Inside Edge: Race season in full swing

World Cup — Tommy Ford had a busy weekend in Chamonix, France. He placed 16th in the parallel slalom and fourth in the parallel giant slalom. That said, he narrowly missed injury in the giant slalom when he lost a ski and skidded across his opponent’s path.

The parallel events have rightfully received lots of criticism from the athletes for being both unfair and unsafe. Think about it … can one realistically expect to create two perfectly identical races courses? Remember, this is a sport where wins are often decided by a hundredth of a second. But the crowds enjoy the head-to-head competition, so we’ll see.

The ladies had their turn in the barrel at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany last week. Breezy Johnson brought home finishes of 17th and 19th in the two downhills, while Alice Merryweather finished 14th and 19th.

Northwest Cup No. 2 — The second round of Northwest Cup competition was held at Mount Spokane this past weekend. The big news was that we had visibility. Actually, it was that four local athletes were amongst the 160 athletes who competed in two giant slalom races and one slalom.

Avery Edmundson placed 24th and 30th in the GS and 48th in Slalom. Erika Edmundson finished 30th, 35th and 15th respectively. Quincy Evans had a rough weekend that included a DNF, and a hike. She was 24th in the second GS. Wes Simko likewise had a hard weekend. He posted some good first runs but couldn’t tie two runs together.

Kootenai Cup Nordic races — The Kimberley Nordic Center in British Columbia hosted the Teck Kootenay Cup, the fourth and fifth races of the series to qualify the best junior nordic athletes in BC.

Four skiers from Sandpoint’s Race and Development Nordic teams posted strong finishes against a competitive field from across the province. Saturday was a classic sprint with qualifying heats. Jett Longanecker, U16 boys, skied a 750-meter qualifying course in 2:06 to finish fourth out of 14 boys and second in his 2005 birth year category. U14 boys skier Callahan Waters had a great day, finishing fourth out of 26 skiing a 450m qualifying course in 1:35 to place first in his 2007 birth category.

Izzy Waters, sprinted 200m and finished third amongst U12 girls. The skiers competed in a mass start skate race on Sunday. Longanecker skied 6.6K in 21:30, finishing ninth out of 16 U16 boys and third in his birth year.

Kasten Grimm skied 3.3K in 11:19 placing sixth out of 29 U14 boys and fourth in his birth year category. Callahan had another strong finish, skiing 3.3K in 10:48, good enough for fourth in the U14 boys and first in his birth year. Izzy skied 2K in 8:22, finishing sixth out of 18 U12 girls and third in her birth year.

Starlight Race Series kickoff — Time for the big “kids” to play and the 2020 Starlight Race series went into full swing Friday Night. This year’s series is under the theme of “Roaring Twenties.”

The series features individual and team awards. Team awards are based upon adjusted results, where age, gender and discipline (snowboard/telemark) are factored into the scores. We’ll use raw scores to report individuals and adjusted for teams. The fastest alpine men were Jamie Emmer and Gabe Lauper. The fastest Alpine women were Theresa Kemink and Melinda Rossman.

Telemark men were Ben Higgs and Ezra Stafford and women, Dig Chrismer and Natasha Splaine-Talbot. Snowboard men were Sean Taylor and Nick Rust and women, Tracy Tuttle and Dani Demmons. In the team competition, the Lakers edged out Lenny for top billing. And the team name of the day … “All Bonnie – No Clyde”.

This weekend at Schweitzer — This weekend at Schweitzer features the “Let it Glow” night parade and fireworks on Sunday. Schweitzer is also offering free trials of Nice Turns on Sunday from 1-3 p.m. and Monday from 9-11 a.m.

Potpourri — The U14 racers head to Stevens Pass this weekend for super-G, while the U16 and above head to Mt. Bachelor in Oregon for super-G and downhill competition. The Youth Ski League travels to Mount Spokane this weekend for slalom competition.

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.