit the sweet spot".
Darcy Sharpe - Double cork 1080
Having a custom built jump and sled at his disposal, Toots ran laps on the setup for a week straight, often jumping 50+ times in a session, learning new tricks and solidifying some technical ones already in his roster. What follows are some images from the training sessions. Good luck to all of the Canadian Snowboard Team, thanks for making us all look good.
Seb Toots - Double cork 1080
And check out these amazing videos of Seb hucking perfect doubles and triples on the infamous "Hut Jump" in Blackcomb's Highest Level Terrain Park. Soooooo sick in super slow-mo!
