Alright, alright, alright. Over the wonderful Martin Luther king Jr. weekend, your own UCSD Ski and Snowboard team had their second race of the season. While Mother Nature deposited some snow on the mountain a few days prior to the weekend, no races were cancelled and the elusive SkierX/BoarderX event actually occurred. This weekend consisted of the Giant Slalom, Slopestyle and of course the cross races.

For giant slalom, our ladies had a tough time with not a single skier racing into the top ten, the course conditions were absolutely brutal. Our guys on the other hand pulled out with two top ten finished done by Jack Beaver and Rem Barthe. Following the giant slalom, our boarders and skiers got to experience the first slopestyle event of the year. While not an uncommon event for a given race weekend, the slopestyle event is a freestyle event where the skiers have a set of rails/bars/barrels to hit as well as a few jumps down a course and try their best to score highest on each feature. Our skiers and boarders were absolutely hucking it this weekend, putting their lives on the line to compete at the highest pedigree. The improvement can only be attributed to our weekly freestyle practices at UCSD Sports and Recreation. While greatly improved, our male boarders had a rough time overall. For our females we had Yayi Guo place in the top 10, a fabulous finish for this first-time racer.  For the males we had our pal Oliver squeaking into the top 20 with a 20th place locked down. Over on the skiing end, we once again have Beaver and Remi locking in solid spots at a 4th and 3rd respectively. For our skier females, we had Kathy Qi lock in at a solid second place. Kathy’s consistency in the freestyle events have even locked her down a sponsorship from the league for nationals. Kathy knows how to huck. For the last and final event of the weekend, we had the crazy and pretty much gnarliest event: he Boarder/SkierX. The course is made up of jumps and bends and bumps and athletes race down the course in heats of 4 and advance if they finish in the top 2 of each heat. Last year we never saw the Boarder/SkierX event due to lack of snow conditions, so it was really a treat to have such a fun race during our second race weekend. Due to technical difficulties we do not have the exact placements, but I can only image the adrenaline and excitement that was coursing through the veins of our athletes throughout the entire event. Unfortunately, our valiant co-president Jeff Lampert sustained an ankle injury that will put him out for a weekend, but he will hopefully be ready by the next race weekend.

Once the races were completed, our skiers got to enjoy a solid blue bird powder day on Monday following a brief overnight storm. As our coach Joe put it, “it was a solid foot of platinum powder that we could seriously smash our snow weapons into.” Couldn’t have put it better myself Joe. While it may seem likes weeks until the next race weekend, have no fear, it is a measly 2 weeks, but be ready, there’s a storm a brewing. Snow you later amigos.