Cross Country

This past weekend, SSWSC Cross Country athletes from the U-14 and younger age groups competed in the U-14 Championships in Aspen.  Saturday’s race was a unique format where all skiers raced through a course that included speed bumps, an uphill slalom, bicycle bumps, and more throughout a 2 kilometer course.  At the end of 2 runs of the course, Mitch Meissner and Chris Carrouth were first and second in the U-16 age group.  Chase Weynand posted the fourth fastest time in the U-14 division with Wally Magill in 8th and Gabe Rabanal in 9th.  Finishing just outside the top 10 was Finn Sias in 13th, and Wyatt Mortenson was in 18th.  Two skiers competed in the U-12 age group, Noah Mortenson in 12th and Thomas Cooper in 18th.  In the U-10 age group, Grey Barbier was 2nd and Henry Magill was 3rd.  On the girls side, Grace Zanni placed 4th, Ellery Hodges was 5th and Suzy Magill was 11th in the U-12 age group.  In the large U-14 female division, Sidney Barbier was 16th, Elise Barbier 18th, Annie Hager 20th and Claire Bohmer was 24th.  Sunday’s race featured a distance classic race in which skiers started at an elevated race start and raced distances of 4 km for the older skiers.  Thanks to the hard work of coaches Deb Rose, Bill Philip, Brad Piske and Ben Barbier, the skiers had great skis in the warm conditions.  At the end of the day, awards were given to age class champions from the Rocky Mountain Nordic division.  Shea Sias earned highest honors in the U-8 class along with Grey Barbier in the U-10 age group.

            Sunday’s Classic Race

U-16 Boys U-14 Girls

Mitch Meissner - 2nd Sidney Barbier - 10th
Chris Carrouth - 3rd Elise Barbier - 14th
    Annie Hager - 17th

U-14 Boys                   U-12 Girls
Wally Magill - 7th
Gabe Rabanal - 8th Ellery Hodges - 3rd
Chase Weynand - 13th Grace Zanni - 5th
Finn Sias - 19th Suzy Magill - 10th

U-12 Boys U-8 Girls
Reid Sias - 13th Shea Sias - 1st
Thomas Cooper - 15th

U-10 Boys
Grey Barbier - 1st
Henry Magill - 4th

Telemark

Coach Charlie Dressen took Tele Devo skiers Finn Dressen and Sal Malone to the Sprint Classic Race at Sunlight Ski Area this weekend.

In the 13 and under category, Finn won the event, which includes GS turns, a jump, a 360 degree banked turn (“Reipelokke”, pronounced rap-a-loosh-a), and a final skate section.

Sal Malone was second, pictured below.

Both Finn Dressen (Tele Devo) and Lyta Foulk (Tele Race) participated in the USTSA clinic on Saturday and won their respective AM and PM races on Sunday (junior boys and expert women).  This was a good warm up for Lyta who is off tomorrow for three weeks of racing.  First US Nationals at Crotched Mountain, NH, followed directly by World Cup races at Rjukan, Norway, and then more World Cup races at Muerren, Switzerland.

Freeskiing

The Big Mountain Freeski Team attended 2 regional comps in “The Cirque Territory” at Winter Park.

Day One- The Venue was South Headwall in “The Cirque Territory” the snow was windblown and easy to punch thru and wreck hard. Bryce Zetzman took a smooth line thru the skier right side of the venue with a big air at the bottom to take 4th place in the 12-14 skier men. (podium photo attached)
Results- 12-14 men Bryce Zetzman 4th, Michael Henry 9th
15-18 men Bryan Gilbertson 9th, Bridger Boyd 10th, Parker Temple 15th, Kaden Mendonca 25th

Day Two- The Venue was The Alphabet Chutes in “The Cirque Territory”. On day 2 we moved further into the cirque where the snow we firm and made for an excellent air show. Athletes were sticking huge airs left and right, making the competition very though but the Steamboat Team hung in with all making the top 15.
Results- 12-14 Men Bryce Zetzman 6th
15-18 Men Kaden Mendonca 7th, Parker Temple 10th, Bryan Gilbertson 12th, Bridger Boyd 14th

This past weekend Feb. 28th the Freeskiing Team competed in the USASA Slopestyle event at Keystone.  Everyone skied great and we had a few up on the Podium.  Ethan Dyer got 3rd in the 16-18 Men’s Division, Josie Seibel 1st in 13-15 Women, Riley Jacobs 1st 10-12 Girls.  I’ve attached pictures of them on the podium along with a great shot of Max Sauerbrey doing a rodeo 540.

Here’s the full results:
Skier Girls 10-12
          Riley Jacobs-1st
Skier Women 13-15
          Josie Seibel-1st
Skier Boys 10-12
          Cael McCarthy-5th
          Silas Leeson-10th
          William Gossman-17th
          Owen Taylor-18th
          Blake Clemente-19th
          Wiley Wagner-22nd
Skier Men 13-15
          Kai Doyle-4th
          Liam Baxter-7th
          Max Sauerbrey-20th
          Mac Skov-24th
Skier Men 16-18
          Ethan Dyer-3rd

  Ethan Dyer

Riley Jacobs

Josie Seibel

Max Sauerbrey

Alpine

U19 Athletes
This week, we’ve had most of our group at home training and prepping. We’ve moved to a day less of skiing for this month, substituting an extra day in the gym and a little more rest. We’re into the final push of the season and we are looking for quality training, keeping our kids strong, and fresh as we move forward. But we’ve had three athletes, Jett Seymour, Ellese Lupori, and Mary Kate Havkworthy, at Copper for the U19 National Championships.

We started off the series with the tech events and Ryan Wilson came down to lend support to our athletes and help with watching video between runs for those events. Thank you Ryan for taking your days off to be there for our kids. 

On Sunday, we started with the Slalom and some high expectations. We were not disappointed with Jett Seymour, doing what he’s been doing all season long, moving from 28th to 5th with two solid runs. Ellese had a solid day as well, going from 28th to 20th and Mary Kate from 61st to 40th.

Monday was the GS with Jett going from 28th to 38th after some bad luck first run. And Ellese going from 47th to 32nd, followed by Mary Kate landing in 35th starting from 63.

Tuesday was the SG, with Jett landing in 41st and Mary Kate in 39th. The SG was a very fast, open set which I would say is not our strength as far as course sets go, and the times were very tight, but our kids did a good job at executing. Ellese opted out of the SG.

We are now moving into the DH with two days left and Mary Kate being our only participant in this discipline. Wish her luck!! You have to remember that these are the best of the best U19s in this country and we’re very proud of their accomplishments so far and their ability to move up in this field!

U16 Athletes
Cole Puckett is a U16 Alpine Athlete competing in Italy at the Trofeo Topolino Childrens Championship. This event brings together the best athletes in the world ages 10-15.
On Friday, March 4,  Cole finished 8th in the slalom. Interestingly enough, both his dad-Chris Puckett- and Alpine Director Caroline Lalive competed in this same event during their junior racing! Nice work, Cole!

U10 Athletes

Dave Thomas’ U10 Group has fun on the slopes!

U8 Athletes
Candy Andy’s U8 group riding the rails and posing for the camera!

Nordic Combined

Ben Loomis, Stephen Schumann, Coach Martin Bayer, Jared Shumate, Jasper Good

Our U16 and U18 jumpers traveled to the East Coast last week for a few competitions in Brattleboro, VT and Salisbury, CT.  We brought 11 athletes on the trip and posted some impressive results! In Brattleboro, Decker Dean won the Junior class in Saturday’s competition and was 2nd in Sunday’s comp.  Elijah Vargas was our next top finisher at 4th and 6th place respectively.

After the competitions in Brattleboro, we spent a week in Salisbury, CT for Junior Nationals.  Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with us and we were rained out for the first 3 days of training.  Luckily, the rain let up for the weekend and we pulled off the individual and team events for both ski jumping and nordic combined.  We’re very proud to report that every age class in every event had an SSWSC athlete on the podium! Decker Dean was our top finisher again bringing home 4 medals (3 gold, 1 bronze). Elijah Vargas was right on his heels as he brought home 3 medals (3 golds).  The unbelievable thing was that Elijah and Decker TIED for 1st place in the individual Nordic Combined event!  They were both pumped to stand on top of the podium with their teammate!  Our lone female competitor, Annika Belshaw, took home two medals of her own: bronze in the individual jump and gold in the team jump!  Congrats to all our athletes on an awesome season!!

Snowboarding

The SRT traveled east for three stops on the Nor-am circuit in a two week trip. First stop was Toronto ski club near Collingwood Ontario, with two days of PGS racing. A very competitive group of racers showed up for these events including racers from Korea, Japan and of course Canada. After competing at TSC the team headed south across the border back into the US to compete at Holiday Valley south of Buffalo, again double PGS. Last stop of the tour was in Quebec at Le Relias just outside Quebec City, this time for two days of PSL. Again a very stacked field of competitors including Olympic gold-medal us to Jasey Jay Anderson. It’s been a lot of fun but also very tiring with all the travel. But the team has performed well despite some disappointing days, holding our own against these tough competitors.

Separate from all the things happening at the Nor-am on the World Cup, Ester Ledecká just became the PGS champion for the year, with Ekaterina Tudegesheva in second place. This is a huge deal for the World Cup SRT and coach Richard Pickl, it’s a huge accomplishment to even get one overall podium let alone the two top spots! This comes on the heel of Ester switching over to the ski World Cup to race there too where she earned some top 20 places. She’s the first athlete that has ever done both World Cups and done very well! The slalom title is still in the running but of course Ester is doing well there too.

Richard with the Crystal Globe

Photos from USASA Rocky Mountain Series Keystone Slopestyle on Sunday
Jacy Werner 4th
Jackie 6th
Spencer 1st
Grace 3rd
Marty Boyd 6th
Johnny Duty 2nd
Braden Duty 4th