Los Alamos High School Senior Charlie Ulrich on top of the podium Sunday at Taos Ski Valley. Courtesy photo
Mountain Elementary 5th grader Ian McLean on top of the podium Sunday at Monarch Mountain. Courtesy photo
SPORTS News:
Over the weekend two young Los Alamos skiers, Charlotte (Charlie) Ulrich and Ian McClean, had big wins in National and Regional Junior Freeride Tour events.
Los Alamos High School Senior Charlotte (Charlie) Ulrich took first place in the Taos Junior Freeride National Tour event, in the female 15-18 category. Athletes pre-qualify for National Tour events based on their previous season results. Competitors represent teams from the Rocky Mountains, Intermountain, Pacific Northwest, Northern, and Far West Regions.
This weekend’s venue was in the west basin of Taos Ski Valley. Ulrich’s run started with a big air at the top of Stauffenburg, dropping into Stauffy Trib and skiing over to Turbinator utilizing natural rock features to show off her energy and style. Following a tight series of turns through the choke she exited the chute with a big air off a large rock, finally cutting over to smaller features to add in some stylish jumps while maintaining her speed to the finish gate.
In an event that is most often decided by tenths of a point, Ulrich established an unprecedented lead of 3.5 points after the first day of competition. She followed up with another flawless run in finals to take the win by a total of 6 points.
Skiers from Telluride took 2nd and 3rd place.
Ulrich’s next event is the Snowbird National Junior Tour event March 13-15. Currently ranked in the top 10 in North America, Ulrich has an excellent chance to make the cut for the North American Freeride Championships at Crystal Mountain, Wash. in early April.
Ulrich has been supported by Head Ski North America for the past four seasons.
Mountain Elementary 5th grader Ian McClean had an impressive result in winning his first ever freeride ski event, in the male U12 division of the Monarch Mountain Junior Regional. On day one, “Ian took off out of the start like it was a race. He made his way from feature to feature with playful technique and high energy,” his coach Jimmy Loder said.
That qualified McClean to finals in 2nd place just 0.4 points behind the leader. In finals, once again, he took off out of the gate, boosted the cornice and dove into the top technical feature. Ending with a showcase of his GS skills through the finish corral, McClean was noticeably skiing much faster and more playful than other athletes in his division. Achieving the highest score on day two, he moved into first place with a margin of 1.2 points over the 2nd and 3rd place competitors from Team Summit Colorado, and Crested Butte.
McClean has trained and competed as a racer with coach Tucker Vanormer and has aspirations to move to the freeride events as he gets older. The youngest age group for the Junior National Tour is 12-14years.
Both Ulrich and McClean train and compete with the Taos Winter Sports Team and are coached by Andrea Krejci and Jimmy Loder. In addition to their wins this weekend, teammate Andre Ortega of Taos topped the field of 50 competitors in the male 12-14 ski category at the Taos Junior National event.
Freeride skiing is conducted on expert terrain, and athletes are judged on how well they ski their chosen line within the venue boundaries. The primary score is line-difficulty, with steeper lines that include more natural features such as chutes and rock jumps being awarded higher values. All other scores are based off of the line difficulty.
The other judged categories are technique, control, fluidity, and style. The keys to a high total score are skiing over natural drops without hesitation, being immediately in control after landing when executing a jump or drop, and connecting features with a sense of flow.
Athletes get to inspect the venue but do not get a “practice” run. Junior Tour events emphasize skiing technique, and control, to ensure athletes are developing as skilled skiers who can handle increasingly extreme terrain.