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BANFF – Banff’s Liam Wallace is king of the NorAm Cup after the expert skier proved his worth with the circuit’s highest point total in more than 10 years.
It took two seasons of ups and downs, but now with alpine’s biggest stage dangling in front of Wallace, he’s finally returned to the spot where he’s always wanted to be.
“It definitely feels like it’s been a big deal for me,” said Wallace, a technical specialist. “Having early NorAm success this year opened the doors for me. … Once you spend your time there, you want to be making your steps to the world cup.”
Placing in the top three in four of five disciplines, Wallace’s 1,098-point season easily won NorAm’s overall standing ahead of second place and teammate Riley Seger with 870.
Out of sight behind Olympic and international success that Canada’s alpine team received in 2021-22, the national team skier mostly navigated through the NorAm Cup, the feeder circuit to the world cup, taking seven podiums (three gold, two silver, two bronze) and 19 top-10 finishes along the way with the largest point total in the men’s field since 2009.
“I was working on consistency,” Wallace said. “To be in there over the course of the whole NorAms was definitely a different experience for me and having a little bit of success in the events that I’m not particularly focusing on. Like, it’s nice to be at least able to put your head down and realize, if you put it all in perspective, if I get out of this race with a couple points and it moves me towards this and I’m consistent with it, good things can happen.”
Success on the NorAm is usually a stepping stone to one place – the world cup.
Wallace made his debut on the top circuit this past January, finishing his only run at a time of 55.55 – just .20 seconds off qualifying for the top-30 in slalom in Adelboden, Switzerland.
“From a young age, if you want to do that you’ve kind of been prepping for it your entire life,” said Wallace.
“To race my first world cup that has to trump the fact that I did well at the early NorAms. It’s just so beyond like skiing at home. It’s completely the show and completely over the top. You can just feel it.”
In the race, he even got a leg-up on teammate and two-time Olympian Erik Read’s 55.67.
"[Wallace] skied so well and was super close to qualifying. There were just one or two mistakes that kept him out," Read said in a previous interview with the Outlook.
"I'm trying to give little tid-bits of advice that I can, especially on how to ski certain hills and stuff like that. I gave a report to Liam before his run and he said 'thank you' after, so little bits like that. I want to try and help out the best I can because I didn't necessarily have that or feel like I had a chance to learn more from the previous generation."
In what was by far the strongest season of his career, Wallace, who specializes in slalom and giant slalom, started in four world cups in 2021-22.
He's now looking to move on from the NorAm and find a permanent spot in the top circuit.
Not bad after losing affiliation with the national team two years ago.
Wallace opted out of the 2019-20 NST to attend university in Alaska, resulting in being penalized extremely hard. He left school to return to racing, but, at that point, the world was smacked by a pandemic and sports had shut down everywhere.
With races scarce, there was no telling how long it would have taken to get back into a competitive swing.
He said he struggled to work his way back onto the national ski team (NST) picture, and had to be nearly perfect in the do-or-die situations to get NST carding.
“That’s the redemption side of it. From two years ago, not having anything, in the NorAm standpoint, to my name, to now [winning the overall points crown] definitely feels good,” he said.
