Uphill battle begins again for Canadian ski jumpers
Dan Barnes • Postmedia
In Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes’ chosen sport, landings are mandatory, take-offs optional.
The 29-year-old ski jumper from Calgary is living in the Slovenian town of Kranj, training for a World Cup season that starts in Poland a week from now, wondering if he has chosen the right option, given the COVID-19 pandemic and all.
“It does feel strange to see many other athletes addressing cancelled events, choosing not to take part, or being unable to,” he wrote in a text interview with Postmedia on Friday. “To even practise my sport I need to leave the country as we currently have zero facilities nationwide. I’ve been able to train and prepare for the upcoming season pretty well, but it doesn’t necessarily feel like the time to be promoting it.
“I postponed my initially planned training trips because of the pandemic, but made the decision to come in September because I knew how much training on the hill was necessary in order to be competitive this winter. I didn’t know if the season was going to happen but felt I had no choice but to prepare myself as if it was.
“I’ll try to take it one event at a time. If there are complications or it doesn’t make sense to continue, then I’ll change the plan.”
For several years, Boyd-Clowes was the only Canadian male ski jumper competing regularly on the World Cup circuit. He has been to more than 130 events and has more than a dozen finishes in the top-25, including a career-best ninth on a larger, ski-flying hill in Austria in January 2014.
He’s also a three-time Olympian, having competed at Vancouver, Sochi and PyeongChang, where he was 21st on the large hill, his best Olympic result.
In 2019, fellow Calgarian Matthew Soukup joined the World Cup circuit, albeit briefly. The 23-year-old has been to four competitions, is currently in Slovenia, and will start this World Cup season with Boyd-Clowes. Two members of the women’s team, Abigail Strate and Natalie Eilers, are training in Norway, while the other two, Nicole Maurer and Natasha Bodnarchuk, are taking university courses at home in Calgary. The plan is to have all four join the World Cup tour starting in January.
Given an off-season devoid of jumping, this year looks like an even tougher uphill battle for most of them. The jumps built for the 1988 Olympics in Calgary have been mothballed entirely and there is no off-season training on the jumps in Whistler, B.C.
“Not having the infrastructure, the ability to train and we’re talking in-air training, really hit us hard,” said Todd Stretch, Ski Jumping Canada chair. “Usually we can get down to Park City (Utah) to train. But with border closures and COVID, that restricted us to here. We had a lot of athletes training outdoors, not being able to jump, while the Europeans were able to log hundreds and hundreds of jumps.”
For Boyd-Clowes, the lack of training facilities at home, coupled with a desire to stay competitive, has meant a yearly trek to Slovenia each autumn to work out with Team USA and then compete for Canada.
“We share Slovenian coaches, train and travel together year-round,” he wrote. “Slovenia has been my home away from home for the past seven years and I feel comfortable here as I focus on my sport, but being at home with my people is a luxury.”
These months-long stints in Europe are among the sacrifices he makes for his sport. He is mostly happy with the way it has turned out, and doesn’t regret pursuing it for as long as he has already.
“I’ve taken time off before, but ski jumping is definitely the path that I have chosen to be on for the time being … I’ve been able to find my way at the higher levels. It’s the younger jumpers that have been forced out of the sport that I feel for. I wish it wasn’t that way. Sometimes I have to convince myself that by continuing I’m doing a small part to ensure the sport is able to continue after I move on.”
That means he has to be on the World Cup tour. In the middle of a pandemic.
“For me, competing is the only way to prepare to compete. … If I want to be at the 2022 Olympics, I have to be competing consistently to secure a spot to represent Canada.”
Ski Jumping Canada will have quota spots for two women and two men at Beijing 2022, and Stretch expects the national team athletes will achieve the results necessary to fill those spots.
dbarnes@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/sportsdanbarnes
