A Millarville skier took a bumpy route to winning a national championship.
Davis Clement, 15, won the moguls championship for 14-16 year-old boys at the Junior National Freestyle Skiing championship at Apex Mountain in Penticton last month.
He also proved he can compete with the best — his top run in his age category put him second overall for moguls.
“I was skiing well the whole week and I had been training on that course for a month,” Clement said. “My first run was pretty fast and my jumps were good. My second run was a bit of a wash.”
Clement won the age-group championship on his first run in Penticton. The moguls champion is decided on the best score of the skiers’ two runs in the competition. The skiers are judged on how quickly they work down a field of moguls — the aim to ski as straight down the fall line as possible.
Clement’s knees were going up and down like the heads in a game of Whackamole as he worked his way downhill. Somehow, he was able to straighten himself out in time to make a pair of spectacular jumps.
Clement completed a Cork 7 and a back-mute respectively in the two jumps on the course. A cork 7 has the skier doing two front flips while also making two 360-degree turns. The back-mute is when he grabs the back of his skis during a back flip.
Actually, Clement came extremely close to winning the overall championship on the strength of his first mogul run.
“I knew I had a pretty good run on my first one but I didn’t think it would score that well,” Clement said. “I was leading until the very last skier on his second run and he beat me.”
Clement finished second overall to a 19-year-old skier from B.C.
Clement also finished second in the duel moguls. It’s a competition in which skiers ski side-by-side and are judged on their run. The best skier in each round advances to the next round while the loser is eliminated.
good but he was really fast,” Clement said, adding he could see his opponent from the corner of his eye on his final run. “I try not to worry about him — I just go for it.”
He finished second to Daich Hara, who trains at Apex.
Clement got a taste of competing against the top competitors at the 2013 National Freestyle Moguls Championships in Quebec last weekend which included world champion mogul skier Michael Kingsbury.
“It was the top mogul skiers — including the world champion,” he said. “I didn’t do very well (in Quebec) I messed up both my runs.”
Kingsbury won the moguls, while Clement was 26th. He didn’t go there with the expectations of winning. He went there to get the experience to reach his goal of making Team Canada.
“I want to make the national team,” said Clement, who is currently on Team Alberta. “Right now, I am not very close. I am hoping to make it in the next couple of years.”
Team Canada members are selected through points accumulated during the season. Clement will compete at the Alberta championships this weekend in Jasper. Clement, who attended Millarville School, is now attending the National Sport School in Calgary and he plans to train in Europe in the fall.
For full results of the Canadian Junior championships go to freestyleski.com/pdf/juniors_2013.pdf
