Ski and Snowboard Club Vail besting the bumps at all levels

SSCV shines at Rocky Mountain Freestyle Divisional Championships, National Brotherhood of Skiers Grand Prix and RMF Seasonal Awards

Ski and Snowboard Club Vail’s moguls skiers have been very busy on the bumps this season.

For its Rocky Mountain Freestyle (RMF) Competition Series athletes, at the regional level, it all came down to the RMF Divisional Championships in Winter Park on March 5-6 at the inaugural National Brotherhood of Skiers’ (NBS) Grand Prix and RMF’s Season Awards. For SSCV’s FIS-level athletes it was a fruitful NorAm series.

Over the two days of difficult competition at the divisional championships, SSCV bested the bumps and competition at Winter Park and grabbed four podiums, 10 top ten placements and also obtained multiple prestigious RMF awards. At the National Brotherhood of Skiers’ Grand Prix, SSCV athletes took 4 podiums, garnering $11,000 in scholarship awards. SSCV’s FIS athletes had 16 top 20 standings in moguls, dual moguls, and overalls throughout the NorAM series.

Rocky Mountain Freestyle Divisional Championships

The RMF Divisional Championships in Winter Park is an invite competition where high-level mogul skiers ages 11 to 21 in the Rocky Mountain division gather to showcase their skills at a regional level. This level of RMF competition, COMP, is fully sanctioned by US Ski & Snowboard with competitions in mogul and dual mogul, and is the most highly competitive series out of the three offered by RMF. The event consisted of an open moguls event on Saturday, March 5 and a duals mogul event on Sunday, March 6.

“SSCV Mogul had a number of standout performances at divisional champs,” said John Dowling, SSCV Mogul Program Director. “Garrett Marley threw down in the mogul final to take the win over teammate Oliver Smith. Garrett skied strong and nailed his airs competing a cork 10 on the bottom kicker for the first time in comp. Oliver led after the first run and put down the fastest time of the day in his second run, but Marley’s air and turns scores secured the overall win.”

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“Teammate Nash Lucas stood just outside the podium in fourth with Winter Park’s Asher Michel preventing a Vail sweep. Chase Barros and Jiah Cohen also landed top 10s in a strong SSCV showing for the men. Young SSCV bump star Beckett Dickson went with 360 to Bronco to earn the top spot in the men’s U-13.”

“Reese Chapdelaine bumped her way to 3rd in the women’s overall. Cali Carr took yet another age class win in the U-15. Mogul prodigy Mahlia Torres ripped her way to a fourth consecutive U13 win. Mahlia has asserted herself since coming off an early-season injury and is now building on each successive performance.”

Rocky Mountain Freestyle End of Season Awards

RMF named SSCV’s Ava Keenan the 2022 Rookie of the Year for her breakout season, including a win and two top 10s. Keenan is an 11 year old RMF COMP athlete.

Cali Carr was awarded RMF’s “Go For The Gold” award presented in honor of Colorado Olympian Melanie Pelanik. The ‘Go For The Gold’ award goes to the U-15 RMF skier that shows the fire and determination to take it all the way to the Olympics. Previous winners include Kai Owens, Tess Johnson and Jeremy Bloom.

For full results and more information go to RockyMountainFreestyle.com

National Brotherhood of Skiers’ Grand Prix

This season, the National Brotherhood of Skiers’ Grand Prix was introduced for the first time. The National Brotherhood of Skiers’ Grand Prix is a financial aid program operated through RMF to award scholarships to RMF athletes, to be used for education or qualified freestyle programs or competition expenses, based on their performance in the RMF competitive mogul series (COMP Series).

The NBS Grand Prix program awarded $35,000 in scholarships in this program’s inaugural year. Next year RMF plans to award even more scholarships with the goal of offering a scholarship equivalent to a full year of college tuition. Since mogul skiing is not an NCAA sport and no sport scholarships for mogul skiing exist, RMF and its sponsor the National Brotherhood of Skiers are backing these athletes directly.

“Oliver Smith took home $5,000 for second place in The National Brotherhood of Skiers Grand Prix Program. Oliver actually tied winner Asher MIchel for the overall points total, but took second by the tiebreaking protocol,” said Dowling. “Teammates Garrett Marley and Reese Chapdelaine both took home 3rd place and $3,000 scholarships sponsored by the National Brotherhood of Skiers. This year’s winners, Asher Michel of Winter Park and Annabel Ayad of Steamboat, won scholarships of $6,500 each.”

NorAm Cup

The Nor-Am cup is the North American tour series, and a stepping stone into the World Cup circuit. SSCV athletes excelled at this event.

Looking ahead, the next two big events for the SSCV mogul team will be Junior National Championships at Utah Olympic Park from March 17-20 and National Championships at Deer Valley Resort from March 24-27.