Sun Valley Ski Team racer Lauren Parsons is the new Western Region J1-J2 Olympics downhill bronze medalist.
Parsons, 17, conquered the 29-gate Grizzly downhill course at Snow King Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyo. with a time of 1:00.63 Saturday.
She was .88 seconds behind gold medalist Jennifer Mah of Canada. Second place went to Lauren Summers, 16, of Edmonds, Wash. Mah and Summers, both J2s, were early starters on the course.
J1 Parsons started 40th in the 63-racer field Saturday after posting the third-fastest training run—and fastest in the lower part of the course—in the 55 mph range on Friday.
Another Sun Valley racer, J2 Katie Rothgeb, started 33rd and finished 21st in the DH.
In Sunday's men's downhill for 100 racers, Sun Valley's Kristian Timmons clocked the 32nd-fastest training time but ended up in 15th in the actual race. Dewey Moss was 17th, Cameron Minor 22nd, Hunter Storey 33rd, Taylor Stoecklein 41st and Soren Ireland 45th.
On Monday, Parsons captured another bronze with a third place in the women's super giant slalom. Gold medalist was Summers and Mah ended up second. Rothgeb placed 16th, Calley Brown 19th, Laura Speck 36th and Amanda Alexander 44th out of 61 finishers.
In the men's SG, Timmons finished 24th, Minor 28th, Storey 30th, Moss 37th, Tristan Brown 42nd, Ireland 70th and Stoecklein 83rd of 102 racers.
The Western Region meet at Snow King featured 163 of the top J1s (ages 17-18) and J2s (15-16) in the region.
