winter sports Whistler’s annual Telus World Ski & Snowboard Festival will feature an Olympic-sized ski “superpipe” instead of its usual big air competition.
This year’s change aims to address the fact that skiers were not included in the halfpipe contest in the Olympics, said Lisa Richardson, director of communications for the 15th annual event.
Shooting for it to become an Olympic sport for 2014, the superpipe was built and designed by Steve Petrie, who built the Olympic pipe.
With the top skiers — and potential future Olympians — from around the world coming to compete, the ski superpipe competition is “like a little window into the future to see who’s going to be the next superstar,” Richardson said.
The festival, where sports and art meet, runs for 10 days, offering a sick collection of music, contests, fashion shows, photography showdowns, film screening and even a dog parade. It’s got Canada’s largest outdoor concert series, and aims to attract people who left during the Olympics. Richardson said people are really excited to come out and be a part of the big gathering.
“We (thought we) were going to be the fizzle at the end of the winter,” said Richardson. “It’s really gone the other way, people are super pumped up.”
“I think people will be partying harder than the Olympics.”
The four-day anti-competition Grenade Games are expected to be the “crescendo of the festival” and will be followed by the DJ rave party afterwards, said Richardson.
