The Surefoot Colorado Ski Cup kicked off for the Super G portion at Copper on Saturday. Due to the expected variable weather, the 2-day event was compressed into one day. Despite the snow, there were more outstanding results from Ski & Snowboard Club Vail (SSCV) athletes in the 16 and older super-g portion of the Surefoot Cup.
It is difficult to process how quickly alpine athletes travel down the hill even in a Super G race. To give a frame of reference as to how fast these kids are going on snow, imagine driving the speed limit down I-70 at 65 miles per hour and seeing a 16-year-old kid keeping up with traffic on his skis. Although some of these kids are just starting to learn how to drive a car, they have exceeded speed limits for most highways in windy and icy conditions on skis.
The first Super G race kicked off Saturday at 2:15pm, with the second race following immediately after at 3:00pm. Clay Kirkwood from SSCV won the first race with an incredibly quick time beating the pack by over one second. It may seem like a one second lead isn’t much, but in racing it is sizeable. Bryan Bailey from SSCV placed third during the first race. Murphy Roberts placed sixth and Florian Szwebel placed seventh.
The second race resulted in SSCV edging out the rest of the competition. It was almost a two-day sweep from Friday’s downhill race, but an athlete from the Rocky Central Regional team came in at the last minute and took the win. Florian Szwebel from SSCV had an all around incredible weekend winning the downhill race on Friday and landing in second in the super-g race Saturday. In third was Bryan Bailey with another impressive run just a few tenths of a second behind Szwebel. Clay Kirkwood from SSCV placed fourth and couldn’t quite hang on to his impressive one-second lead as he did in the first race. In fifth came Ryan Barney, also from SSCV, with a great time even as the snow started coming down.
The Surefoot Colorado Cup serves as a qualifier to Nationals and is a huge success for these athletes that did so well in the event.
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