NORTH Vancouver's Brodie Seger battled tough conditions as well as a pack of the top 15-and 16-year-old alpine skiers in the country to win the overall title at the Canadian J1 Championships held March 8-10 on Whistler Mountain.
The Handsworth secondary student, in his first season with the B.C. Ski Team, started the competition in fine fashion with a firstplace finish in the super-G on Day 1. On Day 2 Seger kept on rolling, finishing sixth in the giant slalom to leave him a chance for the overall win with only the slalom remaining. A conservative effort on his first slalom run left him some work to do in the second slalom, the final race of the competition, and Seger came through with the fastest time of the run. His combined slalom times placed him fourth in that event and clinched the overall title.
The Whistler Ski Club member said he knew he was racing well after placing first in the opening super-G.
"There were a couple of spots where it was kind of sketchy and I wasn't sure if it was going to be fast or not, but lots of times in the past I've had people tell me that sometimes your craziest, most wild-feeling runs are the fastest, so I just kept pushing," he said. "As soon as I crossed the line and heard the announcer say, 'Brodie Seger moves into the lead' I was so stoked, I couldn't even believe it."
For his win Seger landed a free round-trip ticket to Amsterdam, courtesy of event sponsor KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
"I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do in Amsterdam, but hopefully the ticket I won will come in handy one day soon," the 16-year-old Seger said.
