What do Valérie Grenier, the brother-sister duo Jared and Hannah Schmidt, and Alexis Guimond have in common? As well as being Tremblant athlete ambassadors and having our mountain as their home port, these four elite skiers have accomplished great feats early this season in their respective disciplines: alpine skiing, ski cross and alpine paraskiing.

Valérie Grenier

This season got off to a flying start for the Mont Tremblant Ski Resort ambassadors. Valérie Grenier – who surely needs no further introduction – repeated her last year’s feat in the Slovenia giant slalom by winning her second gold medal and a third career podium finish on the Kranjska Gora run. With this win, Valerie establishes herself as one of the world’s best women skiers and achieves fourth place in the World Cup giant slalom classifications, just behind Mikaela Shiffrin. We reached her by phone a few days after January 6, the milestone day, when she was training in Soraga, Italy.

“It’s unbelievable,” she confided. “Everyone asks me if this second consecutive victory at the same place can be explained by the run itself. It would seem so, because the conditions and the snow were different, but I really can’t say.”

Of course, we absolutely had to ask Valérie about the recent Tremblant World Cup held on December 2 and 3. It seems that she experienced some unforgettable moments.

“I believe it was the best experience of my life,” she replied. “We knew when we could be seen on the giant screens, because we could hear the crowd noise all the way up at the starting gate. It was crazy. It gave me the shivers. Feeling all the support from the crowd…it’s hard to describe. It was incredible and magical. You could feel it all down the run, right to the end. We have never had so many people show up for us. I really felt the love from everybody… for us, but for the sport, as well. I would really have liked to be able to thank them by providing the best performance of my life, but in spite of my disappointment, I felt their unwavering support and it was fabulous. I was also very happy to note that the facilities charmed both my teammates and the other skiers on the circuit.”

Hannah and Jared Schmidt make history

Another story of success surprised the world of winter sports on December 12: a brother and sister from Ottawa won gold the same day, three minutes apart, on the FIS World Cup ski cross circuit in Arosa, Switzerland.

“Winning gold the same day as Hannah was amazing for both of us and for our whole family. Our two parents have sacrificed so much so we could be where we are today and this result would not have been possible without their support from day one. For us, winning gold the same day and making history as the first brother and sister to do so was super cool and something I’ll never forget,” Jared explains.

“I can hardly wait for the next races,” Hannah wrote us. “I feel very strong and very confident about my skiing – which is major for me.”

A week before this remarkable win, Jared had taken his very first World Cup gold medal in Val Thorens, France. He then repeated the feat in Innichen, Italy, on December 21, making him the first Canadian skier to win three consecutive gold medals in this discipline. Also at Innichen, Hannah mounted the third step of the podium, and then on January 20 and 21 in Nakiska, Alberta, she won two gold medals in as many races.  You can safely bet that Hannah and Jared will get a lot of ink flowing both on paper and digitally. We’ll keep a close eye on them.

Alexis Guimond

To wind up, it must be noted that after having won gold and bronze in the para-alpine super-G on December 20, Alexis Guimond took a silver medal the next day, his fifth award of the season, in the standing giant slalom at the alpine paraskiing World Cup in Steinach am Brenner, Austria. Lastly, Aurélie Moisa, also a Tremblant athlete ambassador, took the top step of the podium at the European Cup of snowboard in Moninec, Czech Republic.

Congratulations to each of these superb athletes!

More from this author by clicking on his photo below.