Canadian alpine skiers excited about new Olympic team event

Canadians often excel in a new event about to be added to an Olympic Games. The challenge for Canada's skiers is to turn early success in the nations team competition into a medal.

Shortly after Canada won a world championship silver medal in the team event in February, the International Olympic Committee declared it will be added to the menu at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

"I think we all kind of know we have an opportunity to be competing for a medal and that doesn't come around very often," said Toronto slalom skier Philip Brown, who was in on that silver medal in Vail, Colorado.

Head-to-head slalom racing has been around since the World Pro Ski Tour in the 1970s. A team event debuted at the world alpine championship in 2005, but the format has been revised to make it compact and television-friendly.

Each country chooses two men and two women. Each skier goes head-to-head on a short slalom course against a skier of the same gender from another country.

The first skier over the finish line earns a point. The country with the most points after the four races advances to next round. The combined time of the fastest man and fastest woman is the tiebreaker if it's 2-2.

Brown, Calgary's Trevor Philp, Erin Mielzynski of Collinwood, Ont., and Toronto's Candace Crawford defeated Germany, Italy and Sweden en route to the final in Vail, where they lost 3-1 to Austria.

The course is so short it takes between 20 and 25 seconds to cover and there are two jumps on it. A skier in the lead can fall or miss a gate and be disqualified, so the trailing skier can still pull off a victory.

"You have to stay so focused because if someone is ahead of you, you're not out of the game," Mielzynski said. "They could fall or mess up."

Because the race is a sprint, a powerful, fast start out is the key. The start gate resembles ski cross in that the skiers launch from a metal chute after a barrier drops.

"The most important thing is not getting out of the start late," Mielzynski said. "Phil and Trevor get out early. They are amazing at starts."

The IOC's inclusion of the sport follows a trend of not just upping female participation in the Games, but incorporating mixed-gender medal events.

The luge relay featuring a male and a female slider and a men's doubles team was introduced in 2014 when Canada finished fourth. Mixed doubles curling will also make its Olympic debut in 2018.

Headache for coaches

Adding the team event is a headache for coaches. They must find time to train its specific skill set on top of the work that goes into preparing athletes for individual slalom, giant slalom, super-G and downhill races.

"This is a tough one," said Martin Rufener, Alpine Canada's athletic director. "You need someone who really has the ability of technical skier and a killer instinct in them. It's a specific type of athlete you need in there because it's a short sprint.

"It's so hard to fit it in because you have the men's circuit and the women's circuit and it's so hard to find a place where they are close together to train it."

Now that there's an Olympic medal at stake, powerhouse ski countries such as Austria and Switzerland are going to put resources and time into winning a medal.

Canada is trying to stay ahead of the game. A start gate specific to the team event has been built at Calgary's Canada Olympic Park for the alpine skiers.

Brown and Mielzynski love the novelty of competing as a team and the adrenaline rush they get trying to beat a skier beside them.

"It's kind of a mental escape for me," Mielzynski said. "I've never competed in a team sport, so when there's a team medal up for grabs, it's way more fun and a way for you to kind of release."

Added Brown: "A lot of it comes down to competitive will to win. When you're going head to head with somebody, you either find a way to win or you don't."