CYCLING

Steamboat was the host of the Colorado High School Mountain Bike League’s #2 race of the season on Sunday. With over 600 riders and numerous support staff, coaches, spectators we took over Howelsen Hill.

Sustained warm and dry late summer weather left the trails covered with the characteristic layer of moon-dust making for classic Colorado dry conditions racing, faces of riders covered in fine dust, and chirping drivetrains. The Steamboat team started with cool temperatures and tacky trails in the morning leaving the Freshman with ideal racing condition. Max Hamilton finished a strong 6th place and Keegan Millen finished 27th after competing in a Denver XC running event on Saturday.
Varsity took of next with our sole Varsity rider Matthew Kempers making it just in time for the race after hunting all morning and getting his 5 allotted geese. Sophomore boys, Steamboat’s largest group, had a strong finish from Forrest Christian with a 14th place finish and Johnny Duty and Louis Bartels with a 33rd and 34th out of 119 riders. Dylan Kuntz had the best race of his career finishing in 41st.

Our JV boys group had amazing results lead by Cam Owens. Cam led the race from the start and never looked back taking the win by over 2 minutes. Alden Wade came in a fast 7th place and had been closely followed by Daniel Kempers who ended up flatting on the last lap and riding in on his rim dropping from 8th to 16th place. The amazing result of the day was Senior Bennett Gamber starting 161st in the second wave and ended up 8th place overall. There were 173 riders in JV.

The ladies took off in the heat and dust of the day. Eliza Fox and Reilly Mewborn raced in JV completing 2 laps and finishing 10th and 20th. Ryley Seibel, Elena Wittemyer and Rose Epstein competed in Sophomore girls finishing strong and just off the podium in 6th, 13th and 15th respectively. New freshman riders Annie Hager and Leisel Wilkinson completed their home town course in 23rd and 39th out of a strong Freshman crew.

All in all the team had a great weekend hosting the race. They all put in long hours setting up and tearing down the venue. The next race is Granby, September 23.

Matthew Kempers

At the awards ceremony, the crowd gave a standing ovation to the final rider that crossed the finish after struggling with medical issues but not wanting to give up.

Dylan Kuntz

Alden and Rose

FREESKIING

The Freeskiing Program is happy to announce our new Junior Lead Coach Lucas Evans.  Lucas was a coach of the U13 Freestyle development team last season.  Lucas spent time in Park City and Vail as a Freeskiing athlete before moving to Steamboat last winter. 
Check out his Video, HERE

SNOWBOARD

An Update from New Zealand Jr. World World Champions from SSWSC Athlete Cody Winters:
Hi Cody Winters here. I am in Wanaka, New Zealand. Wanaka is on the south island and it is amazingly beautiful. I came here to compete in the Junior World Championships. Junior worlds is anual competition of athletes 20 years old and under. There where a total of 15 countries represented and 36 athletes. I finished 15th in Giant Slalom and 17th in Slalom. I am not going to lie I was hoping for better results but I learned a lot of valuable lessons and it truly lit the fire under me to have a dedicated focused and successful season. I am now enjoy my time over here exploring the beautiful landscape than New Zealand has to offer. As the kiwi’s would say…

Cheers, Cody



Cody Winters finished 15th in giant slalom.

Christian de Oliveira making us proud down in New Zealand earning 5th place in PSL and 9th place in PGS at Junior World Championships! This is a huge accomplishment and we are so psyched for him! Bravo Christian, 

Christian De Oliveira 9th place

FREESTYLE

As most of you know, we have arrived back from our on snow camp in Australia! I just want to thank all the parents, athletes, and the SSWSC for giving this opportunity to the High Performance Mogul Team. I couldn’t be happier with how the camp went.

5 athletes from the HP Team traveled to Australia for their first on snow camp of the 2018/19 season. The team consisted of Maggie Ryan, Kenzie Radway, Spencer Belsky, Bubba Antkiewicz, and Landon Wendler. Each athlete went down under with very specific goals and aspirations both for the camp and the season. With their focus and hard work each athlete achieved camp goals and became one step closer to achieving season goals.

The camp consisted of 14 days on snow, with 2 of those competing at Australian National Championships. Though this event doesn’t have an impact on our up and coming season, it was still a great opportunity to get in the gate. The field consisted of national teams from all around the world, including the Canadians, French, Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, and Australians. Which included both Gold Medalists from the PyeongChang Olympics, Mikael Kingsbury (CAN) and Perrine Laffont (FRA), Silver Medalist, Matt Graham (AUS), and the reigning World Champion Ikuma Horishima (JAP). All of our athletes skied extremely well against a very experienced field of 51 males and 36 females.

Day 1 Singles:
Kenzie Radway: 14th
Landon Wendler: 9th
Bubba Antkiewicz: 15th
Spencer Belsky: 18th

Day 2 Singles: 
Kenzie Radway: 10th
Bubba Antkiewicz: 14th
Spencer Belsky: 17th
Landon Wendler: 32nd

As you can see, Maggie Ryan did not compete. We were not planning to have her compete due to the fact she is just coming back from injury. We used this camp as a great opportunity to really focus on the technical side of mogul skiing with no jumping. Maggie made great improvement which will allow her to hit the ground running next month in Zermatt. Maggie’s recovery is going very well and will get back to water ramping this weekend for the All-Star camp here in Steamboat!

Overall the camp was a huge success. We made the most of the great weather, plenty of new snow, and world class training facilities. It was extremely productive and exactly what these athletes needed to reach their highest potential this season.

Now that we are home these athletes will get back to training at the water ramps and in the gym for the month of September. In October, we will be flying to Zermatt, Switzerland for our second on snow camp.

Team Course

Team Opera

Landon

Spencer

Kenzie

Bubba

Maggie