|
STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK When Anna Marno missed the 2013 season with a blown ACL/MCL, she begged her parents to get her a dog for emotional support as she rehabbed. Thus, it was only fitting that her father should hand the woman from Centennial, Wyo., her dog Lark when it came time to celebrate her first national championship at the finish line of the Women’s Super G Thursday afternoon. “It’s been a long time coming, and to have it happen in a venue like Sun Valley!” said Marno’s father John, as he watched the dog nuzzle the face of his daughter, who learned to ski at a tiny ski area called Snowy Range while naming the family’s barn animals for ski racing legends like “Peekaboo.”
|
|
Chiyo Parten multitasks, ringing a cowbell as she takes a picture at the finish line.
|
|
|
“I used to race here. I brought ski racers here. And these are the biggest crowds I’ve ever seen at nationals,” added John Marno. The nation’s fastest skiers seemed to have learned from their Super G experience in the Alpine Combined on Tuesday and Wednesday as they tackled the gnarly Super G course on Warm Springs and Greyhawk Thursday. Only 10 of the men did not finish, compared with 20 in the earlier race. But those who did not finish included Steven Nyman, Alpine Combined Champion Brennan Rubie and podium finishers Kieffer Christianson and Kipling Weisel.
|
|
Tanner Farrow says he’s never had as much fun as skiing a national’s race in front of the hometown crowd.
|
|
|
Weisel, a Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation alum, caught a little too much air coming over the pitch onto Greyhawk and launched through the air, one ski pointing towards heaven. He missed two gates and ran off course. Erik Arvidsson laid out sideways over the pitch but somehow managed to right himself in time to stick his landing and ski to a third-place finish behind five-time giant slalom champion Tim Jitloff of Reno, Nev., and Vermont’s Ryan Cochran-Siegle. Sun Valley’s Tanner Farrow, now a member of the U.S. Ski Team, finished tenth. He charged out of the starting gate and along the traverse from Warm Springs to Greyhawk and torqued his body a little sideways as he went over the Greyhawk pitch but stuck his landing. Farrow estimated he has skied Greyhawk hundreds of times during training runs with the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. But he’s never had as much fun skiing it as he did on Thursday.
|
|
Jeffrey Bell gets air on some bumps at the bottom of the course.
|
|
|
“I’m having a most fun time,” he said, as he estimated he and others are pushing 70 miles per hour on the course. The course was a little uncharacteristic for a Super G because of a wall-like traverse and a steepness that requires tight turns, said David Chodounsky, who finished sixth. “But I had a lot of fun today=-this course suits my style with lots of turns. It’s very technical, though. You need to strategize because it comes at you and you have to keep working it all the way down,” he said. The snow was getting a little “peely” by the time the women started at 1:30 p.m., said Anna Marno. “But I got speed coming down the pitch and kept summoning enough energy to keep turning.”
|
|
Marco Sullivan relished the last race of his career.
|
|
|
World Cup veteran Laurenne Ross, who finished second to Marno, missed winning the Alpine Combined the day before when she fell just short of the finish line in the slalom portion of the combined. “Sometimes those things happen—you have to let go,” she said. “Today was a little peely and soft. I got too low at one point, but I got back on my feet and let my skis run. You just have to keep grinding and pushing, no matter what.” While Marno and Ross pushed their skis as hard as they could, American downhiller Marco Sullivan took his last run as a member of the U.S. Ski Team in leisurely fashion, stopping along the side to hug and high-five coaches and other friends. Sullivan made 105 World Cup downhill starts, winning one, during 12 seasons on the World Cup circuit.
“I see all these kids who are fast and serious and passionate about their racing and I’ve gotten to the point where I’m just having a good time,” said Sullivan, who wore lederhosen. “Still, it’s kind of sad to hang it up after all these years. I kind of teared up when I heard the youngsters cheering my name at the starting gate.” Men’s Super G Tim Jitloff 1:18.06 Ryan Cochran-Siegle 1:18.67
Erik Arvidsson 1:18.93 Tanner Farrow (10th) 1:19.76 Women’s Super G Anna Marno 1:14.04
Laurenne Ross 1:14.32 Patricia Mangan 1:14.67 Haley Cutler (11th) 1:15.75 Erin Smith (21st) 1:17.53
|