River Radamus achieved what would be considered a major milestone in the career of any ski racer on Sunday; he earned his first World Cup points.
Radamus, of Edwards, skied his first ever World Cup giant slalom on the Gran Risa in Italy’s Alta Badia venue, a favorite among competitors for the technically demanding challenges it presents.
“It feels amazing,” Radamus said. “I really wanted to perform here, this is the mecca of GS skiing … Everybody loves this one the most.”
Radamus made it through to the second run with his 29th place finish in the first of the two combined runs, where he finished 3.39 seconds off leader Marcel Hirscher.
As Hirscher went on to improve his lead to a massive 2.53 seconds ahead of second place finisher Thomas Fanara in the second run, Radamus too improved his standing to 24th place, 5.11 seconds away from Hirscher.
“I want to prove what I got, so I really wanted to throw down on the second run,” Radamus said. “I didn’t quite do it, made a couple little mistakes, but I felt really proud about my mentality, didn’t want to back off at all.”
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Radamus said while he was happy with the result, he thinks he probably could have finished even better.
“I skied a little bit bad up top and I realized that just wasn’t going to cut it,” he said.
‘CLASSIC GS RACES’
This season Radamus has been working with coach Martin Andersen, who has been spending a lot of time with him and fellow US Alpine B team member Luke Winters.
“I’m just focusing on training, trying to keep improving, getting better, and the speed will come as it did today,” Radamus said. “I’m just trying to get better every day and not stress out about the races as much.”
Radamus was one of four U.S. athletes to make it into the top 30 on Sunday, with Oregon skier Tommy Ford achieving his career best result in 5th place, Ryan Cochran-Siegle in 16th and Brian McLaughlin in 27th.
“We’ve got a really great group right now,” Radamus said. “Everybody’s firing, everybody’s skiing well, Ryan and Tommy and all those guys are just crushing it right now.”
For his own part, “I felt like finally I’m in the show, I’m finally a part of this,” Radamus said.
Moving forward, Radamus is looking forward to participating on the remainder of the World Cup tour for his first full year at the top level.
“I’m also looking forward to Kranjska Gora (in Slovenia on March 9),” he said. “These are the classic GS races right here and it’s a dream come true to get to race them.”
