{"id":2441465,"date":"2019-03-07T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/colorado-and-aspen-sending-strong-contingent-to-skimo-worlds-in-switzerland\/"},"modified":"2019-03-11T10:25:57","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T16:25:57","slug":"colorado-and-aspen-sending-strong-contingent-to-skimo-worlds-in-switzerland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/colorado-and-aspen-sending-strong-contingent-to-skimo-worlds-in-switzerland\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado, and Aspen, sending strong contingent to skimo worlds in Switzerland"},"content":{"rendered":"
Roaring Fork Valley locals John Gaston, front, and Max Taam competing in the Power of 4 ski mountaineering race on the Richmond Ridge section on Aspen Mountain on Saturday. The route was re-routed from Midnight Mine to Richmond Ridge due to avalanche danger with the recent snowfall. Gaston and Taam took first place overall.<\/strong>
Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last week\u2019s Audi Power of Four ski mountaineering race in Aspen was a good tune up. Now, for many of the top athletes who competed, the stakes get a little bit bigger.<\/p>\n

The 2019 World Ski Mountaineering Championships begin Sunday and run through March 16 in Villars-sur Ollon, Switzerland. Both Aspen and the state of Colorado are well represented in worlds, which is held every two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are super excited. We had a really good turnout for our different qualifying events to name the U.S. team. We currently have the largest team we\u2019ve ever had,\u201d said United States Ski Mountaineering Association President Ram Mikulas. \u201cAs the sport is growing, the epicenter really is Colorado and a lot of that has to do with the number of races that are put on here in Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n

USSMA named 41 to its national team this winter, with 35 expected to compete in Switzerland. Of those, 16 are women and 28 are from Colorado, with the largest group coming out of Summit County. No less than six claim the Roaring Fork Valley as home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just going to be the experience of a lifetime,\u201d Aspen\u2019s Caden Klein said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be really cool. I\u2019m very excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Klein is one of 20 athletes who are under 21 years of age. He and George Beck, both 16 and sophomores at Aspen High School, will compete in the cadet men\u2019s (age 15 to 17) division at worlds. The duo paired to win the Power of Two race in Aspen earlier this month.<\/p>\n

While most of the veterans going to worlds are familiar names, it\u2019s the youth that really stands out this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new and significant difference is the amount of youth we have on the team,\u201d Mikulas said. \u201cIt\u2019s really significant and shows the growth and development of youth in this sport, and that\u2019s been a big push for our organization over the last couple of years. We are starting to see that pay off and we are super excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of veterans, Aspen\u2019s John Gaston and Max Taam, who yet again won the Power of Four this month, will return to worlds where they are savvy veterans. Taam\u2019s wife, Jessie Young, and her Power of Four-winning teammate Nikki LaRochelle of Breckenridge are two of the top U.S. women headed back to worlds.<\/p>\n

Also headed to Switzerland are Aspen\u2019s Jack Linehan and Boulder\u2019s Rory Kelly, who grew up in the Aspen area.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Power of Four runner-ups, Crested Butte\u2019s Cam Smith and Utah\u2019s Tom Goth, will also compete in Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really stoked about it and I\u2019m able to do a lot of races over there,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI\u2019m really excited to make big improvements on where I was last time, because it was a big learning experience two years ago and I\u2019ve grown a lot since then.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are five disciplines in skimo, with many of the local athletes expected to compete in either four or five of the events. It begins with Sunday\u2019s sprint race. Following are the individual races, vertical races, team races and the concluding relay races.<\/p>\n

The Power of Four in Aspen named the 2019 U.S. national champions in both team events and the vertical. Gaston was part of both national titles for the men.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel more mentally prepared,\u201d LaRochelle said. \u201cIt\u2019s a completely different ball game over there. It\u2019s so much faster and the courses are a whole different experience. I think having gone before helps just being prepared and knowing what to anticipate.\u201d<\/p>\n

acolbert@aspentimes.com<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roaring Fork Valley locals John Gaston, front, and Max Taam competing in the Power of 4 ski mountaineering race on the Richmond Ridge section on Aspen Mountain on Saturday. The route was re-routed from Midnight Mine to Richmond Ridge due to avalanche danger with the recent snowfall. Gaston and Taam took first place overall.Anna Stonehouse\/The […]<\/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":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2441465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 02:27:23","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":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2441465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2441465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2441465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2441465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}