King City’s Moyer gets a taste of international snowboarding competition

March 25, 2015 · 0 Comments

Haili Moyer, far right, gets ready in the starting gate at the FIS World Junior Championships in Yabuli China. Moyer finished 30th in snowboard cross competition.

By Jake Courtepatte
It’s been a whirlwind of a winter for King City-born Haili Moyer, a 17-year old snowboarder looking to make her mark in the expanding sport of snowboard cross.
Just in this short calendar year, Moyer has competed in world-class competitions in Quebec, Colorado, British Columbia, and most recently, Yabuli, China for the FIS World Junior Championships.
She placed 30th after facing some stiff competition, on admittedly the biggest stage of her career so far.
“The course was a lot of fun,” she said. “However, I didn’t compete my best.”
“A really cool experience” in her own words, there were some conditions that proved just too difficult to overcome for the up-and-coming racer.
“The track was extremely windy,” said Moyer. “It made it difficult to get any good training in before the race.”
But it wasn’t just the slopes that proved to be a challenge for Moyer. Having never visited the Far East for competition before, she said that her diet was difficult to maintain, an important aspect of such an endurance sport.
“The drastic change in food was tough to overcome … it left me with way less energy than I needed to compete at my best level.”
Where can the emerging slopes star be found now?
“I’m in Spain where I got the chance to forerun a World Cup,” said Moyer. “This means I was able to train on course with all the top competitors in the world, like Dominique Maltais.”
Maltais won a silver medal for Canada in snowboard cross at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games.
Having grown up in King City, Moyer moved to Whistler last year to pursue her dream of reaching the 2018 Olympics in Pyeong Chang, South Korea.
Her and her partner split after Canadian Nationals in January of 2013, the time that Moyer decided to take her snowboarding career seriously.
“The decision was extremely tough to make,” said Moyer. “After lots of thought and advice from all my coaches, I decided to continue snowboarding because I believed I would be able to achieve more in the sport.”
Moyer’s time with the King City Skating Club does not go unrewarded, however. She credits her mental strength and discipline to her years spent skating in King.
“I’m always eager to learn more … I can understand how much my mentality effects my performance because I learned how to in skating.”
Before making the move to one of the biggest snowboard and ski communities in the world, Moyer honed her skills at Craigleith Ski Club while living in King, a private club in The Blue Mountains. Her training schedule in Whistler has become more and more intense.
“I can see the difference in my results because of it,” said Moyer.
Off the hill, Moyer is in the gym six days a week, either with a personal trainer or staying fit on her own, something that is essential for such a fast-paced and intense sport.
“Even now while on tour my team will still make time to go to the gym to maintain muscle strength, or do yoga on days off to relax and stretch.”
“My goals are to keep progressing the way I am and qualify for a world cup next year. Long term, my goals are to compete in the 2018 and 2022 Olympics.”
Snowboard Cross has ballooned in popularity in recent years, becoming a fully sanctioned Olympic event in the 2006 Olympics in Torino.