There’s not a trace of doubt in Julia Murray’s response to the question of whether the Canadian women’s ski cross team members have the potential to sweep the Olympic podium.

“Yeah, of course!” the Whistler racer said on Monday (Jan. 25), in a teleconference following the announcement of the hotly contested Canadian freestyle ski team bound for the Olympics.

With just 18 Olympic spots open to Canada’s talented and successful cadre of moguls, aerials and ski cross competitors, the battle for berths came down to the wire, with some of the final positions determined by the ski cross racers who squeaked in thanks to their World Cup results in Lake Placid on Sunday (Jan. 24).

The competition for Olympic spots ended in heartbreak for some, with the likes of aerialist Ryan Blais and Squamish ski cross racers Aleisha Cline and Davey Barr – all of whom have won World Cup medals in the past 14 months – left on the sidelines for the Games after all of their time, training and past successes.

Blais’ Olympic dream died in particularly gut-wrenching fashion as he pulled off a podium placing on Friday (Jan. 22) in Lake Placid, despite the intense pressure to perform and qualify for the Games-time team. He then suffered through agonies and ecstasies as Canadian freestyle officials told him he had edged out teammate Olivier Rochon for a berth, only to reverse the statement half an hour later when they discovered they had made a calculation error.

The hits kept coming for some of the athletes, while others hit the heights of joy: Ski cross racer Dave Duncan, now a Golden resident, beat out Rochon and Blais after Friday’s drama, by winning a bronze medal in Sunday’s race.

In a statement, the CEO of the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association acknowledged the abundant talents of the athletes who qualified to represent Canada at the home-snow Games, while noting that the need to leave some proven medal threats behind shows that freestyle athletes be allowed more Olympic spots.

“We’re elated to be sending such a strong team overall with significant medal chances, but we’re also saddened to be leaving athletes who have won World Cup medals in the last 14 months (such as Barr, Cline and Blais) at home. This underscores the fact that Freestyle should be entitled to more Olympic spots,” Peter Judge said.

The Whistler- and Pemberton-based athletes who made the squad seemed to be less subject this season to the roller-coaster ride of emotions leading up to the team selection.

Whistler’s world ski cross champion Ashleigh McIvor pre-qualified for a berth last year, thanks to several performances under pressure last season, while Murray and Pemberton-based mogul skier Kristi Richards established themselves in the upper tier of potential team members this season by earning strong results in early World Cup events.

Richards won gold and silver medals in the first two World Cup competitions of the season, and Murray captured the second and third World Cup medals of her career in early events.

“It was definitely a lot of stress off my shoulders to get those first two podiums,” Murray said Monday.

Richards, a past world champion who finished seventh at the 2006 Games, said the pain of missing the mark is one of the perils of sport.

“It’s definitely the toughest thing in sport — you put your all into this goal with the risk that it may not even happen,” she said. But, she added, because it is so hard and because anything can happen, that makes the achievement all the more sweet.

“I am here and I did make it, it makes it even more special… There’s just so many factors that keep people out, I’m so proud to see my name on that Olympic roster,” Richards said.

The intense competition has underscored the power and potential in Canada’s freestyle team. It’s led by Olympic champion mogul skier Jennifer Heil, world champions in McIvor and mogul skier Alex Bilodeau, and aerialist Steve Omischl, last year’s FIS World Cup champion – and there’s lots more firepower besides.

“I don’t think we’ve ever seen a stronger freestyle team in all disciplines, which is really neat to see,” Richards said.

As ski cross makes its Olympic debut, the Canadians are almost assured to be medal threats, though anything can happen in head-to-head racing. With Duncan qualified alongside past World Cup winner Chris Del Bosco of Sudbury, Ont., and team veteran and X Games winner Stanley Hayer of Kimberley, Del Bosco said having a trio in the running naturally helps a great deal since “the plan is to sweep the podium.”

McIvor and Murray are joined by Kelowna’s Kelsey Serwa, who now lives in Whistler, and Danielle Poleschuk of Winnipeg, to form a powerful threat.

Murray is recovering from a minor knee injury that she’s confident should be fixed by the time she hits the Olympic start gates, though it seems like an unfortunate twist that her first-ever injury of this kind comes now.

Serwa and Del Bosco emerged victorious in Sunday’s World Cup races, while McIvor finished fourth. McIvor, who also won a silver medal at last Wednesday’s (Jan. 20) World Cup in Collingwood, Ont., for her fourth podium of the season, sits second in the World Cup standings, followed by Serwa in third and Murray in fourth, while Del Bosco is third on the men’s side.

Having made it through the rounds of racing to the finals five of seven times in this World Cup season, McIvor said, “I’ve built up enough confidence to know I can beat each and every one of these girls. That’s a good place to be.”

Chloe Dufour-Lapointe, Maxime Gingras and Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau are the other mogul skiers who qualified to represent Canada at the Games, and Veronika Bauer, Kyle Nissen and Warren Shouldice are the other Canadian aerialists.