The legion of ski racers from the Purgatory ski team represented its home mountain well at the NASTAR National Championships last weekend at Aspen Snowmass.
Purgatory finished third overall as a team in the resort category.
“We’ve never even competed for that before,” Purgatory ski team coach Ivan Unkovskoy said.
Aspen Mountain finished first, and Buck Hill, Minn., came in second.
Unkovskoy’s son, Nicholas, finished first in the boys 10-11 age group of the platinum division in the slalom at 29.42 seconds, which gave him a 13.24 handicap.
The NASTAR handicap is determined with a formula based on how much slower a competitor is than national pacesetter Ted Ligety.
Unkovskoy’s first-place finish qualified him for the Race of Champions, which pits all of the category winners from all age groups against each other.
Wes Jackson joined him by winning the boys 10-11 gold division of the giant slalom.
Unkovskoy finished seventh in the Race of Champions raw time at 28.66 seconds while Jackson came in 18th at 31.31.
The competitor with the lowest raw time received an all-expenses-paid trip to Chile to train with the U.S. Ski Team.
“For him to get that close, I thought it was really cool,” Ivan Unkovskoy said of his son.
Mike Maple of Aspen finished first in the raw time competition at 26.54.
The raw time is calculated in a formula with a competitor’s NASTAR handicap to determine the discounted time, which then determines the national champion.
“It’s really fair to everyone,” Unkovskoy said.
Adam Adkins moved up from fifth in the raw time race at 27.73 to win the discounted time championship at 25.21.
Wiley Cora followed Unkovskoy in third in the slalom boys 10-11 platinum division with a 9.7 handicap.
Calvin Chase was fourth at 10.82, Sven Barr 14th at 16.17 and Harry LeSage 15th at 16.65.
Isabelle Washburn finished second in the girls 10-11 platinum slalom with a 24.06 handicap.
Maddy LeSage came in seventh of the age 8-9 silver division. She also came in 20th in the girls 9-10 giant slalom with a 36.17 handicap.
Annie Watson took fifth in the 12-13 age group at 30.13.
Anne Chase came in second in the age 14-15 gold division with a 20.36.
Paige Thompson finished third in the silver division with a 29.00.
Isabelle Washburn came in seventh in the 10-11 age group at 19.83, Elena Golber 10th at 23.93 and Eva Watson 12th at 48.04.
Toby Scarpella finished sixth in the age 8-9 division of the giant slalom with a 19.33 handicap, and Jake Washburn finished seventh in the silver division at 56.55.
“The club went from 20 kids five or six years ago to 90 kids now. Excellence and good results builds a lot of confidence and things to aspire to,” Unkovskoy said. “Right now, we have a real groundswell of youths coming up, which is emblematic of a lot of the clubs in the league.”
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