Crawford, Remme take NorAm Downhill Titles
The Canadian Ski Team dominated downhills on the NorAm Cup this season, however few there were. The top two female athletes were from the great white north and Canadians took the top four spots in the final men’s downhill standings, which finished up this week at Copper Mountain, Colo.
Maureen Lebel from the United States won the first downhill of the week, which doubled as the U.S. National Championship downhill, with a time of 1:28.17. She was followed by Canadians Roni Remme and Stefanie Fleckenstein, 0.09 seconds and 0.20 seconds back, respectively.
The very next day the same three women joined on the podium only in a different order. Remme won with a time of 1:28.11. Remme took two of the three downhill events on the NorAm circuit this season. Fleckenstein finished in second place, 0.50 seconds back and Lebel finished in third place 0.60 seconds back.
Remme and Fleckenstein took the top two spots in the downhill standings, along with the World Cup starts that come with them.
“It feels good to have gotten that title and it’s my first NorAm title ever. So it feels good for sure but its tough because there weren’t that many races for the downhill title,” Remme said.
James Crawford from the Canadian Ski Team took first place in the first downhill and the U.S. National Championship for the men with a time of 1:25.33. His teammate Jeff Read finished in second place, 0.10 seconds back and Sam Morse from the U.S. Ski Team finished as the top American in the event in third place.
“We’ve pushed ourselves a lot over the summer in the gym and on the glaciers and it’s been showing in results and the boy’s got another podium sweep there and in the downhill it was good to see a Canadian clinch the U.S. downhill title, definitely think we’re all skiing pretty well,” Read said of the Canadian team that he travels with.
Read won the second downhill of the week with a time of 1:24.81, followed by Wiley Maple from the United States, 0.11 seconds back and Benjamin Thompsen from Canada, 0.17 seconds back.
Crawford and Read finished first and second place in the men’s downhill standings.
“That definitely takes a lot of pressure off knowing next year I definitely have a spot in at least one discipline, still some big goals in other disciplines but that’s one of the biggest ones right there,” Read said.
After the downhill portion of the week finished up, the men and women competed in one super-G and an alpine combined.
Three Canadians took the podium in the alpine combined. Valerie Grenier won with a total time of 2:06.92, followed by Mikaela Tommy, 0.84 seconds back, and Stefanie Fleckenstein, 2.35 seconds back.
Grenier also won the super-G at Copper with a time of 1:23.62. Nina O’Brien, from the U.S. Ski Team, finished in second place, 0.09 seconds back and Lebel finished in third place 0.83 seconds back.
Canadians took the entire men’s super-G podium at Copper as well. Broderick Thompsen won the event with a time of 1:24.49, followed by Sam Mulligan, 0.78 seconds back and Crawford, 0.86 seconds back.
Mulligan also took the alpine combined win, with a combined time of 2:00.99. Sam Morse took second place, 0.19 seconds back and Thompsen took third place, 0.32 seconds back.
The NorAm Circuit will head to Kimberly, British Columbia, to finish up NorAm Finals on March 12-18.
Complete results are available here.
About the Author: Chris Keating
