The Purgatory Freestyle and Snowboard teams are coming off of their top results of the year for the mogul, park and snowboard teams. All teams competed at home last weekend, either at Chapman Hill or at the Paradise Terrain Park at Purgatory.
Teams from Winter Park, Vail, Summit County and Telluride joined Purgatory’s freestyle mogul skiers at Chapman Hill for the Durango Orthopedics and Spine Colorado Mogul Open, a U.S. Ski Association Rocky Mountain Division event.
Trudy Mickel, Hannah Smith, Charlie Mickel and Sadie Smith all won their age groups in single-run moguls Saturday. Natalie Youssef, George McQuinn and Cole Alexus took home silver medals. Hunter Rawles won bronze. Fourth-place finishers included Coleman Bader and T.J. Rifkin. Amina Youssef, Shane Ellis and Joe Pope placed fifth, and Jimmy Pope took seventh.
Sunday brought dual moguls and a gold medal for McQuinn, who ousted teammate Jimmy Pope for the title. Sadie Smith made the finals and finished second overall. Bader took fourth, Hannah Smith sixth with Mickel and Amina Youssef ending up in eighth.
While the bumpers were tearing up Chapman Hill, the Purgatory Park and Snowboard teams competed in the United States of America Snowboard Association Southwest Colorado slopestyle event at Purgatory. The event featured 67 athletes from Purgatory, Telluride and Crested Butte
Parker Norvell posted his second win of the season to lead the Porgatory park team. He won at Vail earlier this season. Norvell also had a silver medal at the Copper Mountain Rail Jam in December.
Caleb Gates won his age group while Chance Conaty and Nolan Stowers added silver medals in their respective divisions. Chris Engman finished fifth.
The Purgatory snowboard team added to the medal count with Emily Williams and Cody Beaver bringing home gold, Joshua Dearian and Ozzy Mills silver and Eli Cagen and Quinn Haughey bronze. Daniel Lorenz took fourth.
The mogul and park teams will head to Aspen this weekend for the USSA Rocky Mountain Freeride Divisional Championships. The next USASA Southwest event will be at Purgatory on Feb. 15-17.
Visit www.usasa.org or www.rockymountainfreestyle.com for event results and information.
Test your skills
Local athletes who would like to test their freestyle skiing skills can do so at the Chapman Hill Freeride Series every Wednesday evening through February.
Hosted by the Purgatory Freestyle and Snowboard teams, the series is open to athletes of all ages and is designed to allow local kids an opportunity to compete in a fun weekly series.
Sign-ups will be at 4:30 p.m. each Wednesday in the Chapman House, with competition starting at 5 and running through 7:30.
