McMillan Wins Canadian Championship
Posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010
Cloudveil ambassador Jess McMillan of Jackson Hole won the women’s Canadian Freeskiing Championship yesterday at Revelstoke Mountain Resort.
McMillan stuck some big airs in the finals to edge Jacqui Edgerly, who also calls Jackson Hole and Grand Targhee home. Angel Collinson and Michele Manning of Snowbird and Alta took third and fourth, respectively. Arne Backstrom of Lake Tahoe won the men’s title ahead of Frenchman Julien Lopez and Canadians Luke Nelson and Aaron Schmidt.
The event was the second stop on the 2010 Freeskiing World Tour. McMillan won the tour in 2007 and placed second in the rival Freeride World Tour in 2008 and third in 2009.
“I chose a different strategy for this competition,” she wrote on her blog. “I usually ski to win; playing the point game and erroring on the side of caution not to fall. This year it is my goal to challenge myself every day skiing. Believe it or not I am a relatively conservative skier. I rarely fall. This year I would like to challenge myself and see what happens.”
McMillan’s approach on the first day of the competition was to take three large jumps, some of the biggest among the women. “I was really nervous because I have not had a lot [of] practice in the air this season. My only practice was a ten foot air the day before. I figured I had a 50/50 chance of sticking my line. Not the best odds, but I also knew I would be stoked if I did stick it. So I went for it and stuck it, finishing second for the day.”
(Photo by Bryan Ralph)
