Banff Alpine Racers alumnus Trevor Philp and Erik Read continue to shine for Canada at the Alpine Ski World Championships in Vail, Colorado as locally cultivated skiers.
Philp was part of Canada’s surprise silver medal winning contingent in the team event – they shocked the world with a great performance on Feb. 10, losing to Austria in the final. He followed it up with two top 20 performances, including an 18th-place finish in the men’s slalom and giant slalom individually.
The Calgary native, who spent much of his teenage years living part-time in Canmore, now has a launchpad for future success on the world cup.
“I’m very happy with today,” Philp said. “I wanted to ski hard, see what I could do, I had nothing to lose. I wanted to have fun with it, and I definitely did.”
Both he and Read attended the University of Colorado, balancing schoolwork with ski racing, and were products of the famous Banff Alpine Racers program.
Philp hadn’t qualified for a second run since Dec. 21, so the top 20 result was extra sweet.
“It has been a great week and a half up here, between the team event, giant slalom, the slalom. They were all personal bests for me in the three disciplines. I’m very happy. Fantastic week.”
Read placed 24th in the slalom, matching a career best. He was 28th in the giant slalom for a pair of top 30 performances. The son of Canadian alpine legend Ken Read, he’s shown loads of potential early in his career, and coaches are thrilled to see strong skiing from him at the highest level.
The youngsters helped round out a strong world championship week for Canada. Expectations were low heading in with Jan Hudec and Erik Read on the sidelines, prompting retired skier Brian Stemmle to blast the team in an interview, stating the team would agree ‘they suck right now.’
Hudec jumped to the team’s defence, and Dustin Cook silenced critics with a silver medal performance in super-G. It continued a strong tradition at world champs, as Guay, Hudec and John Kucera have all medalled at world champs.
Erin Mielzynski, who was part of Canada’s silver medal team with Marie Prefontaine, Phil Brown, Philp and alternate Read, closed up her world champs with a sixth-place finish, Saturday (Feb. 14). Marie-Michele Gagnon finished 10th.
“It’s a good day, especially after last year and the last world champs,” said Mielzynski, who was 17th in the slalom at the 2013 worlds.
“Today feels really great. I had two solid runs. It wasn’t enough for a podium, but someone said the other day that there are a lot of things that come before a podium.”
American Mikaela Shiffrin won the race.
