The Surefoot Colorado Ski Cup is back at Copper. The Surefoot Cup is a FIS race for athletes over the age of 16. Between the snowflakes yesterday, racers from Breckenridge, Vail, Winter Park, Steamboat, Canada, and even Japan battled it out for the Surefoot downhill title. There were three days of training and two days of competing in downhill with yesterday being the second day of competition.
Maybe it was all the high speed slipping from volunteering at the Birds of Prey that helped Ski & Snowboard Club Vail (SSCV) perform so well at the Surefoot Cup. Not only did the U18 & U21 boys from SSCV sweep the top three spots yesterday, they in fact took the top 5 spots. With 5 SSCV male athletes at the event, it is apparent that they did rather well in the downhill race.
Florian Szwebel came away with the win by just over one tenth of a second. Gregoire Pasquier placed second followed by William Blommer in third. These athletes have been making the most of their early season training despite the lack of snow. They have been lucky enough to train on Golden Peak for the past month, and it looks like all the hard training is starting to pay off. “It is obviously a great accomplishment to be on the podium at a FIS race. These races are the highest level FIS races in the Rocky Central Division,” says SSCV Men’s Ability Coach Stefan Hughes.
Thursday was also a successful day with Szwebel in second place and Pasquier in first place. “William Blommer made a huge improvement from placing ninth on the first day of the competition to placing third on the second day,” says Hughes.
SSCV also placed well on the women’s side of the event with Grace Merriman in third on day one and fifth on day two, Katie Talbot placed fourth on day one and seventh on day two. Kelly Balfanz showed consistency and scored well by placing sixth on both days.
Copper has been buzzing with activity this week with the Downhill Nationals, the Surefoot Cup in both Super G and Downhill, and the Northface Park and Pipe competition heating up this weekend.
12/7/12 Downhill results male:
1st Florian Szwebel (SSCV) 1:19.01
2nd Gregoire Pasquier (SSCV) 1:19.12
3rd William Blommer (SSCV) 1:19.35
4th Clayton Kirwood (SSCV) 1:19.88
5th Bryan Bailey (SSCV) 1:20.40
12/7/12 Downhill results female:
5th Grace Merriman (SSCV) 1:24.46
6th Kelly Balfanz (SSCV) 1:24.60
7th Katie Talbot (SSCV) 1:24.93
12th Genevieve Solden (SSCV) 1:27.01
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