Ketchum girls third in Hood to Coast relay
The Ketchum-based "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," team placed third among 33 Female Open teams in the 27th running of the Nike Hood to Coast Relay Friday and Saturday, Aug. 22-23. The 36-leg, 197-mile course for teams of between eight and 12 runners started at the 6,000-foot Timberline Lodge and ended on the beach at Seaside, Ore. Ketchum's time was 22 hours, 41:42 minutes. The winning female team had a time of 21.36:24. The winning male team in "The Mother of All Relays" finished in 16.58:30.
Duke grabs silver, HST skiers race in New Zealand
Three alpine ski racers from the Wood River Valley—Hailey Ski Team racers Sierra Fox, Miles Sweek and Jordan Smith—competed in New Zealand in International Ski Federation (FIS) technical races at Coronet Peak Tuesday through Thursday, Aug. 19-21. Slalom specialist Hailey Duke, a Sun Valley native and U.S. Ski Team racer, placed second in one of the FIS slaloms there. And Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation racer Michael Radford also raced.
Duke finished second of 30 two-run finishers, 2.01 seconds behind teammate Kaylin Richardson, in Thursday's slalom finale. HST racer Fox, a first-year J2 (ages 15-16) coming back from a torn MCL in February, was 27th in Thursday's SL, and 26th and 28th in giant slalom. The Aug. 22 slalom finale was canceled due to soft snow and poor weather.
Sun Valley's Radford was 20th of 95 starters in slalom, and 26th and 34th in giant slalom. Sweek placed 48th SL and 55th GS, and Smith 50th SL and 68th GS.
Martial arts seminar with Larry Duke and Hailey Duke
Master Larry Duke and Ms. Hailey Duke from the Idaho Taekwondo Center in Boise and U.S. Ski Team will conduct a free Martial Arts Seminar Saturday, Sept. 6 at 10 a.m. at the Blaine County Recreation District, Community Campus, Hailey. Larry Duke, a former Sun Valley ski instructor, is a well-known Taekwondo instructor in the Gem State and Hailey Duke is his daughter. It will be an introduction to Taekwondo for beginners, and also an advanced workout for existing students.
Fairfield's Harrison fastest in Silver Creek Pedal and Plunge
Dave Harrison of Fairfield, the leader in the 2008 Knobby Tire Series, won the Pro Male class of the Silver Creek Plunge cross-country mountain bike race Aug. 16 at Garden Valley near Boise. Owner of DollarHide Bikes in Fairfield, Harrison (2.26:26) bettered his nearest competitor by eight minutes. Winning the Junior Boys' 14-and-under class was Mathieu Sorrell of the DollarHide junior team (1.36:39).
Georgia Gould 8th in Olympic mountain bike race
Former Ketchum resident Georgia Gould, 28, of Fort Collins, Colo. didn't win a medal, but she did crack the top 10 and was the second American in the 2008 Olympic cross-country mountain bike race Aug. 22 on the Laoshan bike course in Shijingshan District at Beijing, China.
Gould (1.50:51) finished in eighth place of the 18 women who completed all six laps. Winning the 26.7-kilometer race was Germany's Sabine Spitz (1.45:11, 15.23 miles per hour) over silver medalist Maja Wloszczowska of Poland (1.45:52) and bronze medalist Irina Kalentyeva of Russia (1.46:28). The top American, in seventh place, was Mary McConneloug, 37, of Chilmark, Mass. Her time of 1.50:34 was just 17 seconds ahead of Gould.
Relatively new to the sport, Gould had placed ninth overall in the 2007 and 2008 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships. Then, on July 19, newly named Olympians McConneloug and Gould placed 1-2 in the 2008 USA Cycling national mountain bike championships at Mount Snow, Vt. They battled neck and neck for three laps around Mount Snow's famed technical singletrack loop, opening up a huge gap on the rest of the nation's best female riders. It was McConneloug's fourth cross-country national title.
