Get out the traveling bags!
The Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation's Junior Nordic ski team has started a 2009-10 winter season that will take young skiers from Anchorage, Alaska to northern Maine, to Bozeman and Boise and British Columbia and Soldier Hollow.
West Yellowstone, where the SVSEF group kicked off its competition season in November, will start seeming like Sun Valley's own backyard.
It's another winter of maintaining fitness, peaking at the right time and trying to stay healthy for the hard-working 14-to-20 year-olds in the higher echelons of the SVSEF team.
Down in the ranks of the Prep and Development squads for ages 6-13, the experienced Sun Valley coaches are encouraging the love of movement, skiing and fitness.
Under the leadership of 23rd-year coach Rick Kapala, the SVSEF cross-country team—144 members strong—has become one of the five or six best training and competitive programs in the U.S.
Many Competition Team skiers may log 500 hours of aerobic training over the course of 12 months.
With Winter Olympic berths on the line this winter, they'll be aiming for the 2010 U.S. Nationals Jan. 2-8 at Anchorage and the 2010 U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association Junior Nationals March 8-13 at Presque Isle, Maine—potato country about as far north and close to New Brunswick, Canada as you can get.
Kapala is as excited about his older Olympic Development Team racers eyeing the Olympics as he is about elementary school students discovering the sport for the first time. He said, "We've got as good a group of young, talented skiers as we've ever had. And I'm pretty psyched about where we are with our youth programs."
A stable coaching staff has greeted the 24 Competition Team skiers, 35 Prep teamers and 74 Devo kids. Virtually all the coaches have returned—Ashley McQueen and Chris Mallory rejoining Kapala with the Comp Team; Kelley Sinnott heading the Prep Team for the fifth year; and Dave Bingham guiding Devos for a 16th year.
Kapala said, "We're seeing the benefits of a continuity in coaching since we've had the same staff in place for a while. And we've been able to have the linkage you need between the older and younger kids. You link the standard where the kids show up to work every day and that standard of what it takes to succeed and do well gets passed along."
This year's older racers
For the second straight year, the valley has endured a lack of early-season snow that has put the SVSEF kids a little behind in their on-snow workouts. But the weather can change in a hurry and it's a long season, from November to March.
Building fitness in early races rather than producing great results is the goal. Sunday's USSA-sanctioned Christmas Classic at Lake Creek went off without a hitch. And the first of three Junior National qualifying races is Jan. 14-17 at Bozeman.
Kapala said this year's Competition Team is "young, having graduated seven seniors," from the 2009 edition that helped the Intermountain Division to second place behind New England in the prestigious Junior National Alaska Cup team race.
But he has high hopes for his J1 (ages 16-17) boys led by second-year J1s Daniel Sundali, 17, and Scott Schoen of Pocatello, 17, along with first-year J1 Torin Tucker, 16. All competed at Junior Nationals in Truckee, Ca. last March.
All are seniors, and so are J1s William Spiller and Willie Devin. They're joined by juniors and first-year J1s Jake Anderson, 17, Andrew Pfeiffer, 16, and Brandon Wade, 16.
"It's a pretty solid J1 boys' team. They developed last year and have had great training and fitness so they can pick up where they left off. The big thing is keeping these guys healthy and having them ready at the right time," said Kapala.
Kapala said 18-year-old Max Durtschi, also a highly regarded national junior bicycle racer, could be one of Sun Valley's best-ever skiers. Durtschi joined Sundali on last March's Junior National J1 men's 3x5-kilometer bronze medal relay team. Durtschi was fifth in J1 15k freestyle and ninth in J1 10k classic.
The coach has also seen a "sense of purpose," in his top girls—Emily Williams, Morgan Atkinson, Annie Pokorny, Maranda Stopol, Sloan Storey and Maggie Williams. Nearly all were at Junior Nationals last year including Pokorny, a J1 podium placer from Spokane. And Atkinson just missed JNs as a J2 racer.
Kapala said, "The girls have made a ton of progress."
Pokorny, a junior and second-year J1, is joined by first-year J1s Emily Williams, 16, a junior, and Morgan Atkinson, 16, a sophomore. Stopol, 15, and Storey, 15, are second-year J2s looking for a successful return to Junior Nationals. Maggie Williams, 14, made JNs as a J3 last March.
Meanwhile, second-year Olympic Development Team coach Travis Jones is working with a group of 11 of the country's most promising Nordic skiers. He and Kapala spent two weeks early in December traveling with a sizable group to the Continental Cup Nordic races in Canada.
Local products Morgan Arritola, Alexa Turzian, Mali Noyes, Mike Sinnott and Reid Pletcher are joined on the ODT team by other top racers who train here including Kate Whitcomb, Nicole DeYong, Adele Espy, Colin Rodgers, Simi Hamilton and Erik Fagerstrom.
In the past few years Sun Valley has instituted the post-graduate ODT program to provide a training base and targeted financial support as a bridge between junior and national ski teams. Enhanced training opportunities, technical support and coaching are the main things offered to the ODT racers through the SVSEF.
2009-10 Nordic Ski Team Roster
SUN VALLEY JUNIOR NORDIC
Program director and head coach—Rick Kapala (23rd year).
Olympic Development Team coach—Travis Jones (2nd year).
Competition team coaches—Ashley McQueen (4th year) and Chris Mallory (5th year).
J3/J4 Prep team coaches—Head coach Kelley Sinnott (5th year), Mike Stemp (5th year), Rob Landis (11th year) and Ashley Wells (4th year).
Development team coaches—Head coach Dave Bingham (16th year). Assistant coaches—Laurie Leman (19th year), Paddy McIlvoy (3rd year), Tessa Westbrook (3rd year) and Svea Grover (3rd year).
Olympic Development Team (11 skiers)—Women: Morgan Arritola, Nicole DeYong, Kate Whitcomb, Alexa Turzian, Adele Espy and Mali Noyes. Men: Mike Sinnott, Colin Rodgers, Simi Hamilton, Erik Fagerstrom and Reid Pletcher.
Competition team racers (24 skiers)—Jake Adicoff, Jake Anderson, Morgan Atkinson, Willie Devin, Max Durtschi, Syringa Hansen, Elana King-Nakaoka, Kaitlyn Landis, Brooke Lawrence, Zachary Lindahl, Jackson Long, Andrew Pfeiffer, Gray Reidinger, Annie Pokorny, Scott Schoen, William Spiller, Maranda Stopol, Sloan Storey, Daniel Sundali, Torin Tucker, Brandon Wade, Emily Williams, Maggie Williams and Ketchum Wilt. (Tuition $3,525 including wax and grooming fee, ages 14-18 high school OJ/J1/J2, year-round training, on-snow 5-6 days per week).
J3/J4 Prep team racers (35 skiers)—Cameron Bingham, Benjamin Brunelle, Theo Castellano Wood, Victoria Castellano Wood, Lukas DeWolfe, Megan Downey, Jack Dwyer, Chloe Evans, Katie Feldman, Alex Feldman, Autumn Fluetsch, Thomas Gillespie, Grace Gorham, Andrew Graves, Danny Graves, Xavier Haemmerle, Galena Hansen, Annika Landis, Haley Montgomery, Nathan Nasvik, Stephen Pfeiffer, Ty Reinemann, Carter Ros, Emily Siegel, Callum Stearns, Cheyanne Stopol, Alina Svidgal, Nate Thomas, Jacob Truxal, Montana Tucker, Sarah Verst, Luke Verst, Madison Watts, Sarah Williams and Kailey Wilt. (Tuition $1,335 including wax and grooming fee, ages 10-13 J3/J4 introductory program to racing and training, practices 3 days per week).
Lake Creek and Quigley Development team members:
Lake Creek (46 skiers)—Jake Albright, Payton Bacca, Ebi Bell, Devon Brown, Tess Burchmore, Ike Buxton, Zachary Deal, Catherine Estep, Allie Evans, William Everitt, Maren Feltman, Raine Filbert, Lily Fitzgerald, Sarah Galles, Ellie Gorham, Jake Gorham, Buey Grossman, Oliver Guy, Johnny Hagenbuch, Joe Hall, Kate Horowitz, Jack Horowitz, Logan Jones-Wilkins, Jack Keating, Murphy Kendall, Taylor Koth, Kegan Lupton, Jenna Nurge, Landon Nurge, Matt O'Connor, Andrew O'Connor, Addison Rafford, Cooper Roquet, Ziggy Slanetz, Shea Slanetz, Fletcher Stumph, Chloe Tanous, Zach Williams, Jack Wojcik, Peter Wolter, Ella Wolter, Charlotte Woodham, Lillian Worst, Luke Worst, Claire Yager and Caroline Yager.
Quigley Canyon (28 skiers)—Lily Brunelle, Sophia Coplin, Caroline Corker, Leo Corrales, Nick Dabney, Cash Dart, Luke Dean, Grace Evans, Jake Evans, Alex Gilman, Eva Grover, Dieter Haemmerle, Sofia Kinney, Jorgen Lawrence, Connor Lohrke, Caleb Morgan, Zachary Olenick, Milo Ryason, Eveline Svidgal, Elliott Sweek, Emily Thayer, Leah Thayer, Jessica Thomas, Dane Thompson, Sarah Truxal, Esmee Verheijen, Lance Verst and Logan Verst. (Tuition for each program $505 including wax and grooming fee, grades 2-5, on-snow 3 days per week December through February).
Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation cross-country skiers had a good effort during the Johnny Curtis Memorial regional Nordic races held last Jan. 17-18 at Trail Creek Nordic Center near Wilson, Wyo. Sun Valley had 10 age-class podium finishes and a girls’ 5-kilometer classic victory by J2 Maggie Williams. Here, the team poses at Trail Creek Nordic Center.
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