First-time team led by Abby Ghent wins star-studded Ajax Cup

Daron Rahlves and Marc Girardelli both lost their head-to-head races against DU Pioneer Galena Wardle. Photo: Sam Ferguson

In the 12th incarnation of the Audi Ajax Cup, two women ski pros faced off against each other in the final round of the dual giant slalom, with Abby Ghent, former U.S. Ski Team racer, edging out University of Denver Pioneer Galena Wardle to take the win for Team Alps.

“I was nervous. She’s racing NCAA for DU,” said Ghent, who retired from competition in 2017. Aspen-area native Wardle, competing for Team Coldwell Banker Mason Morse, was impressive all day during Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club’s annual fundraiser, but most notably when she bested Marc Girardelli and Daron Rahlves on Aspen Highlands’ Thunderbowl run.

Each of the six-member teams received handicaps during timed runs on Wednesday and racers were instructed that sandbagging would result in disqualification. Pro-style gates were utilized and the soft snow on race day led to some crashes but no serious injuries.

“Everybody pulled their own weight today, but you couldn’t ask for a better ski team member than Abby,” said Team Alps’ captain, Mark Watson.

Ghent, the Edwards, Colo., native who now lives in Salt Lake City, said she was pleased to be part of the benefit event that has since 2010 raised millions of dollars for AVSC. 

“A lot of local kids might not be involved” without the club’s financial support, she said.

AVSC Executive Director Mark Godomsky said in recent years the Ajax Cup had raised between $700,000 and $1 million annually though he allowed that last year’s event was scaled back both in number of participants and fundraising due to COVID-19.

“If we raise $750,000 today that would be huge,” Godomsky said. Final figures weren’t available immediately following the race, as silent auction items and other donations had yet to be tallied. AVSC serves about 2,600 youth in the Roaring Fork Valley during the winter and when factoring in the burgeoning mountain bike summer program that number balloons to about 3,000 kids year-round, he said.

Each of the 16 teams paid $35,000 to race, with the winners’ names etched into the antler-bedecked Gorsuch Cup trophy. Most of the teams included either a current AVSC athlete or an alum.

Joining Abby Ghent and Mark Watson on the top step of the podium Thursday were Patricia Glass, Austin Glass, Jenny Kennedy and Marco Watson.

Veterans and newbies alike

The 2021 Ajax Cup saw some new racer faces. Girardelli, the five-time overall World Cup champion, said this was his first time competing in the event, though he was for years a regular at the Korbel American Ski Classic in Vail.

Retired from the World Cup since 1996, Girardelli said, “Aspen was one of my best locations though I never won the downhill here.” He did win the Aspen Winternational giant slalom in 1985, however, and was long a local fan favorite. These days the affable Girardelli is behind an eponymous line of ski wear that he markets to ski clubs and resorts.

Aspen native and 2018 Winter Olympian Wiley Maple is an old hand at the Ajax Cup, and on more than one occasion during his competitive career he returned home from Europe in order to compete in the AVSC race. Now retired, the recent Westminster College graduate who majored in philosophy and fine art, said he misses ski racing.

“Seeing my teammates start to get their stride (on the World Cup), I wish my body had kept up,” Maple said. He remains close with many of his former teammates and will officiate next summer at Bryce Bennett’s wedding.

This year, a handful of ski pros who were originally slated to compete in the Dec. 30 Audi Ajax Cup were felled by a positive test for the coronavirus, which meant that alternates like David Stapleton got a last-minute chance to step up to the Highlands’ race venue that is named in honor of his family.

In a thrilling preliminary round race, Stapleton, a 2021 Colorado Ski Hall of Fame inductee, edged Dustin Cook, super-G silver medalist from the 2015 World Championships. Cook is married to Team Alps’ Ghent.

Other team “pros” included Nolan Kasper, Marco Sullivan, Chad Fleischer, Cooper Cornelius, Kristina Koznick Landa, Jack Bowers, Will McDonald, Caleb Unger and Tommy Biesemeyer.

Among those spectators watching from the bottom of the course was Tamara McKinney, who is in her first year as a U12 coach for AVSC. The club’s alpine program director Johno McBride mentioned to her during a chairlift ride a few years back that “AVSC was always looking for some good coaches,” she recalled Thursday.

The timing was right for McKinney to make the move to Aspen this year. The overall World Cup champion from 1983 also sells real estate for Sotheby’s International.

“I’m grateful for all of the years in Tahoe, but it’s great to be here now,” she said. “It feels like a family.”

There was renewed enthusiasm in 2021 for the Ajax Cup after last year’s scaled back event. According to ski club board member Marc Ganzi, when he and Ryan Smalls started the event more than a decade ago, “We never thought it would grow to this. The idea was to raise a couple hundred thousand dollars.”

That goal was easily surpassed by year two.

The Ajax Cup also supplanted the more traditional black tie dinner event with an emphasis to return “the fun to fundraising.”

“It beats the rubber chicken dinner,” Ganzi said with a laugh.

Follow Madeleine on Twitter: @Madski99