Meet The Snowboarder Swapping The Slopes At Big White For The Winter Olympics 2022

A snowboarder representing Canada at the Winter Olympics has been talking about where it all began on the slopes in B.C.

Tess Critchlow learned to snowboard on a small hill in her back yard in Prince George and she was six years old when her family moved to Big White, which she describes as an "amazing" experience.

She entered her first competitions and even went heli-boarding in powder bowls in B.C. at age 10.

She won back-to-back national titles at Big White in 2013 and 2014, and now the 22-year-old is travelling to Beijing to compete in her second Winter Olympics.

In a video with Big White Ski Resort, she said: "Living at Big White and going to school here, Friday's off just to go snowboarding....having all that here was super fun. Snowboarding every day, you can't really have a better childhood than that."

When she was 14, Critchlow said she was picked up by the provincial snowboarding team.

She said: "That kind of switched it from just a fun weekend thing to actually started training for on and off snow, I got to travel to races and everything."

Critchlow has won five adult and junior Canadian National Championship wins, multiple top-10 World Cup finishes, podium finishes in team events, and a 9th overall placement in the Women's Snowboard Cross at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games.

Despite her success on the snow, and all the travelling that she now does, she says that Big White will always hold a special place in her heart.

She said: "The biggest thing is that Big White is home for me. I travel everywhere else, I get to see a lot of amazing things and a lot of different resorts, but coming home here, there's nothing like it.

"Big White is really the reason that I'm doing what I'm doing. They made it so easy and having such a fun atmosphere here as a kid. I loved it so much, I loved snowboarding Friday's and having the courses...it's such a great facility to train, especially with my sport."

You can follow her progress at the Winter Olympics, which takes place on February 4 to 20, on her Instagram account.