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Club skiers shine in New York

Joel Reichenberger
Members of the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club pose during a week of training and competition last week in Lake Placid, New York.
Joel Reichenberger

— Coach Karl Denney said the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club ski jumpers and Nordic combined racers finished their summer season on a high note last weekend at an event in Lake Placid, New York.

The weekend was split into two competitions: the Flaming Leaves Festival on Saturday, which included a Nordic combined race, and Sunday, the U.S. Ski Jumping National Championships for the 90-meter hill. Local skiers fared well in both, Denney said.

“This was our last big hurrah, our last big competition and trip of the summer,” he said. Koby Vargas put together one of the strongest all-around weekends for Steamboat skiers. He jumped to fourth place in the junior men’s division of Saturday’s Nordic combined event, then raced up to finish second.



A day later, he leapt to 10th in the National Championship.

“He’s been struggling with overtraining,” Denney said, “We saw him recover from that, and it was good to see he can still crack out good results. That was a solid test for him, and he passed.”



Right behind him on the day was Decker Dean, who moved up from a sixth place after the jumping to finish fourth Saturday.

A day later, he leapt to 18th place.

Elsewhere Saturday, Peter Rosenthal was 15th in jumping, Elijah Vargas 17th, Brenden Andrews 18th and Bennett Gamber 19th.

On the women’s side Saturday, Logan Sankey flew to seventh place in the open class, while Hana Schrock was fourth in the junior class.

Sunday, Elijah Vargas was 22nd, Rosenthal 27th and Andrews 28th in the National Championship. The standout there was Nita Englund’s win in that event. Englund trained for a time with the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club. Sankey was sixth in that event, too, moving up one spot from the previous day’s jumping.

Now, for local skiers, there’s not much of a break between the summer and fall sessions. The Winter Sports Club is scheduled to play host to a Nordic combined and ski jumping event the first weekend in December, which means even though the snow hasn’t begun to fly, the clock is ticking.

“We don’t have much of an offseason, so this was great momentum coming into our fall training,” Denney said. “We had lots of training time out there before the competition, and the kids got to stay in the Olympic Training Center, which was a pretty big deal for them.

“It was just a cool way to end the summer season and post some results.”

To reach Joel Reichenberger, call 970-871-4253, email jreichenberger@SteamboatToday.com or follow him on Twitter @JReich9


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