Ski & Snowboard Club Vail’s skiers and snowboarders at the Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck are seeing success after training hard within their respective sports. And for Aaron Blunck, his success came in the skier halfpipe on Sunday.  He went into the finals after qualifying third on Saturday

“Third is a perfect place to be heading into the finals, said Blunck’s coach Elana Chase.  “You have confidence, there is less pressure, and you are within striking distance of the win.”

Blunck was able to parlay his qualifying round into a Bronze medal when he took a third in the skier halfpipe finals on Sunday.

“The run that put me in third was a lot like the rev tour run I had earlier this month,” said Blunck.  “It was a double flair, left cork nine, right cork nine, left 5, right cork 1080, switch 7, to flair. I could not have been more stoked.”

For SSCV’s Alexandra Fitch, well she rode to a fourth in the qualifying rounds and held onto that place to finish fourth in Sunday’s snowboard halfpipe finals.  Also there for the SSCV snowboarders is Indigo Monk, who finished eighth in the snowboard finals.

And then there is Alex Leever, SSCV’s alpine racer at these games.  Leever has already competed in two separate disciplines in as many days.


Leever’s first race was a SuperG on Saturday, and he finished in 16th.  Leever had a solid run going before a mistake above the first interval bounced him wide.

Sunday was a Super Combined race for Leever.  Super Combined is one run of Super G and one run of slalom for a combined time.

In Sunday morning’s Super G run, Leever finished in 24th; not bad for a skier whose strength is in the technical events of slalom and giant slalom.  After the morning leg of the race, it was time for Leever to step it up for the SL run.  And step it up he did.

Leever left the start and his coach, Peter Lange, was getting ready to meet him at the finish.

“I was packing up my gear at the start and making my way to the bottom of the run,” said Lange.  “When I got to the finish I saw the scoreboard, and to see Alex’s name still on the leader board was one of those great emotional moments in a long ski coaching career that I will always cherish.”

What Lange saw was Leever’s tenth place finish.  Leever smoked a run down the SL course finishing fourth, and this bumped him up to a tenth place with a combined time of 1:43.34.

“I knew I had to push it to the limit in the Slalom to have a chance,” said Leever.  “To see my name on top of the leader board when I came down was an incredible feeling. I was hoping that my SL run would be fast enough to put me in the top 10 overall, and it was.”

Leever competes again on Tuesday, 1/17, with a mixed parallel team event while Fitch will compete in the slopestyle on Thursday, 1/19.