Cochran-Siegle and Hurt Earn National Combined Titles

By Published On: March 21st, 2018Comments Off on Cochran-Siegle and Hurt Earn National Combined Titles

The opening day of competition at the 2018 U.S. Alpine Championships in Sun Valley, Idaho, took place in Wednesday with men’s and women’s alpine combined being contested down the Greyhawk race venue. After a challenging morning of super-G and a late-afternoon run of slalom, World Cup regular Ryan Cochran-Siegle took the win in the men’s race and newcomer AJ Hurt was victorious on the women’s side.

The Greyhawk venue is particularly challenging in the super-G event because of how sustained and steep the upper pitch is. With such a large vertical drop in a relative short amount of hill space, course sets are typically quite turny when compared to a super-G set commonly found at the NorAm or World Cup level. Wednesday was no different as both genders struggled to get the hang of things in the morning run as many pre-race favorites had difficulties making it to the finish line.

Cochran-Siegle used a very strong super-G portion to distance himself from the rest of the field, holding an impressive 1.59 second advantage over his closest competitor heading into the slalom run. The Vermonter managed to hang on in the slalom portion to take the win ahead of second-place finisher and top junior Luke Winters by 0.89 seconds. Thomas Woolson of Dartmouth College finished in third.

“It was good, I had a really good super-G run that definitely played a part in the win,” Cochran-Siegle said. “I was actually expecting the snow to be a little firmer after inspection but it just grooved up a little bit. I think alpine combined is one of those events where slalom skiers have that advantage of when they’re on, they can make up a ton of time. I was just trying to go in and ski aggressive but also knowing that I had such a huge lead, ski smart too and I think I did a fairly decent job balancing it.”

Winters, who also is the reigning World Junior bronze medalist in super-G, sat in fifth after the super-G run and powered his way to the podium in the afternoon, setting the fastest slalom time and claiming runner-up and top junior honors.

“It feels good,” Winters said. “I’ve put a few combined runs together this year and it’s good to be consistent with another one. It was tough (in the super-G run) seeing everyone go out and get launched off the terrain. I made a plan and stuck with it. There were some gates where you had to give a little to gain some more and it worked out. We run a lot tougher slaloms than this but it got pretty rough and it wasn’t easy so I went into the slalom run just telling myself to ski slalom like I know I can and ended up second.”

Hurt took her first national title on Wednesday. Image Credit: GEPA Pictures/Daniel Goetzhaber

In the women’s race, Hurt sat in third after the super-G portion and showed that she’s no slouch when it comes to slalom, either, edging out Canadian World Cup skier Roni Remme in second and fellow American Megan McJames in third. Hurt was also the fastest junior.

“I’m pretty excited!” she shared. “This hill is awesome, we came from the NorAms where it was all flat and I like the steeps here; it’s a lot better, super excited. At the top of the super-G I was just thinking that I had to go all out and I might go out or I might have a really good run. In the slalom run, the girls that were running right behind me are really strong slalom skiers so I knew I had to have a good run if I wanted to do anything so that felt good.”

For complete results, click here.

Racing continues in Sun Valley with a men’s and women’s FIS super-G scheduled for Thursday, March 22.

 

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About the Author: Sean Higgins

A Lake Tahoe native and University of Vermont graduate, Higgins was a member of the Catamounts' 2012 NCAA title winning squad and earned first team All-American honors in 2013. Prior to coming to Ski Racing Media, he coached U14s for the Squaw Valley Ski Team.