Olympic gold medalist Seth Wescott is not the only Maine snowboarder who’s had a good year.
Gorham’s Tucker Friend had a pile of top 10 finishes in his first season of competitive boarding, and is ranked fourth in Maine among his age group in the snowboard cross.
The 16-year-old, a sophomore at Carrabassett Valley Academy – Wescott’s alma mater – recently returned from nationals in California, where he finished 28th of 79 competitors.
A skier since the age of two, Friend was nine when he caught the snowboard bug.
“I just wanted to try it one day and got addicted.”
Last year, Friend was part of CVA’s non-competitive Alps team, which spent a month in France skiing and learning avalanche safety. This year he joined the snowboard squad, particularly excelling at the growing sport of snowboard cross.
“It’s like a giant slalom course,” Friend says, describing the event, which debuted at the Winter Olympics this year, “but you race with multiple people and there’s multiple obstacles, six people at a time, and there’s jumps and turns.
“It’s just a rush to race against six people, and it’s fun training with my group every day.”
Between slalom, giant slalom, halfpipe and boarder cross events, Friend racked up nearly a dozen top 10 finishes in January and February. He says that a lot of work went into his success, including running and working out on a trampoline.
Friend wants to continue improving, and after seeing Wescott’s success in Torino, he admits that following in those footsteps is something he’s thought about.
“(Competing in the Olympics) would be a great opportunity.”
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