The Inside Edge: Schweitzer Junior Race Series comes to an end

• U.S. Olympic Team named — The votes are in and the names are published. Young Jacqui Wiles and Laurenne Ross are the only Northwest athletes selected to this year’s Alpine squad. The Edge’s “dark horse” Jared Goldberg was also selected. But the real news remains Bode Miller, who appears to be peaking at the right time. Last week he was third at the legendary Hahnenkamm Downhill in Kitzbuehel, Austria and second by .05 in the subsequent Super G. He’s on a roll!  

Others to watch are surely Ted Ligety and Mikaela Shiffrin, Ligety, the two time defending World Champion in Giant slalom, is also a force in Super Combined, where he was second this week at Kitsbuehl. Shiffrin is last year’s Slalom World Champion and is the favorite in Slalom at the games. And Julia Mancuso, a three time Olympian, has been elevating her game with numerous top tens in Super G and Downhill this month.

• Speed! — There are not many regions where the 12-13 year-olds can get Super G experience, but our EEYSL offers the FAST Blast every January at 49 Degrees North. It was a great weekend, with nearly 100 athletes getting two training runs and three races – a great experience at that age. The racers competed on two distinctly different course sets which were both excellent.  

Top finishers (top 10 only) were: Girls U14 – Morgan Wohlaib two Silver medals and a 4th place, Farli Bowden two 8th paces and a 6th place, Addilyn House three 9th places and Alyssa Corbridge on 10th place. Girls U12 – Myriah Stenvers one Bronze and a 10th place, Graycn House two 9th places and a 10th place. Boys U14 – Addison MacNamara one Bronze and two 4th places, Brayden Demko an 8th place. U12 Boys – Nathan Demko one 7th place. The youth racers resume action Feb. 8 with two Slalom races at Schweitzer.

• Junior Race Series Finale — The Schweitzer Junior Race series ended Friday under perfect race conditions. As always, the awards were preceded by the famous, eat ‘till you’re sick, Ice cream feast. Special thanks to Schweitzer for being a great host, all the local merchants who donated great raffle prizes, and the volunteer coaches without whom there would be no series.

The winners of the Most Improved category were: Boys – Conner McClure with Peik Lund-Anderson as runner up and Girls - Avery Edmundson with Lily Simko as runner-up. The Fastest Boy and Girl winners were: Boys – Baden Brenner with Nathan Demko as runner-up and Girls Morgan Wohlaib with Catherine Brenner as runner-up. And the winner of Most Improved Team honors were the Powder Pirates coached by Jamie Emmer and Kate Matlosz. Already looking forward to next year.

• USASA Skiercross and Slopestyle — Mt. Spokane played host for two days of competition over the weekend. Reports indicate that the courses were fun, with the added challenge of a few stumps and shrubs do to low snow cover… WE NEED POWDER! Okay, back to the report. Two Skiercross events were done on Saturday to make-up for an event cancelled two weeks ago. Sunday was devoted to Slopestyle.

Local finishers were:  13-15 year-old Boys Brennan Powell 1st and 2nd in Skiercross. Andre Kemink third twice in Skiercross and 2nd in Slopestyle. Dante Kemink was the first place 10-12 year-old in all three competitions. Hailey Cece and Nan Keibert were 1st and 2nd respectively in Slopestyle. And Kildy Pogue-Zingarelli won all three events for Ruggle snowboarders.

• Northwest Cup Speed Series — Hats off to the SARS race crew for pulling this one off with a huge fog challenge. The course crew, timers and staff worked long days preparing, then seven race days on the hill. No rest for the weary… SARS hosts two days of Slalom eight days from now.

• Stomp Games, Grom Stomp and USASA Competition — It’ll be a busy week for the freestyle set at Schweitzer, with alpine races, slopestyle, banked slalom and slopestyle Jan 31 through Feb. 2.

• Potpourri — Watch next week for NCAA race and STOMP Games results. Any comments, recommendations or contributions to this column may be sent to Shep Snow by email at shep@thesnowschool.com. Negative feedback should be sent to someone else.

The Inside Edge runs every Thursday during ski season in the Daily Bee.