Canadian world champion skier Jack Crawford wants to conquer the world’s most dangerous downhill

(Getty Images)

Jack Crawford sits inside the shiny, state-of-the-art $13-million Georgian Peaks ski lodge near Collingwood, Ont., looking out the massive picture windows at the hills he grew up on.

It’s late October, so there’s no snow cover yet, but he’s reminiscing about the adventures he had on the steep icy runs of the southern Ontario ski club, and how he fell in love with skiing at the age of six. 

Not far away sits Todd Brooker, listening intently to Crawford’s every word, nodding occasionally in agreement. Brooker learned on these same hills before going on to win some of the biggest events in alpine skiing as a member of the Crazy Canucks in the 1980s.

But these days, it’s Crawford who is king of these hills.  

In February 2023, Crawford became just the third Canadian man ever to win a world title in alpine skiing, speeding to gold in the super-G in Courchevel, France. That came on the heels of an Olympic bronze in Beijing in the alpine combined.

The 27-year-old’s trophy case is starting to fill up. But there’s something Brooker has that Crawford wants. 

“I want to win Kitzbühel,” Crawford says of the downhill race that put Canadian skiing on the international map more than 40 years ago. “There’s no real way to train for it. You kind of just have to be able to take what you’ve learned in the minimal training and train your body to a point where it can take the G-forces.”

Brooker is the last Canadian skier to win on the Hahnenkamm course, a treacherous track in the Austrian Alps that all downhillers consider the pinnacle of the speed events. Brooker’s win there in 1983 was the last of a legendary four-year run by Canadian skiers. 

Crawford’s best result there was sixth in both 2021 and 2022. He will get his next opportunity Jan. 25. 

“I said to Jack, ‘what do you think about Kitzbühel this year? Should I show up for the race?” Brooker says. “Because just in case you win, it would be the end of a long, long, dry spell.

“He wants to win Kitzbühel. Everybody does. But the problem is, you can’t want that too much.”

This sport and that race is unpredictable, laced with danger at every turn and can never truly be mastered. Brooker’s career ended at Kitzbühel after a spectacular crash in 1987.

Brooker thinks Crawford has what it takes to win there, or anywhere.

“I think Jack could really be one of the great ones. I see a lot of Steve (Podborski) in the way he skis,” he says, comparing him to the Canadian great who in 1982 became the first North American to win the World Cup downhill season championship. “He’s kind of like a skidoo, like a wide track skidoo coming down the hill. They don’t get scared. They just go over stuff. That’s the way Jack skis.”

images expandCrawford made Canadian Olympic history at Beijing 2022 when he won bronze in the alpine combined, the country’s first medal in the discipline. Getty Images

At 5-foot 8 and 180 pounds, Crawford seems unshakeable on his skis — sturdy, strong and stable, a podium threat every time he competes.

So how does a kid from the small hills of Blue Mountain become a world class skier? 

“It’s a really special place and one of the biggest ski areas in Canada with some of the smallest hills,” says Erin Mielzynski, a four-time Olympian who got her start on the Peaks, one of a number of area skiers who have competed on the national team.

In addition to the Peaks, the immediate area includes five other private clubs and the public Blue Mountain Resort. And there are numerous other small clubs within an easy drive. The compact size of the ski areas allows kids to get in numerous runs in a day, working for hours on their technique.

“It’s this ultra-competitive, really tiny, but sort of this huge mecca at the same time of this love for skiing,” Mielzynski says.

Crawford fits that bill. He obsesses over every detail of the sport. He has a book that he’s always writing in — a sort of handyguide of skiing according to Jack — documenting training sessions, how his skis felt, where his body positioning needs to be, the equipment he uses, angles down the hill, feeling on the snow, shin pressure in his boots, intention, fears, where his vision is as he’s racing down the hill. 

Remember that fancy tool in the 1997 film Men In Black? It was called the Neuralizer, a wand-like device that could wipe the memory of those who were flashed by it. 

Clean slate. Hardware reset. Moving on.

It’s something Crawford probably wishes he had, because his cerebral approach to the sport can be all-consuming for him. Trying to learn and master all of the millions of intricate components of being able to ski at speeds incomprehensible to most people — and then clear his mental slate to be able to ski freely — is enough to drive anyone a little bit crazy.

But it’s what has catapulted him to the upper echelons of racing.

When Crawford finally gets to the start gate, he has to erase all of those thoughts from his mind. He can spend, and he does, countless hours practising and processing it all and then downloading all of it into every fibre of his being.

But if he’s thinking about what he’s doing while careening down the hill at those speeds, he’s already lost. 

Crawford is trying to master being out of his head and into his body, something he feels could lead to consistent top-five finishes.

It’s dangerous. Like it is, it’s really dangerous.Jack Crawford on downhill racing

“There are certain aspects to the sport that I still really need to figure out,” he says. “But when I’m actually skiing, everything is feel. It’s almost like the understanding is what allows me to come back to those things and bring feeling and meaning back to the cues.” 

Then when you add risk into the mix — and that word doesn’t even do it justice — it gets even more complicated. 

Crawford, along with the best skiers in the world, hit top downhill speeds of more than 150 kilometres per hour. They slice their way down the hill on ice as hard as concrete, navigating bumps and jumps and dips and turns. One wrong move could spell disaster — and in some of the most tragic cases, death. 

“The idea of risk is a little bit lost to me,” Crawford says. “It’s not necessarily what’s on my mind when I’m pushing out of the start gate, but it is a super risky sport.

“It’s dangerous. Like it is, it’s really dangerous,” he finally concedes. 

But the Crawfords as a family seem to have a need for speed. 

Jack’s aunt, Judy Crawford, skied for Canada at the 1972 Sapporo Olympics where she finished fourth in the slalom. His older sister, Candace, was on the national team for years, competing at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics in five different events. 

Jack’s dad, Angus, has been skiing his entire life and was often on the road with Candace and Jack when they were training or in competition. 

“A bunch of crazy people. I think we’ve got good minds for it,” Jack says. “And a good understanding of risk. We’re extremely competitive. Healthy competition was instilled in us and a willingness to risk. it just means a lot that it shows through generations of our family.”

That inherent risk, that something could go catastrophically wrong every time Jack skis, is something his parents are still working through as they watch his races.

“I have a pretty hard time. I did watch the Olympics,” Laurel Crawford, Jack’s mom, says. 

images expandCrawford with his parents Angus and Laurel at the Peaks, where his and others success is celebrated. Devin Heroux/CBC

Angus has only recently warmed up to the idea of watching him race live, mostly because he’s gained a level of trust in Jack’s ability to get down the hill safely. 

“I think the older an athlete gets, the more experienced and more stable they are,” Angus says. “I’ll start watching more now but when they were younger and didn’t have as much experience on the venues, it was too hard to watch. It’s a little easier now.”

A lot of the family’s success, and many others skiers from southern Ontario, can be traced back to the prestigious Georgian Peaks club, which looks out over the expanse of Georgian Bay.

The private club was founded in 1960 by Ian “Buck” Rogers. He chose the location along the escarpment for its elevation — at 245 metres, the Peaks is 75 metres higher than anywhere else in the area. It’s the only ski area in southern Ontario with enough vertical rise to hold an International Ski Federation-sanctioned giant slalom race. 

“If you can learn to ski here, you can ski anywhere,” Rogers famously said, words that echo around the clubhouse to this day. 

All of this has led to attracting some of the country’s top talent in skiing. In addition to Brooker and Mielzynski, the alumni list includes Olympians and former national team members Larisa Yurkiw, Edi Podivinsky, Karen and Brian Stemmle, John Mealey, Judy Crawford Rawley, and Ali Nullmeyer.

“I think what makes it really special is that Georgian Peaks really supports its athletes from such a young age,” says Mielzynksi, something she credits for her own success. And she believes there is much more success in Crawford’s future because of his approach to the sport. 

“He has this amazing sense of finding speed, taking risks but knowing where that line is,” she says. “And also being able to handle the pressure. I think the pressure keeps him going. 

“This unending belief in himself … that winning mindset and I think he has that.”

The Crawfords have always been ideally positioned to be a part of the club — the family home literally backs on to Georgian Peaks. Cascading windows in the living room perfectly frame many of the runs along the escarpment. Laurel had the perfect vantage point of her family from the kitchen as they made their way down the hill. 

“Just watching them come home. Sitting here at the end of a ski day, waiting for them to ski down. Candace, Angus and Jack from the top of this hill here, I can tell who’s who,” she says. “They all have a very particular skiing style.”

Jack was always the first one on the hill and the last one off. One of his first coaches, Richard Long, recalls how eager Jack was from the beginning.

“Every year that went by, many kids just sort of don’t keep up. Jack got better. He was the exception,” Long says. “And it had a lot to do with his attitude. He was very open-minded. He was passionate about the sport. 

“He would simply have less fear than the other kids. He was winning all the races on the escarpment.”

Long is quick to deflect any credit for helping shape Jack’s career — but he does believe he helped Jack fall in love with skiing.  

“I don’t know whether Jack’s success on the World Cup necessarily has to do with my coaching techniques from when he was 12 years old. But I like to believe that maybe my passion for the sport helped Jack along the way,” Long says. 

Nick Hamilton, a former president at the Peaks, says they’ve all wrapped their arms around Jack to help him in whatever way possible. 

“I just love the idea that we can do things that allows Jack, in the start of a World Cup race, the scariest, gnarliest race, to just focus on one thing and know that our community and the supporters have his back,” Hamilton says. “This place has produced some outsized results. I’m very excited to watch Jack in the upcoming season.”

Tomaz Senk, the director of alpine programs and head coach at the Peaks, says there was a buzz around the club that grew with each victory Jack posted when he was coming up the ranks — and many felt he was the next great, even in those earliest days. 

“I think people were excited about Jack. They could see that he was a good skier, that he loved to ski and that there was potential there for sure,” Senk says. “He’s a hero. You know, the kids here look at him, they come through this program and they watch skiing and they watch the World Cup.”

While many around Jack will hint at his impact not just at the Peaks but across Canada, that’s not Jack’s focus — that was never the motivating factor for all of this. 

“As much as I hope to be a role model and somebody who can push the sport in Canada and do all these things, it’s also something that I do for myself,” he says. “I’m not here to be a role model. That was never the dream. Those are kind of byproducts of what I want to happen.”

Crawford now lives in Whistler, and on a recent trip to Toronto he visited the gym he used to train at, mostly during his hockey playing days. (He was once on the same team as NHL superstar Connor McDavid.)

“Power is extremely important. After you engage the ski it’s all resistance,” he says, moving his body as if he’s carving down the slope. “You feel yourself turn on, you feel the resistance, move with the skis. It’s an exciting way to say flowstate. I hate that saying.I’d call it proper preparation.”

This is part of a lengthy monologue on the basics of skiing he offers to a non-skiing visitor. There’s nothing Crawford loves to speak about more than skiing. There’s a million different thoughts going through his head at any given time as he tries to figure out how to get down the mountain faster than anyone else.

But for as individual as this sport and his journey has been, Crawford understands he wouldn’t be in this spot without his teammates.

He is the leader of a crew that hopes it can replicate some of Canada’s past magic on the mountains. The Crazy Canucks — Brooker, Ken Read, Steve Podborski, Dave Irwin, Jim Hunter and Dave Murray — burst onto the scene in the late-1970s and early 80s, becoming national celebrities and stars on the alpine circuit. Their sometimes reckless and always aggressive skiing style put the world on notice. 

Podborski still holds the men’s Canadian record of 20 World Cup podiums, including winning back-to-back titles at Kitzbühel in 1981 and 1982, the meat of that four-year run that began with Read in 1980.

Today’s national team — Crawford, Brodie Seger, Cameron Alexander and Jeff Read, Ken’s son — have grown up on the side of a hill together, travelling the world in pursuit of World Cup podiums. There is an unbreakable bond they all share and it’s helping lead to stronger performances every season.

The younger Read has heard all the stories from his dad about those Crazy Canucks days. 

“My dad has brought it up a lot. It’s a must to have a cohort like that. It brought his group together and raised him up. It’s just essential,” Read says. “And so we’re really fortunate to have that. You can’t do this alone.”

They spend countless hours together in planes, on trains, and then on slopes around the world, each playing a role in the team’s chemistry. 

When asked about the role Jack plays in all of this, Alexander smirks and pauses.

“Jack? Jack is… he’s a special character,” he says. “Jack is very analytical about things. He’s always thinking about different things, but then he’s also really good at just shutting his brain off.

There is a deep and profound respect they all have for each other.

“All of a sudden we’re here and we’re to the point where we’ve all seen ourselves fighting for the podium and fighting for wins,” Alexander says. “It’s exciting that this is finally the spot that we’ve gotten to. And now we just need to keep trusting ourselves and keep pushing for that top spot.”

That top spot feels within reach for Crawford. 

But he doesn’t just want a World Cup victory here or there, he wants to consistently find himself on the podium from the start of the season to the last race. 

“What I really want to do is win [Crystal] Globes and in order to do that I have to be in the top five every single race,” he says. “That’s the true test. If you’re able to be top five at every single venue, on every single type of snow, that just shows who the best skier is by far.”

In order to be great in the 18 races throughout the season, beginning Dec. 8 in Beaver Creek, Co., Crawford is continuing his painstakingly articulate planning and preparation. One of his latest revelations comes in the form in his relationship to fear, to knowing that at any given second this could all go very wrong. 

It’s this uncertainty, this never quite knowing what’s going to happen next while zipping down the mountain, that makes Crawford feel most alive — being right on the edge is right where Crawford wants to be. 

“If there’s a little bit of nerve or fear I know it’s going to be a good day,” he says. “It’s a super easy tell. I know that if I’m on the red line that’s the skiing that could win the race or be very dangerous.”

Crawford has reached a comfortable place in his understanding of what this all is — that for as much as he wants to fully grasp every aspect of his sport, he’ll never know it all. Or at the very least, he’s come to respect that there will always be parts of this that will leave him wanting more. 

And that’s exactly what keeps him going up the lift for another run. 

“You’ve never really figured out every aspect of the sport. And I think that’s just one piece that I’ve always been super fixated on. I don’t want to be good in a situational event. I want to be able to bring my best, which could possibly win the race every single time I push out of a start gate. 

“I’m not quite there yet. I think I’m still a few years away from really being able to do that, but the way that my career has gone over the last three years, I have the building blocks to do it.”