On Thursday, January 29th four NYSEF freeride athletes traveled to Waterville Valley with me to compete in the second stop of the USSA East Free Tour. The East Free Tour serves as a stepping stone for athletes to qualify for the USSA Junior National Championships, and other national tour events.
Friday, at Waterville, was a training day for Slopestyle and Big Air competitions. The weather was cold and snowy. Proper speed for the course was hard to come by, and yet everyone had fun, and was able to plan their slopestyle runs on the four feature course.
Saturday was the slopestyle competition. The weather, again, was not ideal. Specifically, the 20-30 mph winds, with up to 60 mph gusts caused the competition jury to close the second jump. Athletes were instead allowed to use the knuckle of the second jump to preform additional freestyle maneuvers. Despite the poor weather, I never heard a single complaint from all four NYSEF athletes. They all put a smile on, pushed through the adversities presented to them, and competed like champions. I was, and still am, so proud of them. The judges were also impressed with their performances. All four athletes qualified for finals which consisted of the top 16 athletes of the day. Each of the athletes continued to preform in finals; they all landed their run in finals. After all was said and done they all finished in the top 10, and 2 of them finished on the podium. This was perhaps the best team performance that NYSEF Freeride has ever had.
- Brian Gardiner got 2nd
- Jake Prichard got 3rd
- Taylor Bond got 6th
- Gavin Fritz got 9th
On Sunday, Waterville was host to two, back-to-back big air competitions. Brian was the only athlete of the four to compete in these events. He like the day before had to work with strong and swirling winds. He played it a bit on the safe side, but still managed to place 4th in the 1st big air, and 5th in the 2nd big air.
Needles to say, but our trip to Waterville Valley was a great success!!!
Moving forward, we are all looking forward to the final stop on the East Free Tour up at Sugarloaf USA, in Maine. This event is scheduled for Valentine's weekend.
Here is a photo of four stoked athletes, and one proud coach
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