Mt. Washington Freestyle Ski Club (MWFC) athletes have returned from the first set of freestyle ski competitions of the season with a fist full of medals and personal bests after back-to-back competitions at the Apex Mountain ski resort in Penticton.

Six athletes, three male and three female, from MWFC competed in the Canadian Series Event at Apex Jan. 15 in single moguls and Jan. 16 in a dual mogul challenge. 鈥淚t was a challenging field of athletes in both the men鈥檚 and women鈥檚 categories with athletes from across Canada, three female athletes from Australia, one Japanese male world class freestyler and a competitor from the Korean National team,鈥� a MWFC spokesperson said.

The female athletes Marisa Benisky (Comox), Emma Benischeck (Victoria) 8th and Natasha Pegg (Duncan) 10th all placed well in a field of 15 competitors. The male athletes Peter Stubbs (Courtenay) 22nd, Riley Heard (Duncan) 28th and Dean Robin (Duncan) also had respectable finishes in the top end in a group of 50 competitors.

The following weekend (Jan. 21 to 23) the first B.C. Freestyle Ski Series Competition took place at Apex with MWFC fielding 14 athletes.

Super Youth male category Todd Heard (Duncan) had outstanding results grabbing gold in all three events 鈥� single moguls, big air and dual moguls.

Super Youth female saw Mei Pond (Nanaimo) take gold in single moguls, silver in dual moguls and bronze in big air. Hannah Benischek (Victoria) was close behind with silver in big air and a fourth-place finish in single moguls.

In Female F3 Emma Benischek (Victoria) took gold, Natasha Pegg (Duncan) bronze and Marisa Benisky (Comox) a respectable fourth in the big air competition.

Max Heard (Duncan) came away with three medals, silver in M2 big air and bronze in both single moguls and dual moguls. Dean Robin (Duncan) finished a respectable fourth in the single moguls with a personal best performance.

Male M3 had Peter Stubbs (Courtenay), Donnie Ottosen (Courtenay) and Riley Heard (Duncan) with respectable top-10 finishes in a very challenging field of 38 athletes.

Male M4: Teal Harle (Campbell River) took bronze in big air and fourth in both dual moguls and single moguls. Layne Anvelt (Parksville) and Michael Benisky (Comox) had top-10 finishes in all three events. Tom White (Comox) held his own in his first B.C. Series competition.

FINISH LINES The athletes thank coaches Martin Demidow and Ben Murphy for coaching them through these challenging and exciting competitions .. the club and athletes thank club sponsors for their continued support 鈥� Mount Washington Alpine Resort, Ski Tak Hut, the Province of BC, Orage, Ethos Career Management, Rick Gibson of Royal LePage Realty and Vancouver Island Insurance Centres ... for more information on the Mt. Washington Freestyle Ski Club, check out www.mwfc.ca ...