Howden hoping Innichen and instinct can propel his season

Reece Howden is hoping Innichen and instinct will propel him up the FIS Ski Cross World Cup standings as the athletes head into the final event of the year this week.

Last season the 25-year-old swept all before him to win the men's crystal globe with an overall points tally of 725 - more than 150 points ahead of David Mobaerg who finished in second place. It was the kind of season where everything clicks into place, but this season has already thrown up plenty of challenges.

Howden missed out on qualifying for the opening race of the season in Val Thorens, thanks mostly to chaotic conditions that threw the men's qualification into disarray, and finished sixth overall in the second race. “Some things work out, some things don't," a relaxed-looking Howden told FIS ahead of this week's races.

Then in Arosa he found some of that magic again. After winning his quarter and semi-finals, he finished second in the big final to claim his first podium of the season. The reason for the lack of panic, he says, came from the experience of winning a second crystal globe and an appreciation for how easily an othewise good season can go another way.

“Racing is a pretty difficult sport in the ideology that you can do 99 per cent of the things perfect, and if you do one per cent of the things wrong it can go from being a great day to a bad day. It's tough trying to fight for that perfection," Howden says.

“I’ve had a little bit of experience now with having two globes and having a year there in the middle that wasn't so successful and at this point, I think I'm in a pretty good place in knowing what I want and what I'm trying to achieve.

"Right now my goals are not orientated on results. My goals are orientated on performance because I know if I perform at the level I can perform at, the results will come and the results will be successful.

"I'm pretty happy with the foundation I have right now and I'm excited to carry it into Innichen. I usually do pretty well here, I like this track, so it should be a lot of fun and hopefully pretty successful.”

Howden currently sits in third in the men's overall standings ahead of the races at Innichen, for which qualification for the men and women takes place on Tuesday and Wednesday this week before the races kick off on Thursday and Friday. This time last year he came second in the opening race before going one better to take top spot in the second race.

“I’ve definitely had a lot of success in the start section,” he says. “The way that they have that it's relatively long, not super, super steep, so you have to build a lot of your speed. It gives me the opportunity to put in some really strategic pole plants that I’ve found has helped me generate a lot of speed.

"I'm excited to implement some of the Alpine improvements that I've made this off-season onto that injected pitch, so it should be a lot of fun.”

Despite having worked on plenty ahead of this season, the 25-year-old says the biggest success comes when you don't overthink things on the course.

“When you get into racing, you try to just go back on all your training and just go on instinct, because that's the fastest thing you can rely on,” he says.

“Every once in a while you have to try and slow it down if there's a really technical feature, but for the most part, you have to just go on instinct and just race and try and set yourself up the best you can. You can't be making tonnes of fully cognitive decisions - it has to be second nature.”

Top of the men's standings is Schmidt, who won his first World Cup in the second race at Val Thorens before backing it up with another victory in the night race in Arosa, and Howden is enjoying training alongside the current leader.

"With Jared skiing really fast, that's perfect because now I’ve got a guy who's right on top that I can compare myself with, train with and push," he said.

"That's great for me. I'm sure having someone like me to train with for a while there was good for him and good for the rest of the team. It's a lot of give and take. It's really hard to be successful as an independent so it's great to have a super strong team to be able to improve with.”

‘Special moment’ for the Schmidts

Howden and Schmidt are not the only Canadians to be making their mark this season. Jared's sister Hannah Schmidt won her first ever World Cup race in Arosa last week, standing on the podium alongside her brother as they became the first siblings to win the men’s and women’s races on the same day.

“It's a pretty special moment for sure," Hannah said on the night.

Hannah Schmidt’s Arosa success came on an evening in which last season’s crystal globe winner Sandra Naeslund failed to make it into the big final at a Ski Cross World Cup for the first time since February 2020.

It marked a continued tough start to the season for Naeslund, who missed out on the podium in the second race in Val Thorens earlier this month.

However, the Swede had won the opening race of the season, and sits in second place in the overall standings behind France's Marielle Berger Sabbatel.

Hannah Schmidt is in third, and is one of three Canadians in the top six in the women’s section alongside Brittany Phelan and Marielle Thompson.

The trio will have their work cut out this week if they are to stave off a big run of races from Naeslund, who won the last four races in Innichen and hasn’t failed to win a race there since 2019. Can she do it again?