South Tahoe’s Elena Hight was on top of the podium Saturday night after winning the snowboard superpipe final at the Winter Dew Tour. Danny Davis of Highland, Mich., won the men’s event.
Sunday’s events in Ogden, Utah, include the snowboard and freeski slopestyle finals.
Lake Tahoe Community College’s Performing Arts League presents the John Jorgenson Quintet in Concert Jan. 22 at 7:30pm in the college’s Duke Theatre.
Tickets: $15 at the door/$12 in advance online or at the LTCC bookstore. Children 10 and under are free when accompanied by an adult.
Sports injury and prevention lecture on Jan. 27 from 6:30-8pm at Lake Tahoe Community College. Click lecture for more details.
South Lake Tahoe Ice Arena is hosting a curling clinic on Jan. 31 from 2:30-3:45pm.
Curling is an Olympic sport similar to shuffleboard played on ice.
Instruction will include discussion on safety, equipment, preparation, technique and rules of the game.
The fee is $8, and space is limited. Spectators are welcome at no charge. For more information, come by the arena at 1176 Rufus Allen Blvd., South Lake Tahoe, or call (530) 542.6262.
A bear hunting clinic is being offered by California Department of Fish & Game on Feb. 13 in Diamond Springs, which is south of South Lake Tahoe.
The $45 class is from 9am-4pm.
Click here to register.
By USSA
MARIBOR, Slovenia — Two-time defending overall champion Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO) was challenging for a podium result until going out near the finish line of her second run Saturday in an Audi FIS Alpine World Cup giant slalom won by Austrian Kathrin Zettel.
“It happens,” said women’s alpine head coach Jim Tracy of the bad breaks that have riddled Vonn’s recent slalom history. “Unfortunately, she’s had her fair share of it, and enough’s enough now.”
Vonn, who had failed to reach the final run of her previous three giant slaloms, charged to a second-place first run that positioned the 2010 overall leader to bid for her first World Cup podium in the discipline.
Vonn made a mistake early in her second run, going up on one ski, then recovered and skied aggressively to make up time before hitting a bump and going off course late.
“I just hit a rut,” she said. “I couldn’t really see anything. I’m just so mad.”
A day after she said Vonn’s 112-point World Cup overall lead was insurmountable because of the preponderance of speed events remaining, Germany’s Maria Riesch took second and closed the gap to 32.
Julia Mancuso (Olympic Valley, CA), the only other American to make the top 30 final, was 25th for the U.S. Team.
Sunday’s slalom – the second of the Golden Fox races – is the last before the Olympic Team is nominated on Jan. 25, and the second-to-last technical event (a giant slalom is slated for Jan. 24 in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy).
Maribor, Slovenia, Jan. 16, Women’s Giant Slalom
1. Kathrin Zettel, Austria, 2:36.22
2. Maria Riesch, Germany, 2:36.45
3. Anja Paerson, Sweden, 2:36.70
4. Kathrin Hoelzl, Germany, 2:37.08
5. Andrea Fischbacher, Austria, 2:37.13
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25. Julia Mancuso, Olympic Valley, CA, 2:39.13
–
DNF2: Lindsey Vonn, Vail, CO
DNQ: Megan McJames, Park City, UT; Jessica Kelley, Starksboro, VT; Sarah Schleper, Vail, CO
Additional H1N1 (swine) flu community vaccination clinics have been scheduled in El Dorado County. The clinics are open to all El Dorado County residents.
The vaccine is free and will be administered subject to availability.
The community flu shot clinics in the Placerville area are sponsored by the El Dorado County Health Services Department, Public Health Division; the clinics in South Lake Tahoe are organized by Barton Health and co-sponsored by the Health Services Department and the Lake Tahoe Unified School District.
The dates and locations of upcoming community H1N1 vaccination clinics include:
Jan. 28 from 12:30-3:00pm at the Mother Lode Lions Hall, 4701 Missouri Flat Road, Diamond Springs.
Jan. 28 from 4-6:30pm at Bijou Community School in the multipurpose room, 3501 Spruce Ave., South Lake Tahoe.
Feb. 3 from 3-6pm at South Tahoe Middle School in the multipurpose room, 2940 Lake Tahoe Blvd., South Lake Tahoe.
Feb. 18 from 1-3pm at Light of the Hills Lutheran Church in the Fellowship Hall, 3100 Rodeo Road, Cameron Park.
By USSA
WENGEN, Switzerland -– Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, NY) continued to establish himself as a consistent force in Audi FIS Alpine World Cup speed events, taking 13th for his eighth career top-15 in Saturday’s downhill at Wengen, Switzerland, while Bode Miller (Franconia, NH) was a tactical error away from putting down another podium run.
“Today was a good day for Andrew Weibrecht,” said U.S. men’s head coach Sasha Rearick. “He executed from top to bottom his gameplan.”
With the eyes of Switzerland watching the 80th running of the famed, 2.7-mile Lauberhorn – the oldest and longest World Cup downhill – Weibrecht didn’t look like a man making his third season in Wengen.
Switzerland’s Carlo Janka won the race a day after Miller edged him for a super combined victory, and he nearly got another run for his money from the two-time World Cup overall champion.
Miller had the fastest time of the first 12 racers at the fifth and final interval, but an aggressive line through the super G turns forced him low, and he tried to take an aggressively straight line through the final turns to compensate and missed a gate just before the finish.
“I hit my elbow on the ground,” said Miller, who won back-to-back downhills at Wengen in 2007 and 2008 and became the first American to win the super combined there since Buddy Werner in 1958. “I just hit one bump. I couldn’t really see that great. It kind of got overcast today and it was tough light, and once I made that mistake, I came out of the turn with no speed at all.”
Steven Nyman (Sundance, UT) said he was tired at the end of his run, but he earned a solid 21st place after injuring his ankle in last year’s Lauberhorn and missing the World Championships.
Erik Fisher (Middleton, ID) landed in the points, but that didn’t satisfy the high expectations Rearick has for the talented 24-year-old.
Squaw Valley’s own Travis Ganong took 43rd in just his third World Cup start, while Marco Sullivan was 36th after his tails slid out near the start and he lost speed before the flats.
Next up for the speedsters is the similarly prestigious Hahnenkamm races in Kitzbuehel, Austria, next weekend.
Wengen, Switzerland, Jan. 16, Men’s Downhill
1. Carlo Janka, Switzerland, 2:32.23
2. Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Canada, 2:32.89
3. Marco Buechel, Liechtenstein, 2:33.05
4. Werner Heel, Italy, 2:33.06
T-5. Didier Cuche, Switzerland, and Andrej Jerman, Slovenia, 2:33.09
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13. Andrew Weibrecht, Lake Placid, NY, 2:34.09
21. Steven Nyman, Sundance, UT, 2:35.10
28. Erik Fisher, Middleton, ID, 2:35.66
36. Marco Sullivan, Squaw Valley, CA, 2:37.28
41. Scott Macartney, Crystal Mountain, WA, 2:37.82
43. Travis Ganong, Squaw Valley, CA, 2:38.46
DNF – Bode Miller, Franconia, NH
Welcome to the start of Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. Here is the ski report from Curtis Fong, the Guy from Tahoe.
By Kathryn Reed
It was a universal look of disbelief and bewilderment upon the faces of the Lake Tahoe Unified School District board members as they learned $850,000 is likely going to be taken away by the state in the 2010-11 fiscal year.
Chief Financial Officer Deb Yates delivered the news about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposals this week.
California is facing a $20 billion deficit. Schools are just one of many entities feeling the belt be squeezed even tighter.
As in past years, what comes out of the Capitol in January may not resemble what the Legislature negotiates and the governor ultimately signs off on. But often times the numbers just get worse and not better.
For the current fiscal year the state reduced what it pays districts for average daily attendance. It was promised to be a one time take-away. Now the governor wants to make it permanent.
It wasn’t so bad this year because federal stimulus dollars backfilled what the state took away. The same scenario will not exist in the next fiscal year.
This is $201 per student for LTUSD.
The governor in his address this month said he would fully fund the statutory cost of living allowance. But he failed to disclose that amount was a negative number – minus 0.38 percent. This is another $24 per student take-away.
The total loss of $225 per student for LTUSD equals $850,000. That is the amount the district will need to trim from its nearly $30 million budget.
With education, though, most of the money that comes in is designated toward specific areas. The discretionary allocations are minuscule.
Schwarzenegger also this month said districts need to cut “central administration costs†and not from classrooms.
“There would be no one left standing in this building,†Yates said Tuesday night of that idea.
Central admin for Lake Tahoe Unified is the superintendent’s office, finance and human resources.
The school board plans to schedule a retreat soon to discuss the budget. They all looked shell shocked Jan. 12 as Yates gave her presentation.
It’s possible the district could reduce its 3 percent reserve. What hasn’t been trimmed from flexible accounts, likely will be.
The governor proposes changing state law so districts could layoff teachers without regard to seniority, not give laid off teacher preference in regards to substitute positions, and changing the March 15 notification to a 60-day period. He also threw out the idea of doing away with classified positions and having districts contract out that work.
“The governor said he was going to protect education and he didn’t,” Superintendent Jim Tarwater told Lake Tahoe News before Tuesday’s meeting. He said the district will be watching what Sacramento does so the district can plan accordingly.