{"id":801273,"date":"2019-11-12T18:31:23","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T01:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=374402"},"modified":"2019-11-12T18:31:23","modified_gmt":"2019-11-13T01:31:23","slug":"summit-residents-win-at-season-opening-para-snowboard-europa-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/summit-residents-win-at-season-opening-para-snowboard-europa-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Summit residents win at season-opening para-snowboard Europa Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mike Minor, of Frisco, snowboards during a banked-slalom competition at the Jeongseon Alpine Centre in Jeongseon, South Korea, at the Paralympic Winter Games in March 2018.<\/strong>
Thomas Lovelock \/ AP File<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

FRISCO \u2014 Though the United States doesn\u2019t have an official contingent at this week\u2019s Europa and World Cup para banked slalom competitions in Landgraaf, Netherlands, Summit County-based Adaptive Action Sports riders are ready to rep the red, white and blue at SnowWorld Landgraaf.<\/p>\n

At Tuesday\u2019s season-opening Europa Cup competition, the Copper Mountain Resort-based riders dropped into the season with a rollicking start.<\/p>\n

Pyeongchang 2018 Paralympic gold medalist Mike Minor, of Frisco, and Denver-native and Wildernest resident Zach Miller each won their respective racing divisions at the one-of-a-kind indoor competition venue. Minor sped down the 18-turn banked slalom course in 43.88 seconds, the fastest of any of the more than 80 riders from 17 countries who competed across para-snowboarding divisions that classify based on upper- and lower-limb conditions and amputations.<\/p>\n

As he had the Europa Cup win locked down after his first run, Minor hucked some tricks on what amounted to a celebration run his second time down the course, attempting his trademark front flip to excite his Adaptive Action Sports teammates at the venue dubbed \u201cthe freezer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a unique event,\u201d Olympic and X Games snowboard and skateboard medalist Minor said. \u201cI don\u2019t think we ride another event the whole season that\u2019s close to it. Some people don\u2019t enjoy riding indoors, but I think it\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s Europa Cup event featured the same elite para-snowboarders who will compete at Wednesday and Thursday\u2019s World Cup events, which also will be banked slalom and take place on the same course, the only change being where gates are located.<\/p>\n

For Minor, who returns to the World Cup circuit this season after taking a season off in 2018-19, Tuesday\u2019s competition was proof that China and other countries are gearing up to contend at Beijing 2022 after the U.S. cleaned up at Pyeongchang 2018.<\/p>\n

With 82 snowboarders, Tuesday was the largest Europa Cup in history and also featured for the first time a women\u2019s upper-limb division after Summit County local Kiana Clay was the division\u2019s pioneer in 2018-19. Though Clay isn\u2019t in the Netherlands to compete this week, Minor and Miller said 10 women from China, Hungary, Switzerland and Russia are new snowboarders for the division.<\/p>\n

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LIVE: Opening Day first chair runs at Copper Mountain Resort with Adaptive Action Sports Para-snowboarders Joe Pleban, Garrett Geros and Adaptive Action Sports Executive Director Daniel Gale\u2026<\/p>\n

Posted by Summit Daily News<\/a> on Friday, November 8, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cBut I noticed the biggest growth in China,\u201d Minor said. \u201cThey put together, I think their team is 22 or 25 people now, which I think might be bigger than the United States. And their coach was actually the old coach for Canada. He\u2019s been putting in work with those guys, and he straight up told me, \u2018I ain\u2019t letting you have a cakewalk this year. I\u2019m going to give you some competition.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old Denver-native Miller notched his first career Europa or World Cup win by posting the second-fastest overall time for the day, a 45.33, to win the lower-limb two racing division. Miller competes in LL2 because he\u2019s lived with and battled cerebral palsy his entire life. It was while being treated at Children\u2019s Hospital Colorado as a child when Miller fell in love with snowboarding, a passion that led him to his first para-snowboard World Cup competition at age 14 in Aspen.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t until last season when Miller podiumed on the World Cup circuit, earning eight medals in 11 attempts. The success earned Miller a spot on the U.S. Para Snowboard Team, which helped him to improve his skill enough to win his first Europa or World Cup event Tuesday, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took a lot of time for me to build myself up the ranks because I was super young, super small, and so there was just not a lot of momentum and speed I could generate on a course,\u201d Miller said. \u201cI\u2019ve been training with Adaptive Action Sports, and because I\u2019ve been training with Team USA, I\u2019ve finally really been able to unlock my potential as an athlete to get on the top of the podium.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was pretty cool to finally come through the finish line and hear the announcer announce that \u201845.33,\u2019\u201d Miller said. \u201cI didn\u2019t expect it, so when she said it, I clapped my hands together so hard that they hurt for the next 15 minutes. That was a pretty cool moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

A trio of other Summit County-based Adaptive Action Sports athletes \u2014 Garret Geros, Joe Pleban and Alex Rivera \u2014 also competed Tuesday, each finishing in the top 10 in their respective divisions.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike Minor, of Frisco, snowboards during a banked-slalom competition at the Jeongseon Alpine Centre in Jeongseon, South Korea, at the Paralympic Winter Games in March 2018.Thomas Lovelock \/ AP File FRISCO \u2014 Though the United States doesn\u2019t have an official contingent at this week\u2019s Europa and World Cup para banked slalom competitions in Landgraaf, Netherlands, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-801273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-01 14:51:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}