US Team Heads to Europe and World Championships

This week ten members of the US Telemark National Team depart for Europe to attend the World Championships in Kreischberg Austria beginning January 22.  Shane Anderson, Drew Hauser, Ken Recker, Erika Walters, Lorin Paley, Ben Paley and Jeffrey Gay, all of Colorado will leave Tuesday January 13.  They will meet Suzanne Pattinson of Idaho and Peter McMahon of Montana and will attend two days of racing in Kobla, Slovenia on January 17 and 18.  This will be a good warm up for the team prior to moving on to the World Championships.  Kelsey Schmid-Sommer of Montana will meet the team in Austria.

The World Championships are held every other year and draw the deepest and most competitive field of all the World Cup races.  The winner of each race is crowned the World Champion in that event for the 2 year period.  In 2001, US racer Reid Sabin from Whitefish Montana won the Classic race and held the World Champion title for the next two years.  In 2005, a Junior division was instituted at World Championships.  In the last World Championships, in 2007, US racer Drew Hauser took 3rd in the Sprint Classic and 2nd in the Giant Slalom.  Brett Stein raced to a 3rd place in the Classic event.

This year, Drew Hauser will be racing in his last year as a Junior and hopes to be on the top of the podium.  In addition, Erika, Lorin, Ben and Jeffrey will be racing as juniors, giving the USA some great athletes to compete in this division.

Kelsey, Peter and Suzanne return to Europe for their second set of races this year, having already competed in France and Switzerland in December.  They are hoping for improved results after having another month to train since their previous trip.

Following the World Championship races, Peter and Drew will travel on to Spain to attend races in Spain.

Check back on the website often, we will post racer blogs and results as soon as we receive them.