With time to spare, Vail’s Schleper wins super-G

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Ian Cropp
Vail, CO Colorado
March 8, 2008

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ASPEN. Colorado — Hunter Schleper didn’t have to win Saturday’s J2 Junior Olympics super-G in Aspen, but he did anyway. And by a good margin.

Schleper, the Vail skier with Iced Out Racing, had already qualified for the U.S. National Alpine Championships before coming into this weekend’s event. Had Schleper not been going, though, Saturday’s result would have assured him a trip to Sugarloaf, Maine — any skier who wins a race at the Junior Olympics gets an automatic bid.

“I thought I skied perfectly on the hard parts,” said Schleper, who came in at 1 minute, 18.93 seconds, almost one second ahead of the next-closest racer. “I thought I was capable of winning, and it turned out I was.”

Schleper was the only local racer to finish and gave Iced Out Racing its second win in as many days.

“I can’t say I’m unhappy with that,” Iced Out coach Bruce Knoepfel said. “One racer steps up when the others don’t. It’s good.”

On a section of the course that threw several racers for a ride and caused them to miss gates, Schleper found a solid line and cruised home with two of the fastest final splits.

“There was a real difficult section ... with quite a large jump, and Hunter took the most aggressive line and survived,” Knoepfel said. “A few others didn’t survive.”

Schleper and company, who excel in the technical events, are excited about today’s giant slalom.

“It should be really good — Bruce is setting the first run,” he said.

On the ladies side, Ski & Snowboard Club Vail had three racers in the top 13. Joelle Chevallier had the fastest final split and led the way in fifth place. First-year J2 Abby Ghent was 11th, with Jessa Bardin in 13th.

Cup of love
LOVELAND, Colorado — Ann West won a women’s Colorado Ski Cup giant slalom race in Loveland on Saturday.

Ski & Snowboard Club Vail’s Georgia Wettlaufer was fifth, with teammate Julia Keeler in 11th.

On the men’s side, SSCV’s John Kemp was third, while teammates Sean Cummiskey and Bryan Shpall were eighth and 14th, respectively.

Sports Writer Ian Cropp can be reached at 748-2935 or icropp@vaildaily.com.