Snowboarding

The SRR got it’s race season started with thee Nor-am Race to the Cup Parallel slaloms at Buck hill in Burnsville Minnesota, dominating the competition and bringing home several wins! On the lady’s side steamboat hometown girl Maggie Rose Carrigan swept all three events in a row. Also on the young woman’s side our own Millie Bongiorno earned her first FIS podium in Junior racing with a second place. On the men’s side Robby Burns, Billy Winters and Christian De Olivara all occupied the top spots in both the Nor-am and the junior race, with a win for Burns as well as 3,4, Winters earned two 2nds Nor-am and the Junior and a 3rd, and De Oliveira earned a second in the Nor-am and a win in the Junior race. Most of the team made finals every day and battled it out filling up top 16. Next up the team heads to Quebec for more parallel Slalom.

The Pro-AM Snowboardcross Team just returned from Austria after spending one week training on Pitztal Glacier and one week competing in Montafon for the World Cup opening event. The training was extremely productive with three SBX tracks to train on and over ten National teams training at the World Cup level. All of the attending SSWSC athletes saw significant progress and the camp prepared the athletes for the World Cup opener in Montafon, Austria. The SBX team also had the opportunity to travel to Switzerland and visit the world renowned custom snowboard builder Hansjürg Kessler. Kessler provided a tour of the factory and the athletes were able to see first hand how their boards are made.

After training in Pitztal, Austria the Pro-Am SBX team headed to Montafon, Austria for the first World Cup of the season. After winning both the male and female North American Cup overalls last year, Rosina Mancari & Cole Johnson are the 2015/16 North American Champions which earned them both a spot on the US Snowboard Development Team and a guaranteed start at every World Cup this season. While still training with SSWSC & head snowboardcross coach Cody Brown the athletes gained more experience at the World Cup level and had a strong start to the season. Both athletes are climbing the ranks and progressing steadily. Rosie’s strong FIS points ranking earned her an opportunity to compete in the World Cup Team Event with US teammate Lindsey Jacobellis. The event works similar to a relay where the gate at the top of the course opens once your teammate passes the finish at the bottom. The Duo advanced through the rounds and placed 4th in the SBX team event. SSWSC Alumni Mick Dierdorff, Jarryd Hughes, and Belle Brockhoff were also competing at the World Cup Opener, Jarryd taking 4th for the men and Belle winning Gold in the women’s.

The trip proved to be very successful and beneficial for the Pro-Am SBX team. The team will be training in Steamboat through the middle of January until the season really picks up with the next World Cup in Solitude, Utah and North American Cups in Canada.

Freestyle

US SECTIONALS- MEN
Tyler Strnad did a fine job during his first trip to US Ski Team Selections in Winter Park. Tyler improved on his singles results during the week with a 44th on the first day and a 40th on the second day of singles respectively.

Tyler was diligent with his focus during the event and Coach Bobby and Tyler took the time on the training day between the two single events to work on his top jump. As a result this set him up for a better exit and middle section netting him 4 places higher on the results sheet. Tyler is now looking forward to some regional action here in Steamboat the first week of January! 

US Sectionals- WOMEN

DAY 1 - Singles Event Monday

The girls achieved many of the goals we set out for the US Selections event in Winter Park. The first day on Singles all member of the High performance team qualified for finals (Top 16) these athletes included Avital Shimko (6th), Lane Stoltzner (7th), Maggie Ryan 10th) and our youngest member of the team (15 year old Trudy Mickel in 14th. I was extremely happy with the girls runs in qualification but it was important that they stepped it up for finals in order to make the Super final (top 6) they would need to ski faster and jump bigger.

This was the first FIS Single Mogul final Trudy has ever qualified for, she performed well under pressure and put down an even better run than her qualifications run in finals. I was extremely happy with her performance and in her ability to perform and be a competitive skier against some of the best skiers in the US right now. It is clear this will be the first of many more finals for Trudy this season.

Unfortunately, Avital had some trouble on the top air with her 360, and was unable to put down a clean competitive run required to qualify for the next round as she ended in 10th place.

Maggie stepped it up in finals and put down a very high quality for her and place 9th overall, which was the 4th best US skier on Day 1 of Singles. It is clear Maggies hard work ethic and determination over the prep season has paid off as this is the best result she has ever received at this level of competition.

Lane put down a fast run in final 1 allowing her to just scrape into Final 2 (top 6) in 6th place. She had nothing to loose going into the Super-final, I asked her to ski like she has nothing to loose and everything to gain. And that is what she did, she put down her best run of the day but unfortunately it just wasn’t enough to take down the Aussies and Alex Jenson from Park City. I was happy with her performance but would have liked to see her ski faster, so we knew that’s what we needed to do coming into Day 2 of the competition on Wednesday.

Day 2 - Singles Event Wednesday
After a day of rest the girls we hungry for more, with all the girls making finals on Day 1 they were keen to repeat and even better day ones performence.

Qualification went well for all girls except Maggie who unfortunately just missed out on making finals as she placed 17th. There was nothing majorly wrong with her run but I told her that she was capable of a lot higher quality skiing and crisper tricks. She felt the same way. Whilst a little disappointed she was ready to cheer her team mates on for the finals as Trudy (8th), Avital (6th) and Lance (3rd) all qualified in great positions.

I told all three girls that they had already qualified for the North-American Cup Tour in February so they had nothing to loose going into the finals. I told them that I wanted to see them ski the fastest they had on this course with clean tricks and that we were aiming for all three to qualify for the Super Final (top 6).

They girls came out hard in training and all skied personal best times in training. I was confident we were going to achieve out team goal of the Super Finals.The girls came extremely close as Trudy had an amazing run (best run to date) and placed 7th, just narrowly missing out on the super final.  Meanwhile Avital fastest in the final (25.11) out of any other girl and Lane put down a clean run allowing them to qualify 3rd and 2nd respectively.

Again, both girls has nothing to loose and everything to gain (World Cup starts) so I told them to clean up their tricks and ski just as fast. Avital put down again a fast run but unfortunately her tricks let her down, a little trouble of the top air with her 360 left her in 4th place.Lane skied extremely well in the Super final with a fast clean run which saw her place 2nd.

I was extremely happy with all the girls performance over the two days, they all skied their hearts out both in training and competition. They pushed the boundaries with their speed and towards the end of the week began to trust the aerial skills and jump bigger and cleaner. Unfortunately Avital and Lane didn’t get the World Cup starts they were looking to earn (Later Stoltzner 2nd Overall, whilst only the winner got a spot).  However there is no question that they were extremely close. With a month at home in Steamboat training on Howelsen hill and the Voo Doo Mogul course on Mt Werner we will go back to the drawing board, make some small changes to the plan, touch up some skills and they will be fired ups and ready to go for the North American Cup tour in February where they is a US Ski Team spot up for grabs.

-Coach Kate Blamey