Thirteen-year-old Maggie Voisin dreams of flying through the air at the Winter X Games. She’s not far away.
The Whitefish seventh grader is ascending the slopestyle ranks and emerging as one of the most talented girls on skis. This winter Voisin, a member of the Whitefish Mountain Resort Freestyle team, has placed first or second in every competition she’s entered, dominating the top levels of the Canadian and Northwest U.S. circuits despite consistently being one of the youngest skiers out there.
Voisin recently achieved her biggest goal yet. She won the women’s national title on March 8 at the Freestyle Skiing Junior Nationals in Steamboat Springs, Colo. Her final score of 80 was the highest total for all women competitors and was almost 10 points higher than the 18-year-old runner-up. Among the array of high-flying spins Voisin performed in the finals, she impressed everyone with a rodeo 540 – a spin and a half with a backflip tucked in between.
“This year has been a perfect example that shows she can go on to the next level, which is the X Games and Olympics,” said TJ Andrews, the Whitefish freestyle team’s head coach.
Thanks in large part to the exposure from the Winter X Games, slopestyle has become one of the most popular ski competitions in the world. The event was added to the Winter Olympics and will debut in 2014. The competition takes place in terrain parks filled with a number of different jumps and features, like rails. Skiers try to perform as many different tricks as they can throughout a run.
Voisin is part of the new generation of kids growing up watching the thrills of the Winter X Games, which began in the 1990s and is considered the premier winter sports competition aside from the Olympics.
Voisin watches the event every year on ESPN. “It makes me want to be up there some day,” she said.
Montana has already produced a few athletes, most notably Kalispell’s Tanner Hall, who have competed in the ESPN showcase. Others, like Whitefish’s Mitch Gilman, have used Big Mountain as a springboard to go on to make a professional career out of skiing.
Voisin appears to be next.
Born and raised in Whitefish, she tried figure skating at an early age before stepping into skis. Her original plan was to join the local race team, but her friend, Parkin Costain, who is a member of the freestyle program, talked her into trying out the terrain park. She enjoyed it enough to join the Big Mountain team four years ago despite hesitation at first.
“I remember the first day here I was nervous,” Voisin said. “I felt out of place. I didn’t feel like I fit in.”
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High Flying: Thirteen-year-old Whitefish native Maggie Voisin won the Freestyle Skiing Junior National Championship in Steamboat Springs, Colo., recently. |
Not only was she a girl in a sport that’s predominantly male, she was younger than most of her teammates. But that only motivated her.
“I definitely wanted to be as good as the boys,” she said. “I just practiced a lot and was just trying to be as good as the guys, or trying to be better.”
Nowadays, as Andrews points out, everyone, boys included, is trying to keep up with Voisin and match her arsenal of tricks.
“Maggie’s been dominating,” Andrews said. “The tricks she was throwing (at nationals), you could tell she was at a higher level than most of the girls. When it came time for competition, she just stuck them solid, the best I’ve ever seen her do.”
During the winter she spends every weekend skiing. Three days a week she goes to school for half the day and spends the other half training at either Big Mountain or in a gymnastics facility.
“I just love it,” Voisin said. “It’s just something, I don’t know exactly how to describe it. I like the adrenaline. There are definitely things that get scary at moments, but that’s part of the sport.”
Her passion and efforts culminated into a breakout winter season this year. She earned a sponsorship from Armada and joined the company’s development team. She won the national title and a second-place finish at the Canadian Shield Slopestyle competitions, one of the top events up north. Voisin beat out girls almost 10 years older than her in Canada.
Voisin placed second at the seventh annual Corn Cup at Whitefish Mountain Resort last weekend. She dominated in the slopestyle competition but took third in the skier cross race, an event she hardly ever tries.
Andrews said the sky is the limit when it comes to Voisin’s potential. She proved to herself this winter that her dream is within reach.
“If I want to go further,” Voisin said, “I think I can pull it off.”