Canada's ski cross racers excel amid mayhem

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As you may have observed, ski cross is one of the wildest and most dangerous sports in the Olympics.

Sort of a mashup of alpine skiing and BMX cycling, it involves athletes racing four at a time down an obstacle course laced with jumps, rollers and banked turns, with only the top two advancing to the next round of the tournament. Intentional contact is not allowed, but with everyone jockeying for position in such tight quarters, the inevitable bumping of bodies and skis leads to a lot of scary crashes and devastating injuries.

And yet, Canada has found consistent success amid this chaos, capturing a world-leading four gold and seven overall medals since ski cross became part of the Olympics in 2010 in Vancouver. Almost all of these have come in the women's event, where Ashleigh McIvor (2010), Marielle Thompson (2014) and Kelsey Serwa (2018) won the first three Olympic golds and helped Canada rack up six of the 12 medals awarded to date. Brady Leman won the men's gold in 2018.

Based on recent results, Canada's success is likely to continue at this February's Olympics in Italy.

In a bit of a twist, the top contender this time is on the men's side. Reece Howden, a 27-year-old from Cultus Lake, B.C., won a record seven times on the World Cup circuit last season to capture the third Crystal Globe championship of his career and his second in three years. Yesterday, Howden bounced back from a disappointing season opener in France (he finished fifth and 25th in his two starts there) to win in Switzerland for his record-breaking 19th career World Cup victory.

Canada's Reece