Sawtooth Relay comes to Atkinson Park on Saturday
Thousands of runners will descend on Ketchum’s Atkin-son Park on Saturday, June 14 for the finish and post-race party of the 23rd annual Saw-tooth Relay. The 61.9-mile six-member team relay race from Stanley to Ketchum is a fund-raiser for the Polycystic Kid-ney Disease Foundation and the Idaho Donor Network.
There are 320 teams and five solo runners signed up for the popular event that begins at various times between mid-night and 9 a.m. Saturday at Stanley Elementary School 60 miles north of Ketchum. Eleva-tion gain during the trek over Galena Summit is 2,361 feet of gain, and 3,201 feet of elevation loss. The five solo runners are Charles Francisco, Kevin Haro, Glen Carpenter, Leon Roth-stein and David Leisten.
Among the colorful team names this year are Another Bad Idea, Runners Against Humanity, Couples Therapy, I Thought You Said “Rum,” Sweat is Sexy and “Wicked Pis-sah.” Teams will finish be-tween 12 noon and 5 p.m. at the Ketchum park. The party has music by Sonic Skillet plus trout, sausage, potatoes, cole slaw and strawberry shortcake.
Bike riders invited to Ronde Van Ketchum tour June 22
Durance Cycleworks and The Elephant’s Perch of Ketchum are inviting bicycle riders to a non-competitive group ride covering a 75.8-mile distance including much of the Ketchum area and up to Phan-tom Hill north of town.
Called Ronde Van Ketchum, the self-supported group ride leaves the Durance shop across from the Magic Lantern in Ketchum at 9 a.m. on Sunday, June 22. Sign up before Friday, June 20 at 6 p.m. for $20 per person at Durance or the Perch. No race day entries are allowed. Visit durance.com for the entry fee.
The 121.970-kilometer course features 1,433 meters (4,701 feet) of climbing. From Durance, it goes to River Run and Warm Springs and up to Phantom Hill, then back to Hulen Mead-ows and Trail Creek to the fin-ish at the Perch.
Valley Club stages Presi-dent’s Cup golf June 13-14 The Valley Club’ 36-hole stroke play championship called the President’s Cup is Friday and Saturday, June 13-14 for all male and female members with a handicap in-dex. Deadline to sign up is June 11.
Aspen awarded 2017 World Cup Alpine Finals
The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) made a slew of announcements sur-rounding the International Ski Federation (FIS) Congress at Barcelona, Spain last week, among them:
- Aspen, Colo. was awarded the prestigious Audi FIS Alpine World Cup Finals for men and women in 2017—the first Finals outside Europe since 1997.
- A USSA proposal has led to a host of new events being ac-cepted by the FIS for presenta-tion to the International Olym-pic Committee. Big air and team snowboardcross have been added to the list with an alpine team event, dual moguls and mixed gender ski jumping.
- Park City (Utah) has been awarded the 2019 FIS World Championships for freestyle, freeskiing and snowboarding. The area presented an innova-tive bid featuring a partnership of Park City Mountain Resort, Canyons Resort and Deer Val-ley Resort.
- Three-time World Cup sprint champion Kikkan Ran-dall heads a powerhouse team of six women nominated to the 2015 U.S. Cross Country Ski Team. Joining her are Jessie Diggins, Liz Stephen, Sadie Bjornsen, Sophie Caldwell and Ida Sargent. The six-member men’s team has Simi Hamilton, Andy Newell, Erik Bjornsen, Noah Hoffman, Patrick Caldwell and Ben Saxton.
Big Fish contest returns to Magic Saturday
Magic Reservoir south of Bellevue is the site of the fourth annual John McClatchy Big Fish Contest Saturday, June 14 from 7:30 a.m.-1 p.m., with weigh-in and barbecue to follow. Entry fee is $25.
You must be a licensed Idaho angler to participate. All legal methods of fishing apply, including boat trolling, tube fly-fishing and bank bait fish-ing. It is open to all species of fish in the reservoir.
A raffle ticket is included with tournament entry. Raffle prizes include golf for two peo-ple at Sun Valley Resort’s Trail Creek Golf Course. The club-house will be open for registra-tion at 6:30 a.m. Saturday.
The biggest fish (heaviest) wins the biggest prize, with other cash prizes for the sec-ond- and third-place finishers.
From proceeds, the tourna-ment will make a donation to Camp Rainbow Gold. Call Willy Cook 721-2658 or Jim McClatchy 720-0797 to sign up. Organizers said Magic is cur-rently at good fishing level with plenty of fish.
Building Contractors stage first summer scramble
The Wood River Building Contractors Association held its first summer golf scramble Tuesday, June 3 at Bigwood Golf Course in Ketchum. Nine foursomes enjoyed a beautiful evening of golf, pizza and beer. Lutz Rentals sponsored the successful event, and Alex Monge was the stellar beverage cart driver for the players.
Taking first place was Log Restoration Systems in a putt-off with second-place Kearns, McGinnis and Vandenberg. Woodyard Enterprise captured third place and Franklin Lum-ber earned fourth-place honors. Steve Kearns won closest-to-the-pin and Frank Sheperis had the day’s longest drive.
Next Building Contractors scramble is Tuesday, June 24.
Sports reporter Zarkos moves on the dial
Longtime sports reporter Jody Zarkos is now broadcast-ing on Ketchum’s KDPI Radio located at 89.3 FM with daily coverage airing at 8:45 a.m.
Zarkos, the communications director at the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation, is a former sports reporter with the Idaho Mountain Express and sports director at KECH Radio.
She will cover summer ath-letic events with a special em-phasis on baseball and softball. The KDPI Sports Report is sponsored by Morgan’s Fine Finishes. In addition to the standard radio dial, KDPI can be found by visiting www.kdpifm.org.
Hole in one at Elkhorn
Danny Williams of Miami, Fla., a part-time Elkhorn resi-dent, scored a hole-in-one Mon-day, June 9 at Elkhorn Golf Course. He aced No. 11 with an 8-iron from 140 yards. Witness was Cruger Thomas.
Free putting contest kicks off Sunday’s Gates golf
For the fifth year, the Chuck Gates Memorial golf tourna-ment kicks off with a free jun-ior putting contest starting Fa-ther’s Day Sunday, June 15 at 11 a.m. at Sun Valley Golf Course. All ages welcome.
The 17th annual Chuck Gates Memorial golf tourna-ment raises money for junior golf at Ketchum’s Atkinson Park. Up to 30 foursomes will compete in a best-ball scramble at 1:30 p.m. at Sun Valley. This year’s tourney is dedicated to Chuck Gates supporter Mark “Sparky” Anderson.
Raffle grand prize is a Ti-tleist Vokey wedge set valued at $500. Second grand prize is an Odyssey Tank putter valued at $250. Raffle tickets will be sold at the tournament, and are available beforehand from local junior golfers. You don’t have to be present to win.
