A young freestyle snowboarder from Springbank has shown she can punch above her weight in the sport, earning plaudits and medals against older athletes at the national level.
Felicity Geremia, a Grade-6 student at the Edge School, won gold medals in the girls' U13 age category in the halfpipe and slopestyle events at the Junior Nationals snowboarding championships, held March 18 to 24 at Winsport in Calgary. Even more impressive was the 11-year-old’s bronze-medal showing in halfpipe for the U18 age group.
“For the provincial events, there were a lot of girls who were the same age and kind of category,” said Geremia’s coach, Karine Dazé. “But the more she progressed throughout the season…she was competing against much older athletes.”
Geremia took up snowboarding at a young age, joining freestyle snowboarding club Riders on Board when she was six years old. The club primarily trains out of Winsport at Canada Olympic Park– the home of the only 22-foot super pipe in Canada.
“I think I just saw my sister doing it, and just thought, ‘Oh, me too, me too,’” Geremia said, adding she enjoys the sensation of flying off of a jump.
Geremia specializes in halfpipe and slopestyle – an event that includes completing multiple jumps, rails and obstacles during a single run.
“I think she just really loves the aspect of snowboarding where there’s not a lot of parent interaction – it’s just her and her coaches,” said Geremia’s mother, Traci. “She just has a ton of fun and I think that has made her the athlete she is.”
Dazé, who has been Geremia’s coach with Riders on Board for the last five years, said Geremia’s main strength as a boarder is her consistency in competition, which stems from her attitude.
“You can always trust her abilities will be on point for that day,” Dazé said.
Despite her young age, Geremia has already achieved something most boarders don’t until they’re older – get over the lip of the 22-foot super pipe at Winsport. She said her goal for next year is to increase her amplitude even more.
“I want to get more air out of the pipe and do more spinning out of the pipe,” she said.
Geremia will maintain a similar training regimen in the winter, according to her coach, in order to achieve her goals.
“For next winter, we’re just going to keep training as much as we trained this year, with the club and our team,” Dazé said. “We’ll just keep focusing on her training and her goals. As long as we follow what she wants, that’s our main goal as coaches.”
Away from the hill, Geremia is also kept busy with a variety of other sports. She is a Tier 1 U12 soccer player with the Chinooks Soccer Club, a division-one fast-pitch player with West Hills Softball and a provincially-ranked swimmer.
Though she was two years underage, Geremia competed last July at the 2018 Alberta Summer Games in Grande Prairie, on the Big Country girls’ U13 team soccer team that finished fourth.
“She has a ton of energy – the kid never stops,” Traci said. “She’ll do eight hours of sport in a day and still want to keep going.”
Geremia said she intends to maintain her busy multi-sport schedule – at least for another year.
