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J3s rake in medals at Steamboat

Daily Staff Report
Special to the DailySki and Snowboard Club Vail's Dylan Alverez races down the dual slalom course Saturday at a J5 festival in Winter Park.
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STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – Ski and Snowboard Club Vail’s Arc Force J3 program traveled to Steamboat this past Saturday and Sunday for a Junior Olympics Qualifier. Competitors raced super-G in both days of competition.SSCV captured half of the medals Saturday with Christa Ghent leading the way with a first-place finish in the girls race. On the boys’ side, Hunter Schleper finished second and Cody Unicume was third. Other notable performances from first-year J3 female racers were Delainey Ackerman, who finished 13th, and Tori Lockwood, who finished 15th. Kitt Flowers, a first-year J3 boy, finished 14th.

Sunday’s race produced similar results for the SSCV contingent. Ghent finished first again in the girls super-G and Unicume and Schleper switched places from the day before with second and third-place finishes, respectively.Whitney Setterberg finished 10th, Jocelyn Irwin was 11th, Ackerman finished 14th and Lockwood ended up in 18th. Flowers had another good day, finishing 15th. The J3s have races coming up in Beaver Creek this weekend.

J5 festival in Winter ParkWINTER PARK – SSCV’s youngest racers, part of the J5 Arc Force team ages 7-10, skied in an invitational festival last weekend in Winter Park.The event, organized by the Rocky Mountain division of the United States Ski and Snowboard Association, offered an exciting menu of fun-filled friendly competition.Coach Brett Snyder talks about the fun he had meeting kids from all over the Rocky Mountain region, ranging from Eldora, Summit County, Vail to Santa Fe, N.M., and Powderhorn. Kids are skiing in groups, prearranged by the organizer. Each child receives a different colored scarf at registration and about eight kids ski with a coach, who has the same color scarf as them and is assigned to that group. As Rika Moore, head coach of the SSCV J5 group puts it, “You ski with kids you have never met before, yet after two days everyone is best of friends.”



The schedule for the weekend went as included The Bubble Gum Race, a dual slalom event, where the winner of that heat gets a piece of bubble gum from his/her opponent.Obstacle courses, GS Nastar races, Nordic jumping, a pizza party and Speed Trap were also part of the programThe kids have an opportunity to make friends from across the entire RMD region and will all meet again at some of the other division races and then altogether at the J5 finale in Sunlight.Next, the kids will compete in the slalom age class race coming up on Sunday in Beaver Creek.Vail Colorado


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