By Lauren Gustus, Renog Gazette-Journal
Building your own ski cross course is becoming the popular thing to do at Lake Tahoe these days.
Errol Kerr, the Jamaican ski cross racer and Truckee resident, is the latest to construct a course. His is at Alpine Meadows, which is Kerr’s home mountain.
Earlier this month, U.S. ski cross racer and fellow Truckee resident Daron Rahlves helped design a course at his home mountain of Sugar Bowl.
By USSA
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — Less than one week before the 2010 Games open in Vancouver, the U.S. Olympic moguls team has returned to the site of its Olympic Trials event and are putting the finishing touches on their runs before they are Vancouver Bound.
“The camp is going great here in Steamboat. It is like a breath of fresh air after the tense Olympic qualifying World Cups,” 2002 Olympic silver medalist Shannon Bahrke (Tahoe City, CA) said. “I am able to focus on what I want to do in Vancouver and not worry about anything else. I only have one job to do now.”
“Steamboat has a long and proud freestyle tradition, so it only seems appropriate that Ski Town USA hosts the U.S. Olympic Moguls Team as it makes final preparations for the Vancouver Olympics,” said Andy Wirth, Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp.’s senior vice president of sales and marketing. “The resort has worked extensively with the U.S. Ski team to ensure the training venue on Voo Doo is similar in as many ways as possible to the one that America’s best athletes will be competing on in Vancouver.”
Tearing up the Voo Doo run before they cross the Canadian border on Sunday, U.S. Moguls Coach Scott Rawles says training at Steamboat Springs is the perfect way to send off the athletes.
“It is always great to come back to a resort town with such a great history of sending athletes to the Olympic Games,” Rawles said. “Steamboat will be a great place to get back our focus after taking a week off after a series of grueling January World Cups.”
Steamboat completely rebuilt its moguls run in order to help prepare the moguls athletes for what the course at Cypress Mountain will be.
“Steamboat has done an excellent job preparing the course for us, building the jumps so they will be similar to the ones that will be up in Vancouver,” Bahrke said.
The Team starts its journey to Canada on Sunday, before the Olympic Opening Ceremony officially kick off two weeks of athletic competition on Friday. Women’s moguls will get underway on Feb. 13.
Forecast still calls for snow all day in Lake Tahoe. It’s dry at the lake on the South Shore this morning. Here’s the ski report from Curtis Fong, the Guy from Tahoe.
By Kathryn Reed
TWIN BRIDGES — Riding the same boardercross route that has enabled Joanie Anderson to become a world-class athlete did not deter or intimidate these riders. This particular group went up and over the rollers on Friday like they may follow in her footsteps.
The only difference is they will be doing it with prosthetics.
Mike Shea and Evan Strong are ready to tackle the boardercross at Sierra. Photos/Kathryn Reed
“It’s my first time to ride with other amputees. You learn from each other,” said Mike Shea, who lives in Castaic in Southern California. He comes to Lake Tahoe a few times a year to snowboard.
He was an able bodied snowboarder until a ski rope wrapped around his leg when he fell out of a boat severed his leg. Shea was back on the slopes a few months after the debilitating accident, but he admits he had to relearn the sport.
Brady Gunsch, who is a coach at Sierra-at-Tahoe, dispensed advice to the adaptive riders in advance of today’s race. Adaptive boardercross is part of the USASA’s list of events today at Sierra.
“They won’t change the rollers, but they’ll put a little more lip on it (for the race),” Gunsch told the handful of riders at the top of Smokey.
He told them they can rub against another rider, but pushing is not allowed.
Mike Shea, right, listens to Coach Brady Gunsch.
Evan Strong of Nevada City has been competing in skateboarding for years — even before his accident — so transitioning to snowboarding competitions has not been too difficult. This is his third winter on a board.
“I want to inspire abled and disabled to feel passionate about anything. To be alive,” Strong said.
He wants to see how far he can go with snowboarding.
Strong is headed to Vancouver in March to be part of the Paralympic Games. He’ll be in a skateboarding exhibition during the Opening Ceremonies in Vancouver. One day he’d like to compete for a medal in the Games.
All of these athletes came together because of Adaptive Action Sports. This group was founded by Daniel Gale and Amy Purdy to encourage people living with permanent physical disabilities to get active.
“The goal is to get people to qualify for the USASA Nationals (in April),” Brent Kuemmerle, the organization’s winter program director, said of today’s event. “We picked Sierra because they have a long standing tradition of putting out Olympic athletes.”
By Micah Abrams, ESPN
Everybody can exhale. The Winter Dew Tour Slopestyle came to it’s final, inevitable, and thrilling conclusion Friday at Mount Snow in Vermont. In addition to handing out hardware for the tour’s third stop — the Toyota Championship — overall Dew Cup Slopestyle Champions were also named. Needless to say, excitement abounds.
Arguably, the day belonged to 19-year-old Jamie Anderson, who rebounded from a disappointing Winter X Games performance to earn both the event and overall win. “It’s unbelievable; I’m so excited to win the Dew Cup,” she said. “I’ve come close before so to actually get it this year is a great feeling.”
South Tahoe's Jaime Anderson wins the Dew Series in Vermont Feb. 5. Photo/Jen Kotter/courtesy Sierra Resort
Wind could be a problem at some resorts this morning. Here is the ski report from Curtis Fong, the Guy from Tahoe.
Douglas County Parks and Recreation Department Girls Basketball Clinics for grades 3-8 will be at Kahle Community Center in Stateline March 6 and March 13 from 4-6pm
Cost: $8 per clinic, payable to the instructor,
Kahle Community Center will offer a girls 3 on 3 basketball league next fall-winter.
For Information, call (775) 588-5309 or email tracyowenchapman@gmail.com
The South Lake Tahoe Ice Arena will host the Pacific Collegiate Hockey Association Tournament this weekend. Starting Friday, five West Coast teams will vie to advance to the National Tournament.
Play continues all Saturday afternoon and concludes Sunday morning.
Watch a lot of action for $5 per game or $20 for the entire tournament.
For game times and more information, call (530) 542.6262, or go by the South Lake Tahoe Ice Arena at 1176 Rufus Allen Blvd., South Lake Tahoe.
Weather is on its way — though most likely Friday is the powder day. Here is today’s ski report from Curtis Fong, the Guy from Tahoe.
By Paul Rogers, San Jose Mercury News
Watch out, Smokey. Keep your head down, Yogi.
Saying that California’s black bear population has quadrupled in the past 25 years, state Fish and Game Department officials are drafting new rules that could increase the number of black bears killed by hunters each year in the state by 50 percent or more.
The proposal also would allow hunters for the first time to use global positioning system devices on the collars of hounds that they use to track bears, along with automatic triggers that alert hunters when their dogs have treed a bear.