The Jasper Alpine Ski Club had its most successful start in recent years after the club competed in three races in the province last weekend.

The Nancy Greene ski league, which consists of skiers from five to 10 years old were in Edmonton. With 28 racers entered, 14 finished in the top ten for their age category.

Meanwhile at Nakiska, the club’s K-1’s (11 and 12 year olds) posted several top finishes including a 14th place finish in the giant slalom and an 18th finish in the slalom by Mattie Smith out of 68 girls.

Down the Trans Canada, the K-2’s (13 and 14 year olds) had some high scores with Cameron Mahler finishing tenth place in slalom at Norquay and 11th place in slalom at Lake Louise while Molly Ostrander recorded a 28th finish at Norquay and a 38th finish at Lake Louise.

With this the first competition of the year, the club’s president Alex Rayner attributes much of the success to Jasper’s great early snowfall at Marmot Basin, which has allowed the team to start training earlier, and to the team’s technical director Gilbert Wall.

“I think the club has improved, I think the coaching is really good. We have some great coaches, all our coaches are great with the kids, and we’ve got some great direction from Wall,” said Rayner. “He’s getting all of our ski programs on the same footing so everybody is working on the same focus, and I think that, plus the early start to the season, that’s all sort of coming together and giving us those results.”

Rayner said the Nancy Greene kids had a great start to the season, as many of them only had a couple of races under their belts before the weekend, while racers like five-year-old Ali Mamalis had great first-ever races, finishing 10th in her age group.

There is opportunity for the older racers in the K-1 and K-2 divisions to really have some strong results in upcoming races, Rayner added.

“Cam Mahler, he’s one of our K-2 racers and he’s been at it for a few years, so there are definitely some opportunities for him and you know, even with the K-1 kids, they are really coming out strong compared to some of the results we had last year.”

Other clubs are starting to take notice of the Jasper Alpine Ski team, after the success of the 28 racers in the Nancy Greene program like having three nine-year-old boys finish in the top ten, which Rayner said was ‘impressive.’

“While we were sort of entered into races but maybe not that competitive, but that’s changing over the last couple of years,” said Rayner.

The club will be hosting a provincial competition this weekend at Marmot Basin for the older skiers in the Nancy Greene category. With a dual slalom on Saturday and giant slalom on Sunday, there will be some stiff competition from kids coming  from the southern region of the province.

“There should be some young skiers, it’s pretty exciting to watch these kids ski and see what they can do with these shaped skis that we have now,” said Rayner.