Five Purgatory Freestyle Team skiers have earned honors to represent their team at the Marriott USSA Freestyle Junior Nationals March 10-16 at Park City, Utah.
Hannah Smith will lead the team in her fourth trip to this prestigious event, which brings together the top 60 USSA freestyle athletes from across the country 18 years of age and younger.
Smith came off of top mogul and dual-mogul performances on Presidents Day weekend in Telluride, where she posted fourth, fifth and second-place overall finishes to earn invitations as an all-event competitor in moguls, dual moguls, halfpipe, slopestyle and aerials.
Joining Smith from the Purgatory team will be two-time national junior combined champion George McQuinn, who again will represent the Rocky Mountain Division in the combined events of moguls, halfpipe and aerials.
Hannah’s sister Sadie Smith, Trudy Mickel and Natalie Youssef will round out Purgatory’s contingent on the Junior National team.
This past weekend Purgatory park specialist Parker Norvell earned a spot to the USASA Nationals in Copper Mountain. USASA Nationals brings together the top park and pipe athletes from across the country. Norvell won the event in Powderhorn to secure his spot.
Nolan Stowers, Chance Conaty, Garrett Coleman and Caleb Gates have all been posting high results in the park, as well, and are awaiting final results for potential nationals invites.
For the younger Devo freestyle athletes, Nina Quayle, Freddie Mickel and Cole Alexus all won their age groups in Telluride last weekend in the Southwest Tour mogul competition, which featured 90 athletes age 13 and younger.
Charlie Mickel and Hunter Rawles were second in their age groups with Rawles also placing second overall, Alexus fourth and Charlie Mickel seventh in the full field of 45 boys.
Emma Duke was fourth in her age group, Aiden Quayle eighth and Freddy Rawles ninth. Cameron Kelley, 12th, and Jaden Kirk, 16th, skied well in their first-ever competition.
The Purgatory Freestyle Devo Team will be hosting a Southwest Tour mogul event this Sunday at Purgatory starting at 10 a.m.
“All of our athletes across the board have kept posting personal bests throughout the season, in large part due to their strong work ethic and the great mogul training and features available at Chapman Hill,” said Kirk Rawles, head coach of the Purgatory Freestyle Team. “This, along with the new features in the Paradise terrain park at Purgatory, has led to better starts in bigger events.”
As a result, the Smith Sisters recently returned from a Nor Am competition last weekend in Vail against the U.S. and Canadian freestyle teams, Rawles said, while Norvell and Stowers competed last week at the Aspen Open, which features X Game and Olympic athletes.
