A trio of Quest University students is hitting the slopes on the international stage.
Olympians and members of the Canadian National freestyle ski team members Roz Groenewoud and Keltie Hansen, along with Canadian National alpine snowboarding team member Darren Gardner, are representing both Quest and Squamish in competitions held all over the world.
Groenewoud has had a storied young career, finishing seventh at the 2014 Winter Olympics in freestyle skiing and gathering a slew of medals at Winter X Games and Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS) competitions. She ranks 17th in the world in competition this season.
Hansen ranked 13th in Sochi and also has several strong showings at the X Games and FIS races. She ranks 10th in the world this season.
Gardner returns to the FIS series on Jan. 23 in Austria and also has a number of excellent FIS showings under his belt. He’s also the lone Quest student competing at the World InterUniversity Games in Spain later this year.
The three athletes are just a small sampling of the nearly two dozen athletes and artists who have taken advantage of the Elite Athlete and Performer Program at Quest.
“The program allows competitive athletes, musicians, dancers and others to create uber-flexible schedules and thus accommodate both their academics and their sport or performance,” said Quest’s Bradley Klees, the senior admission counselor at the school. “Basically, they can take full months off and compete and train without missing class. Darren, Roz, and Keltie will be gone for the majority of the winter and will return in late spring/summer to take classes. Usually these elite athletes take five-plus years to do their degree.”
Keep reading the Squamish Chief for coverage of the three athletes’ alpine seasons. For more information on the program, visit www.questadmissions.com/2014/07/09/elite-athlete-program-at-quest-university-canada.
