NorAm standings take shape before the new year

By Published On: December 19th, 2016Comments Off on NorAm standings take shape before the new year

The second round of technical races were completed in Panorama, Canada as the women took to the giant slalom hill and the men competed in slalom. Each gender has now competed in every discipline this season.

Hig Roberts finally pulled off a NorAm win on the first day of slalom racing, taking the top spot after a smoking second run. Canadian Phil Brown had come off two wins in the giant slalom block, but Roberts made sure to keep the race close and ended the first run only 0.09 seconds behind Brown. Roberts would go on to take the win from Brown by just 0.05 seconds. David Ketterer of Germany finished third, 0.48 seconds out.

Roberts’ win comes after a close call on Dec. 12 in the super-G in Panorama. He said he had planned to race in both the super-G and alpine combined, but after sending his body through the last gate in the super-G and into the timing gear, he banged his body up enough to force him out of the alpine combined. He raced the following two days in the giant slalom series, finishing 17th and third, and he said he has felt better every day since, what he calls, one the biggest crashes in his career.

Roberts had come close to winning his first NorAm in 2014 on the same hill when he came in second in the slalom. Winning now, however, is more emotional for Roberts, after his brother Murphy Roberts passed away this past August while hiking in southern Utah.  Murphy was right beside Roberts when he was put onto the U.S. B-team after graduating from Middlebury College and when he was taken off last spring.

The Roberts family has had to endure a lot over the past few months and, at times, skiing may seem menial in comparison to other parts of Roberts’ life. However, it means a lot that he knows his family is supportive and was just able to see him check “winning a NorAm” off of his list, achieving something that he has wanted for a long time now.

“Today was probably the coldest day we’ve had yet, blistering cold, but it was a pretty standard Panorama NorAm slalom down Hayfever,” Roberts said of his winning day.

The first and second run could not have been any different, according to Roberts. He knew he had to charge the entire first run in a simple set, and after a mistake coming onto the bottom flats, he was pleasantly surprised to see himself in second. The second course demanded much more tactical awareness from all of the athletes with rhythm changes and tighter turns. 

“I didn’t execute exactly how I wanted to, but the cool thing about skiing is that when that happens it kind of encourages you to step your game up for the bottom and the rest of the course,” Roberts said. “The last half of the course I had some of my best skiing of the year, probably some of the best slalom skiing I have done in years.” 

Last year was Robert’s first year as a full-time athlete after graduating from Middlebury College in 2014. He was traveling on the Europa Cup and competing is some World Cups for most of the season. He is now skiing independently and is looking to ski in the most competitive races he can, en route to a hopeful World Cup return.

The second day of men’s slalom brought the same three athletes to the podium, albeit in a different order. Ketterer took first on Sunday and Brown had to settle for second place, 0.91 seconds out. Roberts rounded out the podium, 1.16 second behind the pace. This puts those three athletes in a three-way tie for the lead in the NorAm slalom standings.

Erin Mielzynski won for the third day in a row on Saturday in the women’s first NorAm giant slalom of the season. Mielzynski built up enough of a lead in the first run to hold back Croatian Leona Popovic and American Rachael Desrochers, who were 0.20 and 0.50 seconds back.

On the second day of giant slalom, Canadian Amelia Smart returned to the podium, winning both runs to take the top spot. She was not satisfied with her seventh place finish a day earlier, according to her coach Pete Rybarik, and she put forth a strong enough performance to earn the first NorAm win of her career. She stood on the podium for both of the women’s slalom races.

Popovic took second again, 0.49 seconds behind and Erin Mielzynski finally conceded and came in 1.18 seconds behind Smart to take third.

Every single girl on the Canadian development team, including Smart,  Stefanie Fleckenstein, Ali Nullmeyer and Marina Vilanova, came away from the Panorama series with at least one top-five finish. The development squad had a lot of momentum coming off of the speed series between Lake Louise and Panorama, and they fought to keep it throughout the tech events. They were also able to ski alongside one of their country’s top athletes, Mielzynski. The World Cup veteran was a very positive influence to have for the tech series, said development coach Rybarik.

“She was a great leader for this group, not just her personality, but also her performance. It showed the level that she is at is a little bit higher,” Rybarik said, noting that it was nice for his athletes, who will be spending their season on the NorAm circuit, to see what they are working towards.

Rybarik said that he expects his girls to compete at the top level in the NorAm circuit, and they showed this past week that they deserve to be there, but if they want to compete on the World Cup, they will have to find “a couple seconds”.

The consistency of the Canadians has put them in position to dominate the NorAm standings early on. After all disciplines have been raced, Fleckenstein sits atop the overall standings with 389 points, despite fumbling slightly in the tech series. Smart, with 356 points, sits in third, behind her World Cup counterpart Mielzynski, in second with 260 points. Smart has been steady in each discipline she has entered and holds third in both tech discipline standings and is at the top in alpine combined rankings.

Alice Merryweather and Nina O’Brien hold the top spots for the Americans in the overall standings with Merryweather in fourth and O’Brien in sixth after a strong tech series in which she earned four top-10 results. 

As for the men’s overall standings, American Kieffer Christianson hung onto first place with 364 points and Brown has now moved into second with 360 points after two wins and two additional podium finishes. Brown has pushed his younger countryman James Crawford into third with a distant 259 points.

The NorAm circuit continues after the new year. Starting Jan. 2, both men and women will race two giant slaloms and two slaloms. The men will be in Stowe, Vt. while the women will be in Burke, Vt.

Full results for the Panorama series can be found here.

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About the Author: Chris Keating

Chris Keating grew up in Vermont and skied at Boston College where he served as captain during his senior year. He is currently a staff writer at The Valley Reporter in Waitsfield, Vt., and will be covering the NCAA and NorAm circuits for SkiRacing.com this winter.