She's your quintessential local girl, born in Sun Valley and raised on the slopes of Bald Mountain.
Now, 24-year-old Christine Cordeau is ready to see how far 20-plus years of skiing can take her beyond the borders of Blaine County.
After competing at the 48Straight Jeep King of the Mountain Ski Tour in Telluride, Colo., in December, Cordeau was invited by the U.S. Ski Team to compete in what will be the first World Cup ski cross in America, Feb. 2, at Deer Valley, Utah. Coincidentally another SVSEF alum, Langely McNeal, will also compete at Deer Valley.
"It's a new challenge," Cordeau said.
Ski cross has been compared to motocross on snow where four skiers compete against each other in a specially designed course.
A typical race course is packed with slalom turns, raised quarter pipe banked turns, rollers, moguls, tabletops and water jumps. It is the ultimate head-to-head alpine competition, and if you like adrenaline and don't mind a little contact, it's a sport with a cutting edge for skiers on the cutting edge of a new frontier.
The oldest of two children of a pair of die-hard skiers, Joey and Barb, Christine is the perfect example of a classic mountain upbringing; if it's vertical, it's doable and she's going to make it look effortless on the way down.
John Zuck, the director of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation's freestyle team said, "Christine is just a strong skier. She's a great racer and a great mogul skier. She won the super G in the Lane Parrish last year, so she's pretty damn fast, too. Obviously, she knows how to ski."
She should, growing up at the knee of a master.
Her father, Joey, was a four-time World Champion mogul skier. Christine was born in Dec. 1983, during her father's 1981-85 world championship run in the bumps.
"She started skiing when she was about two," Barb recalled. "She got some little plastic skis and wore them with her Sorels, walking up the green meanie carpet at Dollar, which was basically the astro turf they had there for little kids. She always liked skiing. Her brother (Shane) hated it. We had one of each."
Following the path of many local kids, Christine started out in the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation's alpine program, but she dropped out after grade school.
"Then I snowboarded and swam with SV5B. I wasn't super serious until I started on the freestyle team when I was a junior in high school," Cordeau said. "My dad always pushed, but I didn't do it until I went out and saw Shane on the team and it looked like fun."
Cordeau competed as a member of the SVSEF for two years, and then broke off with her brother, Shane, to ski independently with Joey.
"Christine makes about the best turn you will ever see," Joey said. "She was a top-ranked NorAm skier in moguls and now she is #3 or #4 in the country in ski cross."
In the 2006-07 season, Cordeau was ranked 16th in the nation in moguls and 20th in dual moguls, but Joey said her technical proficiency limited her in the eyes of the judges.
He said, "It's kind of frustrating, to tell you the truth. They don't look at ski technique and the great technical skiers are penalized for it. They just want air. It's great that ski cross came along, because she was otherwise dead in the moguls."
"You pay your own way and hope you do well," Cordeau said of racing on the NorAm tour. "There's a lot of travel in the East and Canada. I kind of got bored with it, so I came home and started to work in town."
She has been a season-pass holder since childhood. Part of Cordeau's work regimen is a daily dose of Baldy, often with roommate Carl Rixon Jr., no slouch himself when it comes to making his way down the hill in an expedient manner.
"We usually tuck I-80, go down Roundhouse and Canyon, non-stop, to get the legs burning. It's been the best practice so far," Cordeau said.
She added, "I have gotten a lot more competitive after skiing with the guys. I used to hold back. Now I try and go as fast as I can and keep up. They push me a lot."
Last month, Cordeau was invited to compete in the women's ski cross at 48Straight's Jeep King of the Mountain Series at Telluride, Colo. After only a couple of hours on the course, she made an indelible impression on U.S. head coach Tyler Shepherd.
Shepherd is in the early days of creating a team to compete in World Cup ski cross events, and, eventually, the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, where women's ski cross will make its debut.
Cordeau finished 20th at Telluride, but also walked away pretty stoked about the new discipline, which breathes fresh life into a competitive career that looked like it could be on its last legs, as far as national notoriety.
"They are forming the team this year, so it gives me more incentive to go for it," Cordeau said. "Dad is really excited about it. First he thought it was stupid and I would get hurt, but now he is all about it."
Whatever reservations the elder Cordeau may initially have had, they have dissipated like a powder day at noon.
"Christine doesn't mind mixing it up a little bit. She'll just go for it. It will be interesting to see what happens when she gets a couple races under her belt," Joey said.
Whatever her race result is on Feb. 2, Christine will go with the flow as long as she can mix mirth with her merriment.
"I will do it as long as it's fun," she said. "It would be great to do really well, and, hopefully, make a little money. I think you could not do it your whole life, but your young life, sure."
Christine Cordeau caught in a moment a relative quiet. Photo by Jody Zarkos
