inspiratia backs Winter Olympics star Broderick Thompson

inspiratia has forged a partnership with leading Canadian Alpine skier Broderick Thompson for the coming World Cup season. We caught up with Broderick before his flight to Europe to discuss his passion for sustainability, his hobbies, and his journey into the upper echelons of elite skiing

After spending the last couple of years recovering from a devastating knee injury inflicted during preseason training, Canada's Broderick Thompson is now back and competing amongst the best in the Alpine Skiing World Cup downhill and super G events.

He will do so with a new headwear partner in the form of inspiratia, with our name to be seen sitting proudly on his skiing helmet during his runs, as well as on his piste-side beanie hats and baseball caps.

While offers were on the table from corporate giants in his homeland, Thompson eschewed those in favour of collaborating with a company involved in the ecosystem of sustainability as this is an area that is close to his heart.

"This is the way of the future and I'm super interested to learn about it," Thompson told inspiratia during our recent conversation.

Introductions

Having initially been introduced to inspiratia when we rolled into his hometown of Whistler, British Columbia last year for the first of our Electric Vehicles & Sustainability summits, he has followed the area with interest ever since.

While that conference naturally had EVs at its heart and brought together leading players from the space from across North America, Whistler has also been party to the ongoing transition toward electrified transport. On this point, Thompson states he is excited "to see the infrastructure going in in Whistler, it's great for the environment."

But hailing from British Columbia, he has also been surrounded by some of the more traditional forms of clean technology, with the province being very much the Norway (where he incidentally is due to race in March at Kvitfjell) of North America due to its extremely high penetration of hydroelectric generation.

"Hydro interests me because lots of the infrastructure behind it, such as turbines and dams, are based on technology that was used a long time ago," he says, with the astute observation on the back-to-basics nature of renewables (also to be seen in the humble windmill) tallying nicely with Thompson's general outlook and hobbies which include woodworking, fly-fishing, and playing the ukulele.

Choosing a path

Aside from those interests, he had an active childhood playing volleyball, baseball, and figure skating, alongside skiing of course, and it was at the age of 16 that he decided to focus on the latter as a potential career.

What will not have done skiing's prospects any harm in the eyes of a young Thompson was the Olympics roadshow coming to town the same year, when the 2010 Vancouver games Alpine events were held in Whistler.

There, he watched fellow Whistler Mountain Ski Club members Mike Janyk and Manny Osborne-Paradis, with whom he had attended a kids' camp the year prior, compete against the best in the world on the slopes.

Just eight years later, Thompson would line up in PyeongChang in Korea at his first Olympics, and with less than two years to the next edition in Beijing, surely he would be allowing himself to think about that prospect just a little?

"The Olympics is just another race, although you can tell it means just that bit more to the fans when you are there and competing," he says, keeping his focus on the season ahead.

And there are plenty more races for Thompson over the next year or so before the Olympics come around again, with inspiratia delighted to be supporting and following his progress as he charts his way through the World Cup series.

Thompson will be competing in Alpine skiing World Cup events in Europe all winter, starting in Val d'Isere this weekend.

Photos: Roger Carry