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J4s impressive at Junior Olympics

Nate Peterson

WINTER PARK – Ski and Snowboard Club Vail’s Cooper Cartmill gets two spring breaks, sort of.Cartmill, 12, won both slaloms Saturday and finished fourth in giant slalom Friday at the J4 Junior Olympics in Winter Park. Combined with his 12th-place super-G showing on Thursday, Cartmill finished third overall in the field of 93 competitors representing the Rocky and Central regions.The slalom wins also earned him one of six spots on the United States team that will be competing in this year’s Whistler Cup in Whistler, British Columbia, April 1-3.Cartmill, who said he loves slalom because he “likes making fast turns,” will be jetting off to Canada with his mom and his sister at the end of this month.”I was pretty happy with myself,” he said of his two slalom wins. “After I won the first (slalom), I wanted to go out and do it again. I felt pretty good.”Cartmill’s teammates also had good results in Winter Park.Lizzie Seibert was second in super-G, and third and fourth in the two giant slaloms. She was also 11th in the first slalom and fifth – only 0.08 seconds away from the win – in the second slalom.Seibert finished fourth overall in the individual girls’ standings.Seibert’s teammate Abby Ghent finished ninth overall for her fourth in super-G, and fourth- and ninth-place showings in the two giant slaloms.Also, Marisa Ammaturo was seventh in a GS and seventh and 13th in the slaloms. Ammaturo finished 13th overall.Other notable finishers were Sammie Watson, who finished 13th in a GS; Mary Sackbauer, who earned 15th place in both GS and slalom; and Andreas Calabrese who finished 15th in the super-G.Snowboarders represent at U.S. OpenThe halfpipe at the U.S. Open in Statton, Vt., is a springboard for up-and-coming snowboard talent.Do well at snowboarding’s Super Bowl and you will get noticed, which 12-year-old Broc Waring did last week with a third-place finish in the junior competition. Waring’s podium spot came against a field of 70 competitors in the jam final.Waring’s teammates Aaron Hallenbeck and Tommie Bennett also did well by moving through qualifying rounds to finish in the top 50.On the lady’s side, 15-year-old Lindsey Telling, who competed in boardercross at the Winter X Games earlier this winter, fell three spots short of qualifying for the women’s semifinals in the halfpipe. Telling finished 29th overall out of the field of more than 80 competitors. Julya Chapman also made the quarterfinals, finishing 35th overall.”The kids really stepped it up,” SSCV snowboarding director Ben Boyd said. “This is probably the best halfpipe field you will ever see in a competition, and for them to put in the performances they did? Mate, I am stoked. It was Tommie and Zac Layman’s first pro event, and the first U.S. Open for all the kids, so they did themselves proud. Broc showed the rest of the snowboard world what we have known for a while. He is one of the best 12 year olds in the country. It was an awesome event for all of them and puts them on the front foot coming into nationals.”The results at the U.S. Open followed up stellar results from the USSA Western Regionals the week prior. Colin Scott, 14, finished 14th overall in slopestyle in his first pro-level event. Waring also finished 11th overall in the open men’s halfpipe competition, followed by Aaron Hallenbeck who finished 19th. In the women’s pipe competition, Chapman finished sixth.The news only got better this week. The SSCV snowboarding program qualified 22 athletes, the most ever for the program, for the USASA Nationals to be held at Copper Mountain April 2-9.”It is a great showing for the club,” Boyd said. “We qualified kids to all the disciplines.”Athletes to qualify from the program are: Sean Roley, Maddie Roley, Bryan Daino, Kendall Wilson, Max Provost, Ellen Feldman, Mackensie Boris, Chapman, Andy Jones, Zac Layman, Collin Scott, Telling, Ryan Wachendorfer, Jarryd Williams, Nikita Apotolakos, Bennett, Waring, Brodie Waring, Steven MacCutcheon, Deacon Maloney, Cody Brown and Kim Krahulec.Vail, Colorado


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