SNOWBOARDING:

Snowboard vet Anderson dreams of gold … then blueberries

Jan. 8, 2010 — The Canadian Press          ►Photos: Jasey-Jay Anderson in action and atop the podium (Oliver Kraus, FIS)

Jasey-Jay Anderson had his retirement all mapped out years ago. He had even picked his next career: blueberry farmer.

But the chance to stick around and eventually compete in the Vancouver Olympics was too tempting for the world champion snowboarder to pass up.

While the opportunity to battle the planet's top boarders at home was exciting for Anderson, it was the once-in-a-lifetime shot to carve up an Olympic course riding the best equipment that really kept him in the game.

The 2009 parallel giant slalom world champion said he's been frustrated many times by equipment deficiencies during his 18-year career.

Five years ago, he bought a blueberry farm in Quebec's Laurentians and thought that was it. "I was actually supposed to retire back then, because everything was kind of stagnant and the equipment wasn't going the way I would have liked [it] to,'' says Anderson, who has spent years trying to optimize his snowboarding gear on a limited budget.

But with the help of additional cash from sponsors and the government's Own the Podium program, the 34-year-old has been busier than ever in recent months, trying to construct a better system for Canadian alpine snowboarders. "The opportunities are there this year, which they haven't been in the past, so I'm jumping on it,'' the married father of two says. "It's all meant to be.''

At the end of the season, Anderson will finally walk away from competitive snowboarding. In 205 World Cup events over his career, Anderson has hit the podium 58 times and won 26 golds riding in several snowboard disciplines. He won world championships in 2001 (giant slalom) in Italy, two more in 2005 (parallel slalom and parallel giant slalom) in Whistler, B.C., and another last year (parallel giant slalom) in South Korea.

Anderson also captured overall World Cup snowboarding titles in 2001, '02, '03 and '04, and was the top overall snowboardcross racer in '02 and '06.

Still, he wonders how often he's actually been able to compete at his full potential.

Anderson's past Olympic results have been mixed even though he was in top physical and psychological shape each time. In 1998, he finished 16th in Nagano's giant slalom, a race he describes as one of the worst moments of his career. Four years later, Anderson placed last — 29th overall — in the parallel giant slalom at Salt Lake City. In Torino in 2006, he finished fifth in snowboardcross and 20th in parallel giant slalom.

The common obstacle at each Olympics? Anderson says it all comes down to being ill-equipped. "This next one will be the best Olympics of my life,'' predicts Anderson, who is expected to only compete in the parallel giant slalom in Vancouver.

"I'll definitely be better equipped than any other Olympics, or any other race of my life, so there's no excuses.''

With only weeks to go before he's scheduled to rip down B.C.'s Cypress Mountain, Anderson says all that highly secretive technical work is finally paying off for himself and his teammates. "The results are there,'' says Anderson, who has won two of the three World Cup events this season — on Dec. 17 at Telluride, Colo., where he edged teammate Michael Lambert, and again on Wednesday in Kreischberg, Austria.

"Everything has to start jelling together, but all the bits and pieces are there and we're just kind of puzzling them together.''

Anderson believes Canada is now ahead of the curve when it comes to the technology of the snowboard and its mechanical plate system, which connects the bindings to the board. The technical coach for Canada's alpine snowboarding team said Anderson volunteered to test out the new gear last summer in Chile.

"He's been a huge part of that — if we're going to have cutting-edge equipment, it's almost all because of Jasey's work,'' says Sylvain Jean, who wouldn't divulge details of the team's scientific breakthroughs.

Anderson grew up in Val-Morin, the heart of Quebec ski country. His penchant for bombing down hills wasn't immediately apparent when he first strapped skis to his feet at 6 years old. He was terrified by the thought of cruising down a slope.

At the time, his mother, Micheline, was a ski instructor, but she left one of the first days of teaching up to someone who could distract her boy from his fears. “My mom took me to a ski area and she went and got an instructor and she's like, 'OK, do you want a clown or a regular person?' " he recalls.

"Obviously, I jumped on the opportunity to ski with a clown. He was great. I don't remember exactly how it went, I just remember being happy.''

Anderson stuck with skiing until his brother Jayme-Jay and a few buddies inspired him to try an up-and-coming sport that was carving its way onto local mountains. "Snowboarding was just getting on the hills and I was like, 'You know what? That looks awesome,' '' he says.

"I kept pestering my parents to get me a snowboard for Christmas, and after all that perseverance, Santa Claus put one under the tree.

"I started snowboarding and I never stopped.''

When Anderson got that first snowboard at age 13, he rode it as much as he could.

But today, snowboarding is about to move to the back burner as he focuses on spending more time with his daughters — Jy, 3, and Jora, 4 — and his wife, Manon Morin.

The enthusiastic outdoorsman, who lists National Geographic among his favourite reading material, loves walking in the woods with his girls, teaching them about plants. He's ready to dedicate his full attention to the family blueberry farm that he and Manon bought five years ago.

"It's something we really wanted to do,'' says Anderson, who met Manon when they were 18 and calls her the "blueberry queen.''

"We wanted to work together outside, at home, in agriculture.''

But for the few months of competitive riding that remain, Anderson aims to make the most of it for himself and his teammates. As a team elder, he passes along as much advice as he can to the younger riders. He admits that they don't always want to hear it, especially when he takes more of a hardline approach.

"I tend to be the bogeyman on the team a lot,'' he says. "Sometimes I get respect and sometimes it's full disrespect.''

Jean says Anderson's knowledge and experience have benefited everyone. "He's tremendous _ he's like a third coach,'' Jean says. "He talks with the boys a lot, even with the girls.''

But the improved World Cup results recently by Canadian boarders also mean unwanted attention from other countries who are on the lookout for new ideas.

To hide the new system from the prying eyes of rivals, Anderson was even forced to wrap a bicycle inner tube around his board at a recent World Cup event.

Still, some competitors are starting to catch on to what the Canadians have been up to, he says.

"It's really hard to kind of hide these things, just because you're right there and you're using it,'' he says. "Hopefully, not everybody will have caught up by D-Day.''

Over the years, Anderson's innovative mind has helped him concoct things such as his favourite drink — orange juice and milk — but he isn't always searching for another technological breakthrough.

Some of the older stuff works just fine, explains a guy who has used the same rotation of ski socks for the last two decades.

"They're the socks that work the best for me — I love those socks and they're still good,'' says Anderson, whose original 20-pair lineup has since dwindled to 10.

"They're hanging in there — some pairs are good, some pairs are definitely not doing so well.

"No superstition, it's just that they're really good socks.''  SRC