Domestic Roundup: Warm-up Racing, Breckenridge, and Septemeber racing results

Domestic Roundup: Warm-up Racing, Breckenridge, and Septemeber racing results{mosimage}We stand on the precipice of the 2004-05 season with reason for optimism… as usual. With the schedule set to initiate next week with the early season “warm-up” races in anticipation of the North American World Cups there is already an American World Cup win in the bank (Bode Miller at Soelden. Oct 24), bolstering the pre-season hopefulness.

For most of us the competition portion of the season won’t kick into gear until mid-December. You know, after there is snow on the ground. We aren’t going to know where we stand until then, but for a lucky few there is pre-season snow, normally obtained by plane. There were groups of American skiers in Chile and New Zealand, as evidenced by FIS race results we look at below. And certainly, there have been plenty of training excursions.

For instance:

https://rowmark.org/ski.program/news/details.php?id=19

https://www.killingtonmountainschool.org/pages/kmserabroadtraininginfrance400.html

Breckenridge racing this weekend

National Competition Director Walt Evans reports he expects a heavy turn out for the women’s races at Breckenridge this week (Nov. 21-22) as well as at the Nor-Ams at Winter Park immediately after the Aspen World Cups. Most of the U.S. national team will be competing as well any top World Cup racers looking to scrape the last vestiges of rust off their bones.

September Racing results

The top of the result lists in September journeys include, from Whakapapa, New Zealand, in slalom Sept. 9 Todd Ligare finished second to Aussie Jonathon Brauer with John Martz and Charlie Reed 11th and 12th. Brauer also won the 9/7 slalom while Reed topped U.S. men in 7th with Martz 9th and Ligare down in 12th. In GS 9/8 Ligare challenged for the win but could not catch Aussie’s Luke Deane (first) and Brauer (2nd). Martz was 7th. In the men’s final GS Brauer completed his sweep. Martz led the U.S. in 5th.

On the women’s side, in smaller fields, the Lathrop sisters led a three woman U.S. sweep of the first slalom, the finish order: Abbi, Jenni and Gabrielle Govan. German Ellen Hild, a World Cup point scorer last season, split the Lathrops finishing 2nd behind Jenni and one one-hundredth ahead of Abbi in the second slalom. Abbi bested Jenni for the win over New Zealander Bridget Taylor in the first GS with Govan in fifth. And Jenni got back at her twin for the final win. Govan was fifth and Amber Gale seventh.

In Chili, Cody Marshall collected a GS win at El Colorado over Norway’s Sverre Melby with Kyle Kung third. Brede Halsnes (a Norwegian raised in Steamboat) was fourth and Tim Kelley fifth. Pat Duran was sixth and Chris Colpitts eighth. Kate Bragg took the women’s win over Lyndee Janowiak with Megan McJames in third and Chelsea Laswell fourth

In a South American Cup event at LaParva the Italian World Cup squad was in evidence, but Wade Bishop collected a super G fifth a scant three hundredths behind Kristian Ghedina. Greg Bartels was ninth. In the second race Todd-David Thibodeau was fourth behind the first group of Italians with Adam Cole sixth and JJ Johnson seventh. Laurenne Ross was the top North American in the women’s SG behind six Italians and Chirine Njeim of Lebanon and Rowmark Academy. The U.S. women packed in with Katie Lyons, Megan Hughes, Kara Crow and Leanne Smith stringing eighth through 13th. With the Italians missing for the second day’s race it was Njeim first, then Ross, Crow, Lyons, Kate Jordan and Tucker Vest-Burton all in the top six respectively.

For additions to those results see the FIS website:
https://www.fis-ski.com/uk/fiscalendarresults/results.html

Some of the best from each region (four women from East, four from Westerb aand from Rocky/Central, will be (or have) started a National Development System tech camp at Winter Park, and will then, presumably, roll over into the scheduled races. They will get to train with the U.S. team