Howdy Y’all,

This week was an especially wild one because while most UCSD students were busy preparing for finals during their week 10, some of our top Ski and Snowboard athletes were competing in Jackson Hole for Nationals! The athletes competing in Nationals were Lisa Shpitalnik and Jeff Lampert for Alpine Snowboard events and Tobin Groth for Freestyle Skiing. The Alpine snowboard events consisted of BoarderX, GS and Slalom races while the Freestyle skiing events were made up of SkierX, Rail Jam and Slopestyle. The Nationals Event lasted 5 days at the smaller ski mountain Snow King in the town of Jackson and 513 athletes from 93 schools competed in total. The week started off with the Skier and BoarderX events and while our athletes charged around the ruthlessly tight course, only Lisa was able to make it out of the time trial round and into the 4 person heats. Later that week Tobin participated in the slopestyle and rail jam competitions and everyone was thoroughly impressed by the amount of talent and gnar that the freestyle skier possessed. While not the most profound results, Tobin was more than pleased to not get last in either of the competitions. On the other end of the course, Lisa and Jeff fought ferociously in the GS and Slalom races. While holding their edge and blasting through the course, sadly neither athlete was able to break into the top 10. While UCSD was not recognized in any of the awards ceremonies, the athletes were more than happy to cheer on their other Southwestern Leaguemates who were able to receive some awards in their snowboard events. Though some may say it was an unsuccessful event due to the lack of hardware on the return flight, the UCSD Ski and Snowboard team returned with smiles on their faces after successfully competing in Nationals and avoiding injury on the treacherous icy sidewalks of Jackson. With Nationals completed, the final race of the year (the alumni race) is the only race we have left! Look forward to that delicious race report soon to come. Snow you next time and enjoy all that delectable snow on your respective mountains.