Park City's Payday ski run offered four days of great Utah gates and a fine technical racing kickoff to the 2008-09 Intermountain Division alpine ski racing season Dec. 18-21.
There were 41 Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) and Hailey Ski Team (HST) racers at Park City for the Eric Hays Memorial Open Series giant slalom and slalom races for A, J1 (ages 17-19), J2 (15-16) and J3 (13-14) skiers.
It was a strong field, but six different local skiers climbed the Payday podium—actually, there were 11 podium finishes posted by Bergen Palmer, Tanner Farrow, Connor Farrow, Teagen Palmer, Amanda Stelling and Nicole Roos.
Bergen Palmer, son of 1972 Olympic slalom skier Terry Palmer of Ketchum, made the first page of results in Saturday's slalom with a 14th place overall finish out of 136 two-run finishers. The result gave Palmer the J2 boys' victory, and he added a second-place class finish in Sunday's slalom.
Sun Valley and Hailey were dominant in J3 (13-14) girls.
Amanda Stelling of the Hailey Ski Team captured Friday's J3 giant slalom, in 19th place overall out of 76 finishers, and SVSEF racer Nicole Roos bounced back from a Saturday DQ in slalom to make the first page and win Sunday's J3 girls' slalom in 14th place overall.
Besides Bergen Palmer's silver in slalom, other second-place class finishes went to Amanda Stelling in Saturday's slalom and Nicole Roos in Friday's giant slalom. Bronze medalists were Tanner Farrow in J2 boys' SL, Connor Farrow J3 boys' SL and Teagen Palmer three straight days in J3 girls' GS and both slalom races.
The strongest J1 (17-19) local racer was Bailey Ireland with three top-five finishes. Also cracking the top 10 in their classes were Willie Adicoff, Gregory Roos, Karlee Stagg, Kipling Weisel, KJ Savaria, Nina Hirner and Cate Fairley.
Of the 245 racers on Payday, the weekend ace was Park City's Charlie Reynolds, 19. He shared Thursday's GS win with University of Utah racer Scott Veenis, 24, then Reynolds won Friday's GS outright by .15 seconds over Veenis and added Sunday's slalom victory, again over Veenis by .17 seconds. Utah collegian Kyle Kung, 23, captured Saturday's SL with Reynolds settling for third.
There were four different women's winners. GS golds went to Norway's Ulrikke Nicolaisen, 21, and young Rowmark/Park City hopeful Rose Caston, 16. The slalom winners were 19-year-olds Jaime Dupratt of Park City and Kiley Staples, a U.S. Ski Team prospect also from Rowmark.
Here are race placings, by successive races, for the 41 SVSEF and Hailey Ski Team racers in the Eric Hays:
J1 boys (ages 17-19): Willie Adicoff 8-GS, 9-GS, 15-SL, 13-SL; and Gregory Roos 10-GS, 12-GS, 16-SL, 14-SL.
J1 girls: Bailey Ireland 5-GS, 4-GS, 8-SL, 5-SL; and Karlee Stagg 11-GS, 9-GS, 10-SL, 10-SL.
J2 boys (ages 15-16): Bergen Palmer 9-GS, 11-GS, 1-SL, 2-SL; Tanner Farrow 16-GS, 12-GS, 3-SL, 9-SL; Ryan Foster 20-GS, 16-GS, DNF-SL, 21-SL; Harlan Collins 21-GS, 17-GS, 30-SL, DNF-SL; Dylan Carroll 27-GS, 28-GS, DNF-SL, DNF-SL; Tanner Dirstine 31-GS, 31-GS, 35-SL, 31-SL; Miles Sweek DNF-GS, 23-GS, 22-SL, DNF-SL; Hunter Weaver 34-GS, DNF-GS, 37-SL, 41-SL; Tim Kanellitsas 35-GS, 25-GS, 48-SL, 35-SL; Tyler Davis DNF-GS, DNF-GS, 28-SL, 28-SL; and Jordan Levin 36-GS, 32-GS, 42-SL, 39-SL.
J2 girls: Sierra Fox 15-GS, 13-GS, 12-SL, DNF-SL; Natalie Vorsteveld 18-GS, 23-GS, 21-SL, 19-SL; Nina Hirner DNF-GS, 16-GS, 11-SL, 9-SL; and Reta Flynt DNF-GS, 24-GS, 23-SL, 22-SL.
J3 boys (ages 13-14): Connor Farrow 10-GS, 7-GS, 3-SL, 4-SL; Kipling Weisel 11-GS, 5-GS, DQ-SL, 36-SL; KJ Savaria 14-GS, DNF-GS, 6-SL, 7-SL; Zack Freeman 27-GS, 15-GS, 21-SL, 13-SL; Colin Waycott 26-GS, 24-GS, 15-SL, 21-SL; Ben Kanellitsas 32-GS, 18-GS, 41-SL, 16-SL; Cole Caulkins 35-GS, 36-GS, 30-SL, 30-SL; Logan Shipley 40-GS, 48-GS, DQ-SL, 51-SL; Alexandre Bridgeman 42-GS, 46-GS, DNS-SL, 55-SL; Rocket Stickney 46-GS, 55-GS, 49-SL, 49-SL; Michael Weaver 48-GS, 52-GS, 45-SL, 44-SL; and Taylor Adler DNF-GS, 45-GS, 43-SL, 42-SL.
J3 girls: Teagen Palmer 4-GS, 3-GS, 3-SL, 3-SL; Amanda Stelling 5-GS, 1-GS, 2-SL, 4-SL; Nicole Roos 7-GS, 2-GS, DQ-SL, 1-SL; Cate Fairley 14-GS, DQ-GS, 4-SL, DNF-SL; Sofia DeWolfe 24-GS, 23-GS, 12-SL, 14-SL; Corrine Smith 27-GS, 25-GS, 17-SL, 12-SL; Isobel Pollock 31-GS, 33-GS, 36-SL, 30-SL; and Emily Gillespie 32-GS, 36-GS, 33-SL, 31-SL.
Older Hailey Ski Team racers: 20-year-old Tyler Chandler 12th and 19th overall GS, 11th and 20th overall SL; 19-year-old Jordan Smith 57th and 38th overall GS, 89th and 68th overall SL.
Two SVSEF skiers compete in Nor-Am series
Two SVSEF alpine racers traveled to Canada Dec. 15-18 for early-season Nor-Am racing at Panorama, B.C.
Boise's Dane Spencer (9-SG, 9-GS, 7-GS at Panorama) is continuing his comeback to the U.S. Ski Team with sights set on the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Ketchum's Miles Fink-Debray (16-SG, 7-SG, 11-SuperCombined, 14-GS, 15-GS) is a young up-and-comer who impressed Western Region U.S. Coach Jeff Pickering.
And 11 SVSEF athletes traveled with coaches Erika Hogan and Nathan Schwing to Mammoth Mountain, Ca. for junior FIS tech races Dec. 14-17. They were Tanner Farrow (8-SL), Bergen Palmer (4-SL, 5-SL), Dylan Carroll, Tanner Dirstine, Willie Adicoff, Harlan Collins, Ryan Foster, Hunter Weaver, Tyler Davis, Bailey Ireland (27-SL) and Karlee Stagg.
