Mamquam Elementary School student Mikayla Martin cleaned up at the BC Alpine provincial championships last week, walking away with a total of seven first place finishes including the championship title.
Thirteen-year-old Martin won solid gold at the Red Mountain in the Rossland British Columbia competition held from Friday (March 19) to Sunday (March 21).
The Grade 7 student competed twice in the K1 slalom, giant slalom and the kombi - which is a mix of slalom and giant slalom gates in the same run - finishing first every time.
Martin said she was really excited to win each race, but admitted she wasn't too surprised to take title of the overall championship.
"I was surprised to go into BC Winter Games and win, but since I won at BC Winter Games, it wasn't as big of a surprise to win here at Rossland," said the young athlete.
"It felt good, satisfying I guess."
Since she had performed flawlessly at the BC Winter Games on Sunday (March 7), Martin said she wasn't nervous but she did feel an added responsibility to compete well.
"I felt a bit of pressure going in because I did so well at BC Games but that eased off after the first race."
Martin's best time in the provincial slalom race resulted in a .11 second lead over Thirza Ross, while a 48.51 second finish in the giant slalom edged Martin out in first over competitor and friend Stefanie Fleckenstein who finished second with a time of 48.84.
Martin seemed already destined for a competitive career, dismissing a question over whether it's strange to compete against your own friends.
"Not really," answered Martin. "You start to get to know them and it's just fun."
The kombi race was last discipline Martin was scheduled to compete in, and probably the toughest, according to Martin's father James. James said he was nervous about the kombi race because his daughter hadn't raced the mixed gate course all season.
"So here they were going into provincials the final day with everything on the line for winning and they hadn't done one of these races yet."
Martin flew through the tight short radius turns of the slalom and the wider, faster turn of the giant slalom to grab first place with a race time of 36.76 seconds - a mere 0.04 seconds faster than her closest race rival Cassandra Mah.
Martin said she's hanging the K1 Teck medals she received from Canadian Olympic alpine ski team member Kelly VanderBeek, on the wall above her bed - even though she's running out of space.
Up next for the young phenom, Martin will represent team Canada at the Whistler Cup on April 9, 10 and 11.
Martin said although Red Mountain was really cool to race because it was steep and large, she's eager to race the slopes of Whistler because it's one of her favourite mountains of all time.
