Mammoth athletes compete across the nation
During the first week of December, Mammoth Mountain was well represented in both ski and snowboard competitions across the Northern Hemisphere. Locally-based Olympic athletes including Kelly Clark, Stacey Cook, and Greg Bretz competed in their respective disciplines, along with many Mammoth Mountain Ski Team skiers, who raced both in Colorado and at home.
Veteran local riders Kelly Clark and Greg Bretz were part of an American contingent who put on an impressive early season showing at the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix, held Dec. 4-6 at Copper Mountain, CO. Clark led an American sweep on the women’s side, while Bretz just missed making the podium in fourth place.
No one has as much competition experience as veteran Clark, and she continues to use that to her advantage. Her first run proved to be enough to win the contest, but she continued to push herself and the sport adding an inverted frontside 720 to a run that already included a frontside 1080, a trick few other women have landed.
Afterwards Clark, who now leads the FIS World Cup tour and Sprint U.S. Grand Prix tour standings said, “The pipe was really good today and I love the three run format. I was happy to come out and land my first run and build on my riding throughout the day. I thought all the ladies rode really well and it makes me excited for the rest of the season seeing what everybody’s already putting down.”
Another Mammoth rider, Jenise Spiteri, also competed in the event, taking 21st in the women’s halfpipe. The American men also dominated an international field during the halfpipe qualifiers at Copper. Ben Ferguson (Bend, OR), Greg Bretz and Taylor Gold (Steamboat Springs, CO) picked up right where they left off last season, throwing down huge runs to qualify for the finals. In the finals China’s Yiwei Zhang rode to second place, bumping Bretz to fourth place.
While Kelly Clark was climbing on the podium in Colorado, another Mammoth athlete was doing the same in Canada. Stacey Cook, a former Mammoth Mountain Ski Team member, took silver in the Ladies World Cup Downhill at Lake Louise, AB. Early-running Cook took the lead and held it until Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO) bumped her into second. Julia Mancuso (Squaw Valley, CA) rounded out the podium in third. It was the best finish in two seasons for all three athletes. It was also the first ever all-American podium in alpine World Cup ski racing.
Afterwards, Cook commented, “Sometimes I get intimidated by the thought of racing the whole world. So today, I tried to keep it within our team. We race against our team in training and I tried to keep that same feeling. Today, I just went out there and I knew that there is so much talent in this group, so I felt like I was just racing against them. It took a lot of pressure away from me, so I just let it flow.”
Former MMST member Tyler Wallasch was the youngest skier to competed last year on FIS World Cup Ski Cross Tour. Throughout last season, Wallasch failed to make the final 32 in any World Cup event, but he did pick up a lot of pointers from the older, more seasoned competitors. This fall, after spending the summer preparing for the 2014-2015 season Wallasch found himself without a team to compete for as the USSA dropped the Ski Cross portion of their program. However, the popular skier was soon invited to train with the Swedish National Ski Cross Team and the training paid off.
Although he didn’t make the finals in Dec. 5-6 event at Nakiska, Canada, Wallasch did have his “best World Cup results to date.” He placed 33rd, just missing the finals by one person. His reaction to his result, “Pretty unlucky today! Missed finals by .06 of a second…I’m 110 percent ready to get into these finals!” He left immediately for Europe, heading to Italy to compete in the World Cup at Innichen on Dec. 21.
The week finished up at Mammoth Mountain with the USSA Open Emily Clothier Memorial Slalom, with forty MMST racers competing.
One of those athletes was Maureen Lebel, who returned from Colorado just in time to compete. On Saturday, Lebel took first for the U18 Women ahead of Sugar Bowl’s Natalie Williams. On Sunday, Williams came back to bump Lebel to second place, MMST’s Erin Maidman clinched sixth place and Hannah Everson was 14th.
In the U16 Women’s class MMST top 15 finishers on were: Rylie Whistler, eighth and seventh; Sydney Snelbaker, ninth and sixth; Delany Kearns, took 10th in both races; McKenna Latt, 13th and 12th; and Cary Walker, placed ninth on Sunday. On the men’s side in the U16 division, Sheldon French took seventh and 12th; Connor Staley ninth; Duncan Reid,10th; Luke Davenport, 11th; Ryan Foulke, seventh; Casey Felgar, 11th; and Cole Williams, 15th. However, the top MMST U16 was Barrett Calvin, who climbed on the podium in third place on Sunday. Calvin was just .01 behind the second place finisher, Diamond Peak’s Payton Norton.
MMST U18 Men taking front page results were: Cody Underkoffler sixth and seventh; Sean Murphy, seventh; Kevin Wolfe, 12 and eighth; Max Ziontz, 13; Perry Moyer, 14; Justin Wallasch, 12th; and Jimmy Wehsener, 13th. Other top finishers were Robert Toy who took a third place on Sunday for the U21 Men and former MMST racer Amie Lonza, who is now racing for St. Lawrence University Ski Team, who was also on the podiun in second place for the SR Women.
