Ski and Snowboard Club Vail athletes win overall titles at U16 Alpine national championships

Ski and Snowboard Club Vail couldn’t have had a much better U16 Alpine national championships.

Calen White and Aidan Wick went 1-2 in the super-G, Kristina Shamshuryn won the slalom and White and Shamshuryn walked away with the respective boys and girls overall titles.

“(It) is such a testament to the hard work they’ve put into this season,” coach Ian Dunlop said regarding Shamshuryn and White, who also competed at the U16 FESA Games in Berchtesgaden, Germany earlier this winter. Shamshuryn came away from that prestigious international competition with a silver medal in the giant slalom.

“These two rarely miss a day,” Dunlop continued. “They show up when it counts and they’re great teammates.”

Eleven of the 17 SSCV athletes who competed at the Rocky Central Championships in Steamboat Springs in early March qualified for nationals. Originally slated to take place at Snow King in Jackson, Wyoming, lack of snow forced the national event to relocate to Grand Targhee in Alta at the last minute. SSCV athletes endured a three-hour drive round trip each day to the venue, where a super-G, giant slalom, slalom and SkillsQuest competition were held from March 28 to April 1.

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Dunlop expressed gratitude to U.S. Ski and Snowboard and Grand Targhee for the quick pivot in plans.

“U16 Nationals is probably one of the best events the U.S. has in terms of experience and exposure to our athletes at this vital time in their development. Weather played a factor, but ultimately it was as fair an event as we could have asked for,” he said before adding that his group was prepared after a solid training block at Golden Peak.

“We had been skiing on this unpredictable freeze and thaw surface for weeks leading up to the event,” the coach continued. “Our group looked very comfortable at speed and over terrain, which the race track at Grand Targhee had plenty of.” 

Firm and fast snow made for ideal conditions on the opening super-G. White posted a time of 46.65 seconds on the 1,126-meter Thunder course. Wick gunned down the course from bib 43, fiercely challenging his teammate before ultimately finishing two tenths back. SSCV put four boys in the top-10 with Seger Pimerantz (sixth) and Cody Martz Feige (eighth) recording their best seasonal performances in the event.

Shamshuryn applied an all-out style down the fall-line to pick up bronze while stopping the clock just two hundredths after winner Vivienne Hermsdorf. Fellow SSCV skier Winter Phillips was 1.11 seconds back in 10th.

“Winter has also kept herself progressing in the speed events and this was a great display of her hard work in the discipline this season,” Dunlop said. 

At the Rocky Central Championships, Philips stole the show, winning the slalom and Alpine Combined, taking bronze in the GS, fourth in the downhill, seventh in super-G and second in the overall.

“(Those) performances are really a testament to her hard work and focus on her season-long plan,” Dunlop stated. “It’s never easy to go from big event to big event expecting to perform at your best, but she has done a great job of building in the rest and training that’s needed to do it successfully.” 

White led the GS by 0.33 seconds after the first run, but wearing bib 9, had to wait until late in the afternoon for his second due to the event’s use of a TRS seeding format, wherein the start list flips instead of counting down to the leader.

“A little bad luck with the bib draw in GS, but when the conditions were bulletproof, he was head and shoulders above the rest of the field,” Dunlop said of White, who wound up placing fifth overall.

Shamshuryn found the podium again with another third-place finish. Dunlop said Phillips “really dug deep and attacked with precision” in moving up 13 spots with the fastest second run of the afternoon.

Dunlop described the slalom day as one for the ages.

“(That) day will go down as a core memory for these kids when they finally look back at this week,” he added. “The freeze and thaw conditions didn’t happen overnight — just complete mush on the race hill when we arrived, especially after the first couple of athletes ran the course.”

Colder temperatures during the day prevented officials from salting the course to firm things up, too. Despite the challenges from Mother Nature, Shamshuryn posted a two-run total of 1 minute, 38.39 seconds to win by more than 1 1/2 seconds.

“Kristina skied fearlessly and took advantage on the first run, putting as much time as she could on the field so she had a chance on the second run,” Dunlop said. Phillips finished fifth and Brittany Freudenberger battled to a championship-best 10th. Pomerantz led the way for the boys in fifth as Marc Drai and White placed seventh and 10th, respectively. White ended the competition with a victory in the SkillsQuest.

“Winning the SkillsQuest just shows that good skiing leads to consistent top results,” Dunlop noted. “It’s no mystery that he’s one of the best U16s in the world right now.”

On Friday, White was awarded the Paul Cuthbertson Award at SSCV’s end-of-season banquet. The honor is given to the second-year U16 athlete who “exhibits a true passion for skiing and a love for life in the mountains.”

In addition to the club’s standout individual performances, SSCV helped the Rocky Central region win the Regions Cup as well.

“(I’m) super proud of the effort of the group and the way they showed up here at Grand Targhee against all adversity (and) difficulties and they all kept pushing,” Dunlop said. “They put everything on the line. It just shows that when you commit to the process, show up determined, the confidence can be there when it matters most.”