Wednesday, April 7, 2004

Snow surfing, sun
and costumes galore

For the Hawaiian Nationals

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Roasting in the sun, snow surfing and having fun.

That’s what 87 telemark racers and snowboarders did Saturday as the 24th Sun Valley Telemark Series came to a raucous ending with the staging of the Hawaiian Nationals and Tandem Telemark Challenge.

Backwoods Mountain Sports and Sentinel Security sponsored the end-of-season race on Baldy’s Cozy ski run.

Sport winner Mollie Holt enjoys the day and her run down Cozy. Express photo by Willy Cook

It was a big day for siblings like John King and Jen King. They won the top-flight Elite Men and Women’s classes by five-second margins. Race organizer Danny Walton and Mollie Holt captured Sport.

The snowboard winners were Bruce Smith and Bonnie Jones, while Dan McGregor and Becky Brown were the combined champions.

Matt and Jess Philoon had a great day as the Tandem Telemark Challenge winners. Interestingly, Bruce Smith and Bonnie Jones put two sets of bindings on a snowboard and finished third in the tandem.

And, "Best Crash," winners were tandem entrants Justin Stevenson and John Kearney, attired in downhill ski suits and all sorts of hockey gear.

"Best Dressed," was Buck Cobb, as a 400-pound clown. A special award went to Deeder Petersen, decked out as an older and more experienced European woman.

Sponsors of the 2004-05 Sun Valley Telemark Series were New Belgium Brewing Co. and D.L Evans Bank. Sponsor of the Tandem Telemark Challenge was Blue Ice Vodka.

Saturday’s final results, based on best combined time out of two runs:

Elite men: 1—John King 71.64. 2—Lance Levy 76.40. 3—Jeremy Fryberger 77.76. 4—Joel Mallett 77.98. 5—John Lee 77.99.

Others: Eric Lisk 79.03, Buck Cobb 80.73, Marcus Belanger 81.78, Deeder Petersen 144.32.

Elite women: 1—Jen King 76.36. 2—Gretchen Flint 81.24. 3—Sonja Mandeville 81.85. 4—Nicky Elsbree 83.19. 5—Katie Raffetto 83.63.

Others: Abi Holt 84.91, Gretchen Mallett 87.63, Julie McGregor 90.91, Hannah Ragsdale 92.49.

Sport men: 1—Danny Walton 72.97. 2—Rick "The Ruler" 76.93. 3—John Kearney 79.29. 4—John Riley 81.79. 5—Matt Philoon 83.26.

Others—Jim Parris 84.71, Sam Young 85.36, Victor Vandenberg 85.68, Tim Cron 85.72, Jared Alexander 85.94, Chris Abbott 86.85, Tony Mallane 87.22, Jim Hilding 87.38, Cole Lebourgeois 89.24, Mike Schlatter 90.96, Tom Sbertoli 92.06, Tim Marsano 96.35, Jay Fry 98.23, Dave Lewis 98.35, Paul Downey 98.70, Josh Glick 102.44, Jason Lynch 103.22, Mike Shane 106.07, Keith Battista 107.93, Dave Cole 108.01, Sean Phillips 108.09, Ryan Still 45.70 (one run) and Matt Conner 42.54 (one run) DNF—Justin Stevenson.

Sport women: 1—Mollie Holt 84.89. 2—Emily Hilding 89.51. 3—Idie Mabey 92.28. 4—Jane Peterson 97.00. 5—Kristine Bretall 105.11.

Others: Ann Lewis 102.64, Christl Holzl 103.37, Jessica Soire 104.49, Alice Sherbow 105.18, Lauren Debose 105.65, Ali Deines 105.66, Heidi Anderson 110.81, Vanessa Cosgrove 118.15, Randi Pollen 49.76 (one run). DNF—Amy.

Men’s snowboard: 1—Bruce Smith 83.33. 2—Sean O’Neil 94.42. 3—Paris Nicholson 94.60. 4—Frank "The Tank" 94.79. 5—Michael Malko 109.29.

Women’s snowboard: 1—Bonnie Jones 94.91. 2—Valerie Lewis 98.24. 3—Amy Buck 98.28. 4—Brady Blogden 110.30. 5—Megan Huether 111.01.

Combined men (one run telemark, one run snowboard: 1—Dan McGregor 81.79. 2—Josh Solly 84.19. 3—Luke Solly 90.99. 4—Mike Torres 93.13. 5—Toad 94.44.

Others: Chad Brown 98.48, Tim Rocco 109.10, Matt Hankis 122.45, Bob Buchanan 43.66 (one run).

Combined women: 1—Becky Brown 97.67, Kelly O’Neil 100.39, Sara Uhlenhopp 104.65, Megan Burns 106.55.

Tandem class: 1—Matt and Jess Philoon 58.59. 2—Joel and Gretchen Mallett 78.00. 3—Bruce Smith and Bonnie Jones 78.02. 4—Justin Stevenson and John Kearney 79.50. 5—Jen and John King 93.89.

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