Since Xander Lee was just a little boy, the crisp snowy slopes have been calling to him. Calling Chestermere home his entire life, this twelve year old is already making a big name for himself in the skiing world.
Xander has always had love for the mountains and skiing and it is the combination of those that have taken him to competitions such as the Alberta Winter Games. Last month at the 2016 Alberta Winter Games, Xander won a silver medal in Freestyle (Mogul) skiing.
Mogul skiing is a freestyle skiing competition consisting of one timed run of free skiing on a steep, heavily moguled course, stressing technical turns, aerial maneuvers and speed. Moguls are a series of bumps on a piste formed when skiers push snow into mounds as they do sharp turns. This tends to happen naturally as skiers use the slope but they can also be constructed artificially. Once formed, a naturally occurring mogul tends to grow as skiers follow similar paths around it, further deepening the surrounding grooves known as troughs. Since skiing tends to be a series of linked turns, moguls form together to create a bump field. This has been a medal event in the Winter Olympics since 1992.
This past weekend, Xander competed at Castle Mountain, winning silver in single mogul and silver in dual mogul. This is Xanders best ranking of 6th overall in province. With this success, he has been invited to Junior National in Ontario next week.
When this impressive middle school student isn’t tearing it up on the slopes, he enjoys mountain biking, wake boarding, camping, swimming, quadding and anything outdoors explains his mom, Janet Lee.
But Xander isn’t the only one in the family who has developed a love for the slopes. His younger sister, Tarra, is also in freestyle skiing and is competing at club level competitions and plans on following her big brothers footsteps to provincials in a year or two when she is old enough to compete.
“We are very proud of him for meeting his personal goals. We look forward to seeing his successes in the future”, says mom Janet.
And what does that future look like? Well, Xander says he hopes to have the honour to represent Canada on the world stage.
Congratulations Xander and good luck!
