Sports Result: Alpine Women at Speed Week

Team Shreds Powder, Woodward Nabs Gold

by Kathryn Dawson

Three skiers from NSA’s women’s team piled into a NYSEF Sprinter and set out for Sugarloaf, Maine on Sunday for a series of TD Bank Eastern Cup races referred to as “Speed Week.” Annie King, Aylin Woodward, and Giorgia Nagle competed in two Downhills on Tuesday, and will race in one more Super-G before trekking back home through the snow.

“The first day was beyond cold,” Nagle commented, “typical Sugarloaf.” The next day was intended as another training day, but race administrators cringed at the idea of running the Downhill races during the oncoming snowstorm and pushed both races up to Tuesday.

“[It] turned out to be an epic good call,” Woodward added. The women shredded the fresh foot of powder all Thursday, while the men unsuccessfully attempted to coordinate a Super-G race.

 

Woodward, King, and Nagle at a similar series last year at Mont Sainte Anne, QC

Woodward sped across the finish and topped the podium twice in Downhill with winning times of 1:21.72 and 1:22.97. Nagle finished 18^th and 15^th, and King trailed slightly in 21^st and 27^th.

The women’s results earned them Eastern Cup points that can qualify them for various championships including JI/II Nationals and Eastern Championships. These points are different from FIS and USSA points, which rank every skier in any race, because they are specific to the TD Bank Eastern Cup Series and depend on placing, rather than time, like World Cup points.

Despite these impressive finishes, none of the NSA women scored FIS downhill points. Woodward already had the second lowest points in the race, and Nagle was a half second (two places) away from scoring in the first run.

If the snow abates and the girls have survived the week together in close quarters, they’ll drive back to NSA after their Super-G on Friday. 

 

Revolution Tour at Mount Hood Medows

            The past month has been very successful for the Nysef Freeride Team as they returned to Lake Placid from the past Revolution Tour.  Despite some powder on the first day and a ridiculous amount of rain from the third day until their depature day a lot of hard work and good results came out of this trip.

            First to compete was NSA senior John Wilkins who finally made it through his first Rev tour without an injury making him unable to compete.  Wilkins learned his first dub rodeo 900 (double backflip with a 180 degree turn) in his 3^rd/last practice run before his competition, then put it into his runs to get 17^th place out of the 70-80 people competing only a few spots away from making it into finals.  Wilkins also competed in Boardercross coming in 32^nd place after doing a rodeo, switch 720, and riding the majority of the coarse switch.

            Stephanie Lawee who was competing with a hurt shoulder still managed to kill the competition.  Lawee managed to leave with an impressive 4^th place in Slopestyle, and in Halfpipe.  She then decided to compete in Skiercross even though she wasn’t signed up for this event and came out in 2^nd.

            Matt Brady, a new addition to the NSA freeride team joined the group for his first Rev tour.  Brady competed in Skiercross and unfortunately placed 9^th, one spot from making it to finals after his time trial run, but still skied very well. 

            K.C. Brousseau went to Rev tour to compete in all three diciplins, (Slopestyle, Halfpipe, and Skiercross) but ran into some problems with his toe.  Unfortunatly K.C. had to spend his evenings draining his toe by stabbing a needle under his toe nail and squeezing out the extra blood.  Thanks to this K.C. was forced to pull from Slopestyle, and Halfpipe.  On the day of the Skiercross race K.C. sucked it up and crammed his foot into his ski boot just long enough for him to compete.