Local boarder takes first place at provincials

It was an exciting day for Nakusp Secondary School students as the ski and snowboard team went to Fernie for the BC School Sports high school Ski and Snowboard provincials on Feb. 28.

The team was one of 16 schools at the event, and proved they were a team to be reckoned with as snowboarder Colton Petterson went on to take first place in the giant slalom snowboard races.

This was the first time he’s taken first place at a provincial event.

“It was pretty exciting, but at first I didn’t feel like I deserved it,” he said. “My run felt really slow to me.”

While Petterson might have thought he was going slow, it was in fact the opposite.

When the times from the weekend event were added up, he was actually almost nine seconds faster than the boarder who took second place.

Petterson has been snowboarding for a while now, ever since the third grade, but it’s not what he originally planned on doing.

“I started out skiing,” he said. “I wanted to try snowboarding because it looked like a lot of fun.”

While he had fun at the event, he wished the race course could have been a little smoother.

“The race courses were all rutted from all the people running down it,” he said. “There were chunks of ice coming out of the race course.”

This was Petterson’s last competition for the season, but he plans on competing again next year.