Image Credit: Katie Brayer

By Adam Donnelly

SLOPESTYLE

Local snowboarder Katie Brayer keeps climbing the Canadian and world rankings

Dec 11, 2023 | 12:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — When you watch the speed with which Katie Brayer approaches jumps on her snowboard, and see how high and far she travels through the air, you’d think she has a bit of a craving for the rush that comes with slopestyle.

“I used to do cliff jumping and stuff like that,” Brayer says. “I guess anything you get a bit of an adrenaline rush is fun for me, but I do want to make sure I stay healthy. I don’t want to put myself in too much danger.”

Slopestyle is a freestyle snowboard discipline. However, Brayer’s training can be pretty rigid. She’ll spend a whole year training how she approaches a run down the course.

“I spend most of the season training one particular run that I’ll do for the whole season, pretty much,” she explains. “Some things get changed. It feels pretty good to work on a run for so long — for months and months of practice every day. When you get to compete and land your run, it feels pretty good.”

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As part of her training, Brayer and other members of the Sun Peaks Freestyle Club (SPFC) take part in regular practices on the trampolines at the Kamloops Gymnastics and Trampoline Centre (KGTC). It helps the athletes develop air awareness, a very important skill when you’re flying through the air and attempting multiple rotations.

“There are some kids, I’m sure, who can do that,” SPFC Head Coach Richard Fonger explains. “When you have athletes you manage, you want to make sure you do it in the most responsible way, and try to mitigate that danger and that fear for them as much as possible, so that they can progress and they don’t get injured.”

“It’s good to have a facility like the [KGTC] that lets you work on those maneuvers and get air awareness before you try them on snow,” Brayer says.

Brayer spent part of last summer in New Zealand, training and competing. Her dedication to the sport is starting to pay dividends, according to her coach.

“The amount of days on snow that she has is shown, and just her interest level and interaction with the coaching staff, and volunteering for the club, stuff like that,” Fonger says. “It takes a lot of commitment, for sure.”

Brayer, who is also a student at Thompson Rivers University, is currently ranked 40th on the Women’s World Snowboard points list. She’s already earned an invite to a World Cup event this season.

“I’ll mostly be competing at the North American Cup level and a few provincial events,” Brayer says. “Just making sure I have enough time to train and work and pay for everything can be tough, but I just do what I can and make it work.”