Almost three years after her only three World Cup starts, Justine Clément was no longer hoping for this email. The one where Alpine Canada would invite him to wear the country’s colors on the White Circus.
Earlier this month, she was slowly preparing for her fourth season with the University of Vermont (UVM) Catamounts when the manager of Alpine team operations warned her: Canada had two additional World Cup quotas. from Tremblant, and she was one of the first two candidates to obtain one.
” I was not excpecting that at all ! », said Justine Clément with a smile, Tuesday noon, after training with her teammates at Sommet Saint-Sauveur. “I’m really happy, it’s a great opportunity, but I didn’t think it would happen. »
The product of the Stoneham club will be one of six starters on the Canadian team for the two giant slaloms planned at the Erik Guay mountain, Saturday and Sunday. At 24, she will be the oldest after Valérie Grenier, one of the favorites.
“Last year, I focused more on my university skiing. I didn’t do the Nor-Am [development] circuit. I was surprised because the Nor-Am ranking is very important for the national team. »
The native of Bécancour, near Trois-Rivières, however, scored points – or rather lost them, according to the logic of the International Ski Federation (FIS) ranking – on the NCAA circuit, winning among other things the slalom Eastern Region Championships. This harvest allowed him to maintain a good position in the FIS starters list.
After five years with the Quebec team, Justine Clément stumbled upon the doors of the Canadian team at the end of her junior career, in 2020. She finished 17th in giant slalom at the World Championships on March 11, date of the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
She was inspired by the journey of Laurence St-Germain, former teammate at Skibec Alpin, the elite development club in the Quebec region. The new world slalom champion studied four years at UVM before returning to the national team and shining in the World Cup.
“When I was younger, I followed her and I thought it looked like fun,” said Clément, Catamounts coat on his back. “For me, it’s always been UVM. » Funny coincidence, she is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering, the same field of study as St-Germain, now pursuing a master’s degree at Polytechnique Montréal.
In November 2020, Justine Clément won gold in slalom and silver in giant at the postponed national championships. These results earned him participation in three World Cup slaloms at the end of the year and the beginning of 2021.
She did not know that she would have to wait almost three years before competing in other races on the circuit, this time in a giant. “Things didn’t necessarily line up the way I wanted. I focused on school and my university skiing. »
She has no regrets and is pleased with her academic and sporting career. As a senior, she will begin her fourth season at UVM. Due to the pandemic, she is eligible for a fifth year, so she plans to graduate in 2025.
As she is not a member of the Canadian team, Justine Clément has not skied all summer, spending her time training and working at Brunelle ski bike, a boutique in Trois-Rivières. She is therefore tempering her expectations for this weekend, especially as she will start at the back of the grid, on a course that is well underway.
“It will be a great experience for the next few seasons. I want to put this in my luggage to continue my journey. I don’t necessarily want to set myself a goal for these races, tell myself that I have to qualify [for the second round] and blah blah blah. I haven’t done much skiing. I got back on the snow a week ago! I just want to relax, do what I know how to do, and I should be fine. »
Another Justine, Lamontagne, will have significantly more days of skiing in her legs when she sets off to Tremblant. Former colleague of her namesake on the Quebec team, she is preparing to play a second campaign with the Bobcats of Montana State University.
In September, the 21-year-old skier flew to Argentina for a three-week on-snow course with Orsatus Ski Racing, a French private training facility. Earlier this month, she received an unexpected invitation to compete in the first two slaloms of the World Cup, in Levi, Finland. Each time, she made it to the bottom in the first round, without making the cut for the second, reserved for the top 30.
Upon her return, she camped with the Bobcats in Panorama, British Columbia. She then headed to Killington, Vermont, where she competed in a third slalom on Sunday. She went off the track halfway through the initial round.
“The surface was very, very, very icy. Because of this, the course remained beautiful despite my bib [64]. I left with a plan, I skied at the top and I made a little mistake afterwards. On a surface like that, it’s really not forgiving. »
At her first Junior World Championships, at Panorama in 2022, Justine Lamontagne struck a big blow by winning gold in the mixed parallel event with Cassidy Gray, whom she will meet at Tremblant, Étienne Mazzelier and Raphaël Lessard. This success opened the door to Montana State University, where she studies environmental engineering. In the spring, she rewarded her program by winning bronze in giant at the NCAA Championships.
After a first year in residence, the representative of the Mont-Sainte-Anne club now shares a house with four colleagues in Bozeman, where the popular series Yellowstone, starring Kevin Costner, is partly filmed. She skis mainly at Bridger Bowl, a 20-minute drive away, and at Big Sky, the largest resort in North America with Park City.
“It’s a little cowboy, but it’s very ski bum there, a ski town. It’s really cool ! One of the challenges was speaking and studying in English. But it’s in the mountains, it’s not too exotic. »
Justine Lamontagne grew up in Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges, where she still lives during the summer. She did a few training sessions with her famous fellow citizen Laurence St-Germain, with whom she shares the same physical trainer, Charles Castonguay. The latter also contributed to the success of Alex Harvey, another world champion.
It’s the turn of the two Justines to chart their own path, starting this weekend, in Mont-Tremblant, in the company of the best skiers on the planet.
