FALL RIVER: Two Fall River skiiers are chomping at the bit to hit the slopes at the Under-16 nationals.
Charlotte Hilton and Isaac Lovett will both be representing Nova Scotia at the national competition, which takes place at the end of the month.
The two Lockview High Grade 10 students sat down with The Laker News at the Fall River Tim Hortons to talk about how they’re feeling and preparing for the U16 nationals.
“I’m super excited,” said Hilton. “I’ve been waiting to do this since my first year U14. I have always wanted to do it since I was little.”
Hilton said from listening to other skiiers who are friends with her talk about going to U16 nationals at Mont Tremblant, it seemed like a cool experience to do.
Lovett agreed.
“It’s been something to look forward to for the past couple of years,” he said. “It’s a super fun event with everyone across Canada, and you get to be with your friends.”
To go to U16 nationals Hilton and Lovett, members of the Wentworth Ski Race Club, both had to be among the top five alpine skiiers in the province, which they are.
Both say attending the national competition a “pretty big deal.”
Because of COVID-19 restrictions the past two years, both are in the age group that didn’t get to do events such as this, so they’re really excited to be able to compete and have something super cool to do finally.
Hilton and Lovett said their friends are pretty stoked about hearing they will be wearing the Nova Scotia colours at the event.
“My mom’s been telling everybody at her work about it,” said Hilton with a chuckle. “Almost everyone that I’ve told her about it says, that’s pretty huge that I’m one of five people in our province that’s going to this big national battle.”
Hilton was asked how skiiers like her and Lovett can temper their excitement so they can compete well and get results they’re striving for at Mont Tremblant.
“We do like a lot of mental like training and planning with our coach for moments like these where we have to focus,” she said.
With the event coming up fast, and school still in, how do they keep focus on their grades with thoughts of the U16s in the back of their heads.
“We’re taught to create a balance between skiing and school, so I have an equal amount of focus on both of them,” said Lovett. It’s kind of hard, though, when we have to focus on both because our teachers almost expect us to know what we have to do.”
The two, who have placed top three in almost every race they’ve competed in this season, said they’ve had a lot of fun on the slopes this season.
“We got to go to Cape Breton, which we weren’t allowed to do last year because of all the restrictions,” said Hilton. “We’ve also got to go to Quebec, and we’ve got to do all sorts of cool things that weren’t able to do.”
