This past season created high expectations for the Canadian aerials team on the Freestyle Ski World Cup circuit. National team head coach Jeff Bean expects nothing less than a podium finish every week.
“With Marion [Thénault], Lewis [Irving], Alex [Alexandre Duchaine] and Émile [Nadeau] who all made podiums; Miha [Fontaine] who walked at the foot of these; and with Victor [Primeau] having a good start, I expect podiums every week from these six and maybe some surprises from the Next Gen team members,” he said. announced after the team’s presentation at the Le Relais ski resort in Lac-Beauport.
“I have two big goals for this year, competition and training goals,” he continued. It’s a season of opportunities, because we have a few fewer World Cups, but just enough to have the opportunity to compete.
“It’s also a season of preparation. We will have the chance to spend a large block here in January, in Lac-Beauport. For Marion, it will be the chance to practice jumping triple somersaults. We’ll see if we do them in competitions. Lewis suffered some injuries last year, but had a good summer of training. I want to start again like at the start of last season with him, when he got on the podium in Ruka. »
It is not Duchaine and Fontaine who will complain about this “pressure” applied by Bean. Both jumpers want to have more confidence though, which they believe will lead to better results.
“It’s clear that my two fourth places just gave me the desire to climb one more and make a podium,” said Duchaine, sixth in the world in 2022-23. But I would also like to be more consistent.
“Last year, when I finished fourth, I had a quadruple somersault that I didn’t fully master on snow. I did it repeatedly on water ramps this summer and I plan to do it regularly on snow, in training and in competitions. […] I would like to do at least 40 on snow: I would start doing it with great confidence. »
“My goal is confidence and consistency in each of my jumps,” said Fontaine, 10th last year, after 15th and 20th places during the last two seasons. Fifth would be a nice goal, but I don’t think in terms of results, but more in terms of the sensations on each jump. In this way, the results will accumulate and it will give a good cumulative rank. »
Thénault, third in the crystal globe ranking last season and fourth at the World Championships, will be accompanied by Flavie Aumond among the ladies. Duchaine, Fontaine, Irving, Nadeau and Primeau will represent Canada on the men’s side.
The Next Gen team will be made up of Alec Haineault, Anthony Noël, Pierre-Olivier Côté, Charlie Fontaine and Rosalie Gagnon, who could all participate in certain stages of the World Cup this season.
Bean will once again be supported by Rémi Bélanger and Nicolas Fontaine, who will also be responsible for the Next Gen team.
The World Cup season gets underway on December 2-3 in Ruka, Finland. The circuit will then make stops in Changchun (China) and Deer Valley (United States), before the Lac-Beauport stage, where Thénault obtained victory last year, on February 10 and 11. The season concludes March 8-10 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
The conflict in Ukraine cuts off the circuit of the stages traditionally presented in Russia and Belarus, “but we don’t want to go there at the moment,” assured Bean.
The Canadian team will join Thénault, already there, in Ruka next Tuesday in order to begin its final camp before the start of the season.
“We’re really lucky: there’s already more snow on site than in the last 12 years,” Bean said. Marion left in advance to ski and warm up, since she is not a skier to begin with. We will come back in December to see our families again for Christmas. »
