The Vernon Ski Club U16 team had some good results at the B.C. Alpine U16 Teck Open provincial series slalom at North Vancouver’s Grouse Mountain.
Slalom and giant slalom ski racing are classified as technical skiing events versus super G and downhill which are speed events.
Technical events consist of two timed runs that are combined while speed events are one run.
Athletes must complete the first run in order to race in the second run and earn points to improve their start position, so first-year athletes usually start at the back of the pack.
The top-30 finishers of the first run are flipped or run in reverse order for the second run (i.e., athlete finishing fifth in the first run will start 25th in the second run) to create a more fair competition.
The snow deteriorates as each athlete runs so the later the start the higher the difficulty.
Vernon results:
Gerrit van Soest (first year U16) - 3rd Saturday, 1st Sunday;
Caele Kassa (first year U16) - 11th Saturday, 10th Sunday;
Andrew Schmidt (first year U16) - 25th/59 Friday, 36th/59 Saturday, 38th/59 Sunday;
Ethan Clancy (second year U16) - 17th/59 Saturday, 36th/59 Sunday;
Anton Youngberg (second year U16) - provincial points leader but did not finish Friday, Saturday, Sunday…bummer.;
Makenna Kersey (first year U16) - 39th/55 Friday, 11th Saturday, 11th Sunday;
Tori Todosichuk (first year U16) - 31st/55 Friday.