Alexa Loo - Snowboard Racer, Olympian

About Me

born: October 6, 1972 in Vancouver, B.C. oldest of 3 children

hometown: Richmond, B.C

team: Canadian National team

The first time I went snowboarding was back in 1988. I had some old ski boot liners inside of a pair of sorrel boots and a split tail Town and Country rental board strapped to my feet. Despite spending most of the day falling, and finally switching the bindings so that I was goofy, I fell in love with snowboarding.

I had often dreamed of competing in the legendary Mt. Baker Banked Slalom event held at my (then) home resort of Mt. Baker. For years this event was held in January of every year and for years I was too shy to enter, afraid that I would make a fool of myself because I did not know how to “run gates” on my snowboard.

Finally, in 1995, I saw some people training gates on snowboards at Blackcomb. I called up the Blackcomb snowboard club and joined them. The first day of training I showed up with my brand new snowboard gear, excited to learn how to ride gates. The coach took one look at my gear and asked me, “Where is your race board?” My first lesson in gates was to have the right equipment.

The following weekend I came back to the club with new Burton race boots and a Burton Factory Prime board and plate bindings. And so started the long journey that has taken me all over the world and eventually to the Olympic games.

In 1995, I trained on weekends with the Blackcomb snowboard club and worked full time for KPMG in Abbotsford. I blew my left ACL in September of 1996 and was back on snow later that winter after having it reconstructed. In April of 1997, I blew my right ACL and went for matching knee scars and got that knee reconstructed too.

By 1996, I was taking the winters off to train full time. Starting in late 1997, I trained with a number of different private teams; traveling around to various races and training full time. For a number of years it was quite a struggle trying to make enough money, find a coach and organize travel to Europe, the US and Canada. Sometimes we even had to send in our own entry forms for World Cup events!

In 1997, I went to Colorado to train with the US Pro team, headed by Nick Colavito. By early 1998, I was training with Karl Michel , I decided to try to make the 1998 Olympic team; I was able to work in the summers and train full time at Blackcomb in the winters.

Eventually, the CSF (Canadian Snowboard Federation) hired a coach and I began training with the national team. It has been a lot of years with a lot of hard work and a lot of changes, but snowboarding has come a long way and so has my snowboarding. This year I was no longer the shy competitor when I pulled into the gates in Bardonecchia for the XX Olympic Winter Games. I was well trained and I was going for broke. Unfortunately I made a mistake on my second qualifying run and looped out of my course, finishing a disappointing 20th place.

I still have not competed at the Legendary Mount Baker Banked Slalom event, but I am looking forward to competing in my 5th World Championship in Arosa, SUI in January with the strongest Canadian national team ever!