Racing a tough terrain: Drew Neilson, Snowboard cross racer

Look around snowboard cross racer Drew Neilson’s North Vancouver living room and you’d never guess this was the home of a world champion and a Winter X Games winner. The only tip-off is a soapstone trophy carved by Quadra Island sculptor Chris Rose that Neilson cherishes. “I won that in the first FIS [International Ski Federation]–sanctioned snowboard race on Blackcomb in 1997, where—thanks to a wax job on my Burton Supermodel by Chris Hrab [high-performance director for Canada-Snowboard]—I blew past everyone,” he told the Georgia Straight. “We keep my world championship crystal globe upstairs in the bedroom, away from little hands.” As if to emphasize the point, Neilson excused himself for a minute to put his toddler son, Elias, down for a nap.

Success in racing came early for Neilson. At age nine, the Vernon native won the provincial BMX juvenile championships. Now 35, he admitted that it’s harder to keep his game up as he gets older. “Kids are starting younger these days, with better coaching and materials. The last two world champions since my win have been age 20. That’s a gap of 15 years. In my head I’m still 25 and out there having fun.”

This season has presented Neilson with the biggest challenge of his career. After a series of poor starts in which he was hampered by a lingering wrist injury, he managed to qualify for the Olympics by posting a last-minute, fourth-place World Cup result. With that weight off his mind, he went on to finish eighth at last month’s Winter X Games. As one of the founding riders in his sport, Neilson is a long-standing member of the X Games snowboard cross selection committee.

When asked to compare the two competitions, Neilson flashed a knowing smile. “Stars are made and killed at the X Games,” he said. “Lots of young kids come up out of nowhere. Since the X Games are held every year, you see the progression of the sport. Everybody brings their A game. Then there’s the culture of having everybody there who are huge fans of the sport and know the riders, as compared to the Olympics that only happen every four years.”

Neilson would rather forget the Olympic debut of snowboard cross at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin. “I was first in the qualifying round, then I was leading in the first heat and was the first to wipe out. It still grates on me.” Meanwhile, technical changes, accelerated by the evolution of snowboard-cross course designs in recent years, presented the long-time Burton rider with fresh challenges. “I used to know that I could just step on a board and win. Now the sidecut flex is custom-made to each rider’s specific desires to give better quality control. Burton hasn’t been able to build to the new standard, which is why this fall I switched to Oxess, who makes what you could call a freestyle racing board.” With annual production of only a thousand or so boards, Oxess and its Swiss-based rival, Kessler—favoured by Canadian snowboard racers such as Alexa Loo and Jasey-Jay Anderson—hark back to snowboarding’s pioneer days, when the emphasis was decidedly more on quality than quantity.

When Neilson steps up to qualify on the Olympic snowboard-cross course on Monday (February 15), he’ll have both excellence and experience on his side. Then it’s on to the first-ever European X Games, where self-styled “old farts” like Neilson hope to clean up yet again.