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Olympics now in sight for Pemberton skier

Yuki Tsubota feeling more confident after surprise silver medal at Breckenridge
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HUMBLE BEGINnINGS - Yuki Tsubota followed up her third place slopestyle finish at the AFP championships back in April with a second place result in the Dew Cup opener at Breckenridge. Photo by Andrew Mitchell

Heading down to Breckenridge, Colorado for the opening ski slopestyle event of the Dew Cup series, Pemberton's Yuki Tsubota was the national team's fourth alternate. She really didn't think she'd have a chance to compete, but her coaches were confident that it would be worth the trip.

Sure enough, a few skiers were injured in training and a few more decided they weren't ready. Suddenly, Tsubota was in.

"I really wasn't expecting to get in," said the 18-year-old alumni of the Whistler Blackcomb Ski Club.

"My coach was telling me, 'it's OK, you'll get in, you'll get in,' but I didn't think it would happen. Once I was in, my goal right away was to make the finals and it went even better than that."

With the wind making competitors think twice about certain tricks, Tsubota put down a solid run with iron cross backflips and an off-cambre 360 grab over the last jump to place second overall behind Montreal's Kaya Turski, earning $12,500 for her efforts. Dara Howell was fifth, giving Canada three competitors in the top five.

Tsubota was disappointed that she had to tone down her last run because of the wind, but in retrospect it was the right decision to make.

"It definitely wasn't an easy day, we had a lot of wind problems in the air," she said. "I did play it safe on my last run and didn't get to do what I wanted to because I knew I'd come up short.

"It was really one of those days, I think. Kaya even stopped short on her second run before the big third jump because she didn't think she had the speed to make the landing. It was the right choice, she already had the lead and there was a chance she could get hurt."

While Tsubota has had a lot of success in the past, both as a mogul skier and more recently in the freeski world, she didn't expect to have this much success this quickly at the pro level. Last year she placed fifth in a World Cup slopestyle event, was first at the North Face Open at Northstar and, incredibly, placed third at the Association of Freeskiing Professionals (AFP) Championships in Whistler during the World Ski and Snowboard Festival.

That earned her a spot with the Canadian Freestyle Ski Team's slopestyle squad on Group B — essentially the national development team for the sport, which got Olympic status this spring.

While she didn't get to train with Turski — undefeated in two seasons — this summer, she's been working with national coaches Toben Sutherland and JF Cusson. A good part of her summer was spent on the water ramps in Lac Beauport, Quebec practicing new tricks, and the team got in two weeks at Mt. Hood in Oregon to try them out on some early season snow before heading to Colorado.

Tsubota is loving slopestyle, although she says she still has a lot to learn.

"I originally wanted to be a mogul skier and I talked about it a lot with my family," she said.

"I said I would give it three years on the provincial team to see if I could make it (to the national team), and if that didn't work out I really didn't know what I was going to do. But I kind of lost interest after a year and changed over to slopestyle for a year before I made the national team. I wasn't expecting everything to happen so quickly, and (for a medal) to happen this early in the season is amazing, too."

By the end of the season, Tsubota wants to be landing corked 900 spins and improve on her corked 720s. She also wants to get better at rails.

"I honestly don't have any game on the rails," she laughed. "Coming from a mogul background, I've jumped a lot but didn't spend a lot of time on rails. Or switch skiing — I'm just learning to ski switch and I need to get a lot better at that."

Tsubota is not sure yet how a silver medal on the Dew Cup tour will influence the rest of the season, as most pro tour spots are offered by invite-only. She already has a spot at the Grand Prix event at Copper Mountain in the New Year, and there's a chance she'll be competing in the X Games as well as other contests. The sport is also included in the FIS Freestyle World Champimonships this year.

Given her early result, there's a real possibility that she could qualify to represent Canada at the 2014 Olympic Games by the end of the season.

"I just need one more podium, and then I think I'll be eligible to go," she said. "I really, really wanted to go at the start of the season, but to have a confirmed spot by the end of this season was kind of my farthest goal. The team won't be selected until the end of January 2014 so there's lots of time, but it would be nice, take a lot of stress off, to get a spot by the end of the year."

Winning silver was also hugely motivating. She's enjoyed the powder skiing since returning to Whistler but is anxious to do some training as well.

"It's awesome, but I'm excited for things to clear up a bit so I can jump. I'll ski with my friends and work on my tricks for Copper," she said. "This whole thing has been really motivating, actually."

You can catch a video of Tsubota's Dew Cup performance online at http://www.allisports.com/dew-tour/event/breckenridge-2012. Look for the video titled "Men's and Women's Freeski Slopestyle Final Highlights."