Travis Ganong of Squaw Valley at Beaver Creek on Feb. 7. Photo/Cody Downard

By Bill Pennington, New York Times

BEAVER CREEK — When the Alpine world ski championships were last on American soil, in 1999, no member of the United States team won a medal. With the championships back in Colorado this month, the event was expected to be a chance for the American racers to show how far they had come as an international power.

Instead, during the first week of competition, the Americans’ lone reason to celebrate was Lindsey Vonn’s bronze medal in the super-G.

By Saturday, the pressure on the Americans was mounting. The United States racers, many of whom were unheralded in the country, had to enter the men’s downhill, the championships’ marquee event, without their best-known teammate, Bode Miller, who severed a hamstring tendon in a tumbling crash Thursday.

But in a startling recovery, three American racers burst into the top 10, led by Travis Ganong of Squaw Valley, who won the silver medal Saturday with a fearless, stirring descent that left him 0.24 of a second behind the winning time of Patrick Küng of Switzerland, who finished in 1 minute 43.18 seconds. Another Swiss skier, Beat Feuz, was third, 0.31 of a second behind his countryman.

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Respect Gets Respect – Prevent Sexual Harassment and Bullying is the topic of a Feb. 24 workshop in Truckee.

North Lake Tahoe and Truckee Donner Chambers of Commerce, and Sierra Human Resources Association is putting on the anti-bullying, sexual harassment seminar. It is from 9-11am at Truckee Tahoe Airport Community Room, 10356 Truckee Airport Road.

The requirement to provide anti-bullying training for supervisors and managers was added to AB1825 sexual harassment prevention training as of Jan. 1. This workshop will bring businesses into compliance and help business owners and leaders prevent and address “abusive or malicious conduct” that a reasonable person would find hostile or offensive, including repeated infliction of derogatory remarks and insults, threatening, intimidating or humiliating verbal or physical conduct and the sabotaging or undermining of work performance.

This interactive workshop will also cover the core skills of recognizing and stopping sexual harassment. Workshop speaker Laura Moriarty, president of Tahoe Training Partners, is a nationally known speaker and the architect of innovative learning environments at high profile organizations.

Register and pay online by Feb. 23. The cost is $39 for SHRA/SHRM members, $49 for chamber members, and $59 for non-members. Volume discounts for four or more from the same company apply.

By USSA

MAMMOTH MOUNTAIN – Olympic champion Maddie Bowman’s solid run during halfpipe skiing qualifications at the Visa U.S. Freeskiing Grand Prix on Feb. 4 translated to a first place podium on Friday when the finals competition was canceled due to adverse weather.

Teammate Devin Logan finished third.

Strong winds once again forced event organizers to make the difficult decision to cancel finals.

“It’s unfortunate that finals were canceled, but Mammoth always puts us up really well, so I had a great time,” Bowman, who lives in Meyers and skis for Sierra-at-Tahoe, said. “I’m happy to be skiing here and I’m happy that California is getting weather, so I guess I’ll take it. I just tried to throw down a really good run and I’m happy that I did.”

On the men’s side, Canada’s Justin Dorey took the win, with Olympic champion David Wise of Reno finishing second. In his qualifying run, Wise kept things consistent and went for tricks he knew he could land, including a double cork 1260. Wise was one of three athletes to land a 1260 during this competition. Teammate Gus Kenworthy made improvements from his first to second qualifying run, landing himself in third overall.

“They told us that was a possibility [finals would be canceled] heading into qualifying,” said Kenworthy. “I had that in the back of my mind and I tried to do the best run I could. I’m stoked I got a podium. It feels good. Obviously I would have liked to skied finals, but I’d rather stay safe and take a result than try and push it in bad weather and maybe get hurt.”

By Libby Nelson, Vox

British author Roald Dahl is best known for his beloved, weird classic children’s books — Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and James and the Giant Peach among them. But one of the most powerful and frightening things he ever wrote was for a public health pamphlet on vaccination, where he described the death of his eldest daughter due to complications from measles.

Dahl writes about how his daughter seemed to be recovering well from what was then a common childhood illness, and suddenly took a turn for the worse. “In an hour, she was unconscious,” Dahl writes. “In 12 hours she was dead… there was nothing the doctors could do to save her.” (Despite medical advances since 1962, encephalitis is still an incredibly dangerous complication that can cause brain damage or even death.)

Dahl ends the story with a call for others to vaccinate their children that still resonates 52 years after his daughter’s death. “It is not yet generally accepted that measles can be a dangerous illness,” he writes. “Believe me, it is. In my opinion parents who now refuse to have their children immunized are putting the lives of those children at risk.”

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Known originally as The Great Road, then Lincoln Highway, and now as Highway 50, one of its biggest challenges was getting around Cave Rock on Lake Tahoe’s Nevada shoreline.

Rocks and timbers comprised a trestle built in the 1860s.

A vehicle on the trestle. Photo/Lake Tahoe Historical Society

Cave Rock trestle in the 1860s. Photo/California State Library

This single-lane structure edged its way around Cave Rock for nearly 70 years before work began on a tunnel which opened in 1931.

People used to drive around Cave Rock. Photo/Lake Tahoe Historical Society

A second tunnel was completed in 1957  to accommodate the new four-lane Highway 50 between Carson City and Stateline, with the original tunnel serving the westbound traffic lanes.

The tunnel in 1932. Photo/Lake Tahoe Historical Society

— Bill Kingman

Present day Cave Rock. Photo/Bill Kingman

Lewis Black tackles current issues with humor at MontBleu on Feb. 6. Photo Copyright 2015 Carolyn E. Wright

By Kathryn Reed

STATELINE – Mental health isn’t a laughing matter until one hears Lewis Black’s rant about the system.

It’s not that he finds mental illness humorous, but he pokes fun at how people in the United States deal with it.

Black, the king of angry humor, brought his show to a full house at MontBleu on Feb. 6.

He tackles serious issues, but in doing so illustrates the absurdity of it all. He does so with colorful language, emphatic gestures and exaggerated eye rolls. His delivery is as much a part of the humor as the words themselves. It’s edgy, provocative and a bit in your face.

If you can’t handle the F word, well, you won’t enjoy the show.

“If you have a kid, you vaccinate the f—ing kid. … It’s called the public good. Whether we like it or not we live with people. We don’t get to do what we want because we live with people,” Black said.

Black doesn’t understand how the Republican Party can call the November election a mandate when voter turnout was 34.6 percent. He pointed out how the last time it was so low was 1942, during WWII – with people dying for our right to vote.

“Both parties did something that terrorists couldn’t do – immobilize us,” Black said. “We don’t have a government anymore, we just have Groundhog Day.”

He said the only thing President Obama has done well is give a speech. House Speaker John Boehner “is a mood ring come to life.” Listening to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is like nails on a blackboard.

“The only way I can deal with the Tea Party is if I believe they are fictional characters,” Black said.

Audience members and others could submit questions that he read from his iPad. That segment then is shown on his website the next day. One was about whether women should be allowed to go topless. This led him on a diatribe for several minutes that didn’t garner much reaction.

Someone asked about what to do about Valentine’s. He called it a BS holiday.

His political humor brought about the most laughs, but the reaction to his show was tepid for much of the night. It’s hard to know if this was because it was a mixed crowd of tourists and locals or that this liberal Jew from New York was out of his element in conservative, small town Nevada.

Black has garnered a huge following from his work on “The Daily Show”, his books, more than 40 plays and five Grammy nominations, of which he has won two.

—–

Notes:

• For more about the comedian, go online. Here is the stream from the Stateline show.

A rock slide at Cave Rock has closed the west bound lanes of Highway 50.

A vehicle came across the slide at 10:41pm Feb. 7, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol. No one was injured.

Crews are on the scene. It is not known when the road will reopen.

Eastbound lanes are not affected.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By David Shepardson, Detroit News

A government study released late Friday found no evidence that marijuana use leads to a higher risk of getting into a traffic crash.

But safety advocates believe it is still dangerous to drive after smoking significant amounts of marijuana, and the government plans more testing.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said a 20-month survey of drivers in 2013 and 2014 found that while drinking dramatically raises the chance of a crash, there was no evidence that marijuana use is statistically significant in boosting wreck rates.

The agency said the issue is of growing importance in the wake of marijuana being legalized in Colorado, Oregon, Alaska and Washington state for recreational use.

The report’s findings were based on two surveys. The National Roadside Survey, which collected information from volunteer drivers at 300 research checkpoints across the U.S., and a second study — the largest of its kind ever conducted — that assessed whether marijuana use by drivers is associated with greater risk of crashes. That study, in Virginia, gathered data over 20 months from more than 3,000 drivers who were in crashes, as well as a comparison group of 6,000 drivers who did not crash.

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By USSA

BEAVER CREEK — In front of an enormous crowd of 20,000 screaming fans, the U.S. packed three guys into the top 10 on Birds of Prey. Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley) grabbed the silver medal at Saturday’s FIS Alpine World Ski Championships downhill. Steven Nyman (Sundance, Utah) was fourth and Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, N.Y.) was ninth.

Ganong was surrounded by the Swiss on the podium, as Patrick Kueng took first place and Beat Feuz third.

It was a gloriously sunny day and the place was packed. Crowds extended up the side of the race course, reaching above the finish jump. The cowbells and cheers were deafening as the Americans reached the finish.

“I could actually hear everybody off the jump,” said Jared Goldberg (Holladay, Utah).

Goldberg ran bullet for the men, and had a solid run at his first World Championships appearance, finishing 20th. The crowd really exploded when Nyman got into the gate. Nyman, who was third in December’s Birds of Prey World Cup, had a spectacular run, taking the lead for a few racers. Eventually, he was bumped down to fourth, just off the podium by 0.03.

“I was hammering. It was so cool. I was tucking in places I’ve never tucked and was just charging down the hill — giving it everything,” said Nyman. “I’m happy with my run. It was really cool to come down to this, in the lead by a couple tenths, people just going nuts.”

But the story of the day was 26-year-old Travis Ganong, who took home his first World Championships medal. He skied down in second place and didn’t give up the spot for the rest of the race.

“I’ve trained so hard the last couple of years. I love to ski. All day long, I was just super relaxed and having a good time,” said Ganong, who only has two podiums in World Cups. “It’s unbelievable. Skiing is the most fun thing you can do, and when it works out well in a venue and on a stage like this, it’s so special.”

Weibrecht was the last American down the hill, wearing bib 35, and stunned the crowd by posting the fastest splits at the top. He lost a little time when he got low after Harrier, landing him in ninth place. Still excited, he says he’s looking forward to the alpine combined on Sunday.

“These are guys I ski with every day,” said Weibrecht. “They were a little ahead of me today, so I’ll try to get them tomorrow.”