Athlete News, September 13, 2019
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The USTSA has named it’s 2019-2020 teams, and the SSWSC is proud to see so many Steamboat athletes make the ranks! Congratulations to: Jeffrey Gay: World Cup Team, Lyta Foulk: National Team, Emma Poper: National Team, Jacob Carter-Gibb: National Team, Finn Dresen: National Team, Isabella Cerasoli: Development Team, Rebecca Poper: Development Team, Josh Poper: Masters Team, Tanner Visnick: Masters Team.
For a full list of athletes, click here.
Freestyle
U15
The first two weeks of dryland for U15 have been excellent.
We’ve seen good participation and have had some quality acrobatic sessions with more to come in the weeks ahead. Yesterday was a tough workout at the rodeo grounds ending up with an epic dodgeball game in the gym! I personally did not want to see dryland end yesterday. All Star dodgeball thrower Liam Siefken threw me out numerous times, (kid has a big arm). Please remember to dress appropriately as the weather starts to turn. Mostly we will be outside even if it’s raining. Look forward to more and more participation in the weeks to come!
High Performance
The High Performance Mogul Team traveled to Australia in August for an on snow training camp. Australia offers to these kids the ability to train on a world class facility that cannot be found anywhere else in the world at that time. We had access to a quality airsite which allowed us to transfer new tricks from water to snow in a controlled environment. We then transferred over to the Mogul course to combine both the skiing and jumping components. Our camp concluded with the opportunity of competing at Australian Nationals. The event consists of the best skiers in world, including Mikael Kingsbury (World #1, Olympic Gold in 2018, Olympic Silver in 2014) Matt Graham (Olympic Silver, 2018) Perrine Laffont (World #1, Olympic Gold 2018). SSWSC athlete, Landon Wendler had two great events and finished 9th and 8th, respectable the event was filled with full time World Cup skiers. The Event also included the FIRST EVER Team Duals event. The event featured 8 teams with athletes from all around the world which offered a great show! The hope is that this event will be included in the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. Landon Wendler also had the opportunity of participating in this event, you can see his run on our team Instagram page, @teamsteam_hp
Overall the camp couldn’t have been any better, the kids progressed and improved everyday while having fun every step of the way!
Cycling
Over 750 high school Mountain Bike Athletes competed on Sunday.
Steamboat has its own Freshman boys winner today, Caleb Haack. He came in with a pack of three riders on his first lap, felt he could push it a little harder and surged ahead right after the feedzone developing a 50 yard lead. The other riders didn’t follow, so Caleb continued to broaden his lead to over a minute by the time he crossed the finish line in First place out of 183 freshman boys. Close on his heels was Thomas Cooper finishing in 8th place.
We had some amazing Slingshots starting later in the race and slingshotting forward. JV rider, Jaxson Fryer started 173 out of 203 riders and finished 39th.
Samuel Acosta-Pabley knew he had to finish this race to be in the eligibility for state championships. On his first lap descent, he crashed and broke his rear brake shifter. He slowly descended to the bottom, tried to get it fixed and ended up taking his teammates bike back out on course to complete his lap.
JV rider, Aaron Peterson chose to dedicate his season to helping others. Instead of racing for himself, Aaron accompanied Freshman, Colten Casavecchia on course. The goal was to keep Colten on track to complete 2 laps, which he did successfully.
The late afternoon storm took its toll and the JV, Sophomore and Freshman girls races were canceled.
All in all, a successful weekend of bike racing in the boat!
Freeskiing
We will be hosting a meeting on Wednesday the 18th at 6:00pm in the fireplace room at Howelsen to introduce the sport of Ski Mo. We will have a short presentation and then answer questions any interested families or athletes may have. We are really excited to offer this new program to steamboat for what we think is really a great match to the mountains and Steamboat’s culture.
Ski Mountaineering (Skimo) is the original version of skiing: hike up and ski down. Combining backcountry, big mountain and freeskiing with the use of today’s ski touring bindings, athletes have never had such freedom in the mountains. SkiMo can be enjoyed as exercise, an opportunity to lower our environmental impact or as a competitive sport. This program will serve as an educational introduction and training program for athletes looking to improve ski touring skills and ability, or to compete. Training sessions will be a blend of Ski Touring, off-piste skiing, technical ski skill improvement and backcountry/side country safety education.
Photo Credit
Coaches’ Education
Today, U.S. Cross Country Ski Team Women’s Head Coach Matt Whitcomb, gave a remarkable presentation to SSWSC coaches about how to better connect with their athletes and build connection between team members, and how that cohesion is the driving force to success. His presentation included many examples of things that contributed to the historic results of the U.S. women’s cross country team, but that are also applicable to work, family, and relationships. It largely comes back to having a strong connection among teams - even in individual sports. After his talk, Matt joined the cross country and nordic combined teams for a rollerskiing workout. We would like to thank Matt for bringing his real-life experience to the SSWSC and helping us to be stronger coaches!