Brown on podium at
Snow Cup
Snowbird GS finale
Sun Valley
Ski Team racer Zac Brown, 17, showed everybody at Snowbird, Utah last
weekend why he is the Western Region Junior Olympic J1 combined champion
for 2002.
Brown
climbed the podium twice with third-place overall finishes during the U.S.
Ski and Snowboard Association’s season-ending Snow Cup giant slalom
Saturday and Sunday on the 30-gate Primrose Path run.
Park City’s
Ted Ligety, 17, won both GSs by substantial margins—a little payback for
the Western Region J1 Olympics March 17-23 at Mt. Bachelor when Ligety’s
slalom fall delivered the J1 combined title to Sun Valley’s Brown.
But Brown,
son of Doug and Gloria Brown, certainly earned the combined champion
distinction with finishes of 3rd GS, 16th DH, 4th SG and 10th SL in the J1
(ages 17-19) class in the heady Mt. Bachelor field.
In the Snow
Cup, Sun Valley’s 16-year-old Jason Eder (fifth in J2 Junior Olympic
combined at Bachelor March 23) cracked the top ten twice in seventh and
ninth and was third among J2s (ages 15-16).
Meanwhile,
Sean Higgins won the J2 class Sunday and ended up in sixth place overall.
All the
Snow Cup women chased 17-year-old Keely Blair Kelleher of Rowmark Ski
Academy, who won by 4.69 and 1.59 seconds. But Hailey Duke and Lauren Eder
made podium appearances in Sunday’s race.
Duke won
the J2 class and finished second to Kelleher. Sun Valley’s Lauren Eder
had an outstanding GS finale Sunday to place third overall of 43 women and
win the J3 class.
Duke, the
Junior Olympic J2 combined bronze medalist, was fourth overall Saturday
and Lauren Eder ended up seventh.
Top class
placings for Sun Valley and Hailey finishers in the 127-racer Snow Cup
field:
· J1
girls: 9—Sage Pressman.
· J1
boys: 3—Zac Brown. 6—Marcus Acker.
· J2
girls: 1—Hailey Duke. 5—Charlotte Gourlay. 11—Tracy Chubb. 15—Abby
Dubois.
· J2
boys: 1—Sean Higgins. 3—Jason Eder. 7—Slater Storey. 10—Cameron
Minor and Erik Nelson. 14—Ash Higgins.
· J3
girls: 1—Lauren Eder. 5—Lauren Parsons. 10—Laura Speck.
· J3
boys: 6—Willi Cannell. 9—Taylor Stoecklein. 12—John D. Davidson.