An area teen who grew up skiing the local hills is aiming for the sky as one of the newest members of Ontario's freestyle ski team.
He's not yet 17, but Desi Solursh has already been skiing for 15 years.
The Meaford resident grew up skiing at alpine resorts "everywhere" in Grey and Simcoe counties. A bit of a daredevil, Solursh was attracted to freestyle skiing for "the thrills" at the age of nine.
Last year, he won slopestyle and big air events at provincial level freestyle competitions and ended up 15th in the province, earning him a spot on Team Ontario.
Freestyle Ontario takes the top 16 for the team. Since making the team in June, Solursh has travelled with the team twice to a freestyle training centre in Quebec.
“I’ve enjoyed it. It’s different being with a higher-level team," said Solursh.
One of his friends, who was on the Contenders freestyle team with Solursh last season, is also on the Freestyle Ontario team.
“It’s a pretty small sport, so you get to know the people involved,” Solursh said.
Solursh competes in slopestyle and big air. Slopestyle has skiers go down a run that includes two or three jumps and two or three metal rails in the snow. Big air has skiers jump off one very large snow ramp and perform complex manoeuvres.
His best tricks are a double cork 1080 (an off-axis triple spin with two flips) and a switch misty 900 (an off-axis spin, entered backwards).
"I definitely like the jumps. It's one of my favourite parts about it," he said.
He's dedicated to slopestyle because it's never boring and there's always something new to learn.
"There's an infinite amount of things you can do. It's restricted only by your creativity," he said.
Learning big air tricks requires a lot of pre-snow training with an air bag, he added.
"You are landing on a big, downhill bouncy castle. You land on your feet and slide off it," said Solursh. "So, when you do it on snow, you've pretty much already done it 50 times," he said.
Solursh will be going on the first Canada Cup Series competition of the season at Mt. Sima in Yukon in December, followed by a competition at Sun Peaks in BC and a third competition in Nova Scotia.
Head and Squire John's sponsor Solursh. Head has been sponsoring him with twin-tip skis, boots and bindings since he was 11 or 12 years old, competing on the local circuit.
"We've seen his progression, so we've watched his rise to the provincial team. He's quite fun to watch," said Ben Bradshaw, the Head sales rep for southwestern Ontario.
Solursh says he looks up to Freestyle Canada team member and X-games winner Evan McEachern, who is also a Head sponsored athlete.
“We make a world-class product and we have lots of athletes in the top level, so hopefully we will see him continue on his path,” Bradshaw said.
Solursh is excited about the upcoming competition season.
"I’m trying to ski as well as I can in the Canada Cups this year and really be as consistent as I can and do my best.”
Ironically, Solursh's parents Michelle Ward and David Solursh are both snowboarders. His older brother Kale, was the one who got Desi into freestyle. Kale, 20, is a freestyle coach.
In his first year competing, Solursh made it to the podium a couple of times, giving him the confidence to continue.
He trained with the Senders freestyle ski programs and competed on the Ontario Timber Tour up to and including last year.
While competing at the provincial level last season, he also competed at Canada Cup Series freestyle skiing competitions in Yukon and at Horseshoe Resort in Oro-Medonte.
Solursh said anyone interested in learning freestyle skiing shouldn't go it alone.
“Coaching is definitely important. It’s hard to figure it out on your own. Trying it out on your own is trial and error and you want to minimize the error,” he said.
For more information, visit the Freestyle Ontario website at freestyleontario.ski. Or see videos at tiktok.com/@freestyleontario.
