Comox Valley brother and sister Darcy and Cassie Sharpe don’t call it sibling rivalry. It’s more like sibling inspiration, and they may take that notion all the way to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Darcy Sharpe won silver in the first men’s slopestyle World Cup event of the season Monday in Cardrona, New Zealand, behind winner Marcus Kleveland of Norway. That came after sister and Highland Secondary graduate Cassie Sharpe won the first World Cup women’s ski freestyle half-pipe of the season in Cadrono on Friday.
“When [Cassie] does well, I do well,” said Darcy Sharpe, in a statement. “I love that girl. She’s on fire, [and] it only helps me. I’ll never be jealous, but I will always be inspired to do as well as her.”
All the World Cup events are now key qualifiers for the 2018 Winter Olympics. Darcy’s event was one of only three men’s slopestyle World Cups before the Olympics.
“It’s a very important event leading up to the Olympics, so I really had my mind set on landing my run,” said the Mark Isfeld Secondary graduate Darcy Sharpe.
Spencer O’Brien of Courtenay, a veteran of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and a five-time X Games medallist, was the top Canadian female in the slopestyle World Cup with a sixth-place finish Down Under.
The Sharpes and O’Brien are part of an avalanche rolling off Mount Washington and flowing across the Pacific into Pyeongchang. It also includes rising ski freestyler Teale Harle of Campbell River, who recorded his first career World Cup victory in March at Silvaplana, Switzerland. Also Canadian national-team members are respective Comox Valley snowboard-cross and ski-cross racers Carle Brenneman and Mathieu Leduc.
“The Vancouver Island Mountain Sports Society was instrumental in really helping all these young athletes get to where they are,” said Don Sharpe, father of Darcy and Cassie, and former director of business operations on Mount Washington for 17 years.
“There was a real buzz around freestyle at the time, and it was coming into its own, and there is still the ‘cool factor’ to it [freestyle].”
Because of their dad’s job, Darcy and Cassie Sharpe practically grew up on Mount Washington, spending countless hours on its slopes while their dad worked. That time looks well spent, as both siblings are now legitimately eyeing the Olympic Winter Games next February in South Korea.
