Two-time defending Baldy Hill Climb men's champion Miles Fink-Debray, 19, had his skis flying downhill Monday on CB's Run at Park City Mountain Resort in Utah.
Fink-Debray, a former Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation alpine racer, won the first men's giant slalom of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association's Western Region Tech Series at Park City.
He did it convincingly.
Fink-Debray blew away everybody on the first run and had the second-fastest second run to win by .92 seconds over Canadian Erik Read and by 1.30 seconds over Swedish racer Lars Dunberger. There were 65 starters and 43 finishers Monday in the first of eight races.
Sun Valley Ski Team racer Michael Radford, 16, from California's Sugar Bowl Academy, placed 14th overall, 5.27 seconds behind Fink-Debray.
On Tuesday, Fink-Debray finished seventh overall and Radford placed 31st in the 115-racer men's giant slalom, won by Dartmouth College senior Evan Weiss, 23, of Kenmore, Wash. There were 63 two-run finishers on CB's Run.
The Western Tech women kicked off the full week of racing with two slaloms on Wilbere Ridge Race Hill and one giant slalom on CB's Run.
SVSEF racer Bailey Ireland finished all three races, 21st and 50th in slalom, and 46th of 93 starters in Wednesday's GS. Alisa Durkheimer of Soldier Mountain Racing was 35th in slalom and 42nd in giant slalom.
Winning Monday's slalom was 17-year-old Amanda McDonald of Crystal Mountain, Wash. But the dominant female racer was Lucie Zikova, 23, a University of Colorado senior.
Zikova, a Prague, Czech Republic, (Gymnasium Ustavni 400) native, won Tuesday's slalom by nearly three seconds and took Wednesday's GS by a 1.27-second margin over Chirine Njeim of the Utah Utes.
Last March Zikova helped CU to a third-place finish in the NCAA Championships with two first-team All-American performances. She was fourth in the giant slalom and second in the slalom. She now has five top-four finishes in six career NCAA championship races.
