US Alpine Championships coming to Vail for the first time

Ski and Snowboard Club Vail, in partnership with Vail Resorts, will host the U.S. Alpine Championships from March 29 to April 1. It’s the first time the country’s top skiers will gather in Vail for the season-ending event.

“Which makes it even more special,” said Brad Wall, Ski and Snowboard Club Vail’s Alpine program director. “It’s just a really cool opportunity for us to showcase our venue and for our athletes to compete at home. And to bring the best athletes in the country together and for our kids to see it. It should be pretty inspiring for our young athletes for sure.”

Wall said U.S. Ski and Snowboard was looking to keep the U.S. Alpine Championships geographically close to Sun Valley, Idaho, where the FIS World Cup Finals will conclude on Thursday. The national governing body has had an eye on Golden Peak as a location after Ski and Snowboard Club Vail successfully hosted U18 and U16 nationals in 2022 and 2024, he said.

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“When you do a good job on those other events, then they sort of keep in the back of the mind in terms of who can be a good host and do a good job,” Wall explained.

The free four-day show starts Saturday at Golden Peak with the men’s and women’s super-G. Giant slaloms follow on Sunday and Monday, with both the men and women taking to the hill for slaloms on Tuesday. After the first day’s races, a parade beginning at 2:30 p.m. will wind from the base of Golden Peak to the 10th Mountain statue by the Covered Bridge for the awards ceremony. An athlete signing will follow at 3:30 p.m. at the Colorado Snowsports Museum.

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“It’s more than just a ski race,” Wall said. “It’s a celebration. … I’m just really hopeful that the community can get behind the event and come out and watch some racing, take advantage, get involved in the parade and take advantage of the other stuff going on around the village.”

In addition to viewing the action in the standing-room only ‘Main Arena’ finish area, fans can also catch the action on a livestream being produced by local company, eef4kProductions.

“With the support of U.S. Ski and Snowboard, Vail Mountain has approved the streaming concept and also gained the requisite approval from the U.S. Forest Service,” said Bryan Rooney, Ski and Snowboard Club Vail’s chief operating officer. “This is our first foray into this realm and we want to ensure the best experience for all of our stakeholders as well as the athletes, families and all of the spectators coming to view this championship race series.” 

Dozens of current and former Ski and Snowboard Club Vail athletes are planning to participate in the national championships, including Liv Moritz, who recently secured World Cup slalom starts for next year after winning the NorAm season title.

“We do so much travel the whole season and to be able to end our biggest stretch at home is huge,” the Vail Mountain School graduate said. “And on a hill that we’re familiar with. It’s awesome.”

Moritz will face tough competition from fellow U.S. Ski Team athletes and Ski and Snowboard Club Vail alumnae like Paula Moltzan, Kaitlin Keane and yes, her twin sister, Kjersti, the reigning Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association rookie of the year.

“Definitely a sibling rivalry,” Moritz said with a laugh. “It will be a little bit of a competition between us.”

Over his 40-plus years living in the valley, Dan Weiland, Ski and Snowboard Club Vail’s director of staff development and community outreach, has watched several of the country’s current crop of ski stars start in Vail. He remembers a young River Radamus roaming around the clubhouse and heading out to ski on his own while his dad, Aldo, worked as executive director.

“Now he’s one of the top speed skiers coming back to his hometown to compete,” said Weiland, whose office also provided a front row seat for watching Keane religiously rehab in the next-door weight room as she worked back from an injury last summer.

“It’s paid off. She’s back in the action,” he said. “It’s really cool to watch those kids develop at the highest level.”

Weiland hopes the event can inspire the next generation, too. 

“On the weekend days, we’d love to see a lot of the local kids come out and see what this is all about,” he said. “Kids like Hunter Salani or River Radamus — came through our club, went to VSSA, just lived ski racing — did all those things right. There’s lots of good stories there for the community. Nice kids, nice families, multiple sports, which I think is really cool.”

One notable Ski and Snowboard Club Vailalumna who will not be competing in Vail is Mikaela Shiffrin. After competing in the slalom at the World Cup Finals in Sun Valley on Thursday, the Edwards superstar plans to partake in sponsor shoots before heading to New York City for a media tour, her spokesperson, Megan Harrod, told the Vail Daily in an email last week.

That means the top Ski and Snowboard Club Vail alumni expected to be in attendance are Radamus and Moltzan. Radamus claimed two top-10s at the Birds of Prey World Cup in December en route to an 11th-place finish in the GS crystal globe standings, while Moltzan claimed two podiums this season and won a bronze medal at the world championships. They’ll be joined by fellow U.S. Ski Team members such as Salani, Keane, the Moritz twins, Kyle Negomir and Bridger Gile, who finished 19th at the world championships in the GS in February.

Wall said he’s also looking forward to seeing how some of the club’s U21 athletes fare, especially considering several — like Julian Arthur and Carson Hume — had substantial successes at U18 nationals three years ago.

“I’m excited, obviously to bring the best athletes to our venue but also to see how our kids utilize home field advantage and see how they stack up against everyone else and these World Cup athletes,” Wall said.

The 2022 U18 nationals were the first to feature the full downhill course from the top of the Golden Peak Expansion to the base of the mountain. While Wall said the club is capable of holding a downhill, U.S. Ski and Snowboard has made it a recent trend to tag on the national championships downhill to the NorAm Finals. The discipline was not contested at the last two nationals held in Sun Valley.

“It’s such a big effort to get any venue ready for a downhill race that once it’s up and it’s ready, they try to take advantage,” he explained. “When the (U.S.) Ski Team came to us, it was never on the card for us to host the downhill.”

In analyzing the current courses, Wall said there isn’t much in the way of long flats, but the moderate pitch of the middle section can be a separator for those who “ski aggressive, take chances and have a clean transition onto the ‘I-70 Flats.’

“It’s a little deceiving,” he said. “People tend to lose a lot of time on sections that they feel are actually quite simple.”

“It’s a pretty mellow super-G, so definitely I think the key there is aerodynamics and being light on your edges,” added Liv Moritz, a dual sport athlete at the University of Denver who expects a fair amount of family to watch her contest all three races. “There’s been talk of my soccer teammates from Denver coming to watch, which would be so fun.”