As I write this our U15 and U19 athletes are wrapping up their final 2* and 3* competitions at Park City and Breckenridge. Our U12 athletes had their final 2* competitions at Solitude on March 7th and 8th. Our competition season concludes with Junior Freeride Championships at Kirkwood, California April 6th-13th. We will have several U12 athletes participating. Qualification is still in progress for U15 and U19 athletes with the last few competitions wrapping up this weekend. 

Freeride Awards

We will have our Freeride awards scheduled for April 22nd on the Tram Deck at Snowbird. Mark your calendars and we hope to see all of our freeride  athletes there. 

May Training Camps

We will have weekend training camps scheduled for May 3rd/4th and May 10th/11th. The May weekend camps will include a technical skill focus on race skis in the morning while conditions are still firm and a freeride focus in the afternoon as conditions soften. 

Freeride Team Tryouts

Tryouts for prospective freeride athletes will be conducted on April 19th and 26th at Snowbird. Prospective athletes only need to attend one day. Tryouts will consist of a technical skill assessment on both groomed and ungroomed terrain in addition to an assessment of basic jumping skills. Information to sign up for a tryout slot will be sent to athletes on our waitlist during the first week of April. 

Summer Training Opportunities

We have several summer training opportunities in the works with a freestyle training camp at Mt Hood June 25th-July 2nd, Woodward training in July and August, airbag training at the Utah Olympic Park in July and August, and strength and conditioning for U19 athletes beginning in July. Signup for Mt Hood, Woodward, and airbag training will be available soon. 

We’re looking forward to a great final 2 weeks of regular training. Good luck to all our SBSEF athletes at the Junior Freeride Championships!

–Davin Grapentine, Freeride Director

Freeride Athlete Spotlight: Sophia D

This month’s freeride athlete spotlight is Sophia Debirk. Sophia is a second-year U12 and has been having a fantastic season. She has been focusing hard on training all season with a great attitude and strong work ethic in both her technical skiing at Snowbird and her jumping and air awareness at Woodward. From carving some great turns on race skis to showing up the U15 boys with her backflips on rollerblades to landing her first 360 Sophia has made impressive progress this winter. It should be noted that Sophia was on the podium at every competition she entered this year!

 

U12 Update

The U12 group wrapped up the final competitions for most athletes at Solitude on March 7th and 8th. Our athletes showed some great skiing on both days with multiple podium results. 

Solitude V1 podium results:

U12 girls: Sophia D 2nd, Lucy P 3rd

Solitude V2 Podium results: 

U12 girls: Sophia D 1st

U12 boys: Crew W 3rd

Jfast athletes Charlie and Jett F competed in their first freeride competitions at Solitiude. They both showed some fantastic skiing with Charlie earning a 5th place finish and Jett 7th in the V2 competition. It’s been great having Jfast athletes participate in Woodward training and freeride competitions at Snowbasin and Solitude this season. 

During the past few weeks, the U12 group has taken advantage of the sunny weather and firm snow on the weekends to refocus on technical skiing. It’s been nice to finally have a few weekends without powder days to allow us to spend quality time working on our skiing with drills on race skis and video analysis. All of the U12 athletes made significant changes to their skiing over the past few weekends. 

The final competition for the U12 group is the Junior Freeride Championships at Kirkwood, California on April 6th-9th. We will have several of our athletes  competing alongside over 80 U12 athletes from the US and Canada. Good luck to all of our SBSEF athletes at the championships!

–Davin Grapentine, U12 Head Coach

U15 Freeride Update:

The U15 Freeride team has been busy this month! We kicked off the month with our local Snowbird IFSA 3* and had much success and many great finishes and podiums from our athletes including, Sam R. (3rd), Priscilla H. (6th), Charlotte B. (7th), Maddie S. (8th), Willow A. (9th), and Kekoa H. (8th). A few of us traveled to Whitefish MT for the 3*, and Trey S. and Canyon W. came home with 11th and 12th despite incredibly challenging conditions. Upcoming we have the Breckenridge 3*, we have many athletes traveling here and we hope to get some great finishes before Junior Freeride Championships in April! We are continuing to train hard at home during Miracle March and hope to get some more snow this month to keep working towards our goals for the year! 

~ Syd Ricketts, U15 Head Coach

 

U19 Freeride Update

The U19 athletes and coaches have been all over the map this month competing and training hard, trying to make it into the Junior Freeride Championship at Kirkwood first week of April. We have received a great couple of storm cycles making Snowbird’s access to freeride terrain that much better. Through exploring and training our home mountain, our skiers are ready for any level of competition at any venue. Through her hard work in the gym, and long days on the mountain, our own post-graduate athlete, Hannah Baldwin received a Wild Card to the Challenger series events, the first stop is Whitewater Mountain in British Columbia. Good Luck Hannah! We currently have a crew finishing up an event in Breckenridge, Colorado, where they are battling high winds, frigid temperatures, and low visibility. Good Luck to them all, and safe travels home. Everyone will be home these next few weeks, where we plan on focusing on training hard get ready for JFC’s!

U19 Podiums and Notable Finishes

Snowbird 3*

1st – Ellie R, 3rd – Brynn C, 4th Olive M

2nd – Thomas M, 4th – Lucas B

Solitude 2* Vol. 1

2nd – Brooke C

1st – Obie S, 4th – Gavin M, 5th – Thatcher M

Solitude 2* Vol 2

1st – Gavin M, 2nd – Peter M, 5th – Boone W

Park City 2* Vol 1

3rd – Brynn C

2nd – Bryce F, 3rd – Anson M, 5th – Peter M

Park City 2* Vol. 2

2nd – Brooke C, 5th – Brynn C

2nd – Jack A, 4th – Luke D

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