THERE are no friends in a snowboard cross race but sometimes it's nice to know that your neighbour has a good heart and would rather help you than run you into a blue spruce.
North Shore snowboard cross racer Frédérique Joncas is finding out just how nice it is to have good neighbours after she moved from Bromont, Que. to North Vancouver in 2008. Aside from three ski resorts just minutes from her front door, Joncas has benefited from her new nearness to a certain famous boarder who knows something about riding all the way to the top of the world.
Joncas made her World Cup debut earlier this month at Ontario's Blue Mountain Resort and guiding her through the process was Olympic gold medal winner, friend and neighbour Maëlle Ricker.
"She was just being awesome, she knew it was my first experience and she was, like, pretty much as excited as I was for me getting in there," Joncas said after the event, adding that since moving to the North Shore she has been training side-by-side with Ricker, now a Squamish resident, at North Vancouver's Level 10 Fitness.
Joncas, 19, said she was just hoping to survive the qualifying process at Blue Mountain without flying off the course but ended up placing 24th to earn a spot in the elimination round - the six-woman heats that are the rough-and-tumble heart of snowboard cross (it was changed from four for this year's World Cup season). She didn't advance out of her first elimination heat but she came away from the event with sky-high confidence.
"I was going there just to gain experience and prepare myself for competing in the junior world championships in March. I had pretty much no expectations and ended up qualifying 24th, which was actually a pretty big surprise for me," she said. "I wasn't even expecting to finish the course - it was so big. I was like, if I end up on my feet I'll be really happy."
This week Joncas got her second taste of World Cup experience, finishing 25th in Stoneham, Que. She'll take on racers her own age at the FIS Snowboard Junior World Championships scheduled for March 25-31 in Sierra Nevada, Spain. Joncas attended the junior worlds two years ago and placed 12th.
Ricker isn't the only snowboard royalty Joncas is close to. Her father Robert is the high performance director for Canada Snowboard. The family moved from Bromont, Que. to North Vancouver in 2008 so that Robert could be closer to the action leading up to the 2010 Olympic Games. The plan was to move back right after the Olympics but West Coast life grabbed the family and wouldn't let them go.
"We kind of fell in love with North Van," said Frédérique. "We kept our house in Quebec when we first moved out but we sold our house like a year ago and there's no plan on going back there. Just the playground we have in North Vancouver with like Seymour, Cypress and Grouse within 10 minutes of my house, Whistler an hour and 15 minutes away, it's awesome."
Joncas is now taking political science at Capilano University while also working on her boarding career. With a father working for Canada Snowboard she's actually known elite racers like Ricker and Quebec native and reigning world champion Dominique Maltais for a long time and has benefited from their support. Aside from having long term relationships, Joncas shares a common bond with Ricker and Maltais that other junior racers don't have: French. Though Ricker grew up in West Van she is fluent in both official languages.
"We speak French to each other and people just never know what we're saying," Joncas said with a laugh. "Maëlle, her French is so good. She speaks French with her coach as well and with Dominique. It's funny because the coach always talks to Maëlle in French and to Dominique and I understand what they're saying and interact with them while the rest of the team doesn't know what to do because they don't speak French. It's just like our own little world. It's pretty funny, I like it."
While Maltais and Ricker are helping Joncas reach the sport's top level, they are also keeping her and the rest of Canada's young racers out of the coveted Olympic spots. That's why Joncas has her sights set on the 2018 Olympics while in the meantime breaking through on the World Cup circuit as well as at the X-Games. When she does make that breakthrough she knows she'll have some nice neighbours there to celebrate with.
