{"id":2442010,"date":"2019-03-21T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-grad-ben-throm-competes-in-skiing-at-ncaa-championships\/"},"modified":"2019-03-22T08:37:40","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T14:37:40","slug":"aspen-grad-ben-throm-competes-in-skiing-at-ncaa-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-grad-ben-throm-competes-in-skiing-at-ncaa-championships\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen grad Ben Throm competes in skiing at NCAA championships"},"content":{"rendered":"
Aspen’s Ben Throm, of Saint Michael’s College, competes during the men’s giant slalom race during at the NCAA skiing championships, held at the Trapp Family Lodge on March 7, 2019, in Stowe, Vermont.<\/strong>
Brett Wilhelm\/NCAA Photos | NCAA Photos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ski racing on the East Coast is as it should be \u2014 icy and fast. Aspen\u2019s Ben Throm isn\u2019t quite as enthusiastic about the freeskiing, however, but he\u2019s certainly not complaining about having the opportunity to compete collegiately.<\/p>\n

The 2015 Aspen High School graduate is a freshman at Saint Michael\u2019s College in Colchester, Vermont, which is located on Lake Champlain and only a short drive from Stowe Mountain Resort. Throm recently took to the slopes in Stowe while competing at the NCAA skiing championships for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was awesome. It\u2019s way different than any other race I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d Throm recently said. \u201cThere are only 34 people to race. There are cameras everywhere. It\u2019s a pretty cool experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throm, 22, is a former Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club athlete with deep roots in the Roaring Fork Valley. His college career got off to a slow start because of a three-year break after high school. He had to overcome two ACL tears, including one his senior year at AHS, spending much of that time in the AVSC\u2019s post graduate program.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s competed in numerous FIS and Nor-Am Cup races over the past few years, working to get his points down and get the attention of a college team. He\u2019s even returned home to compete in the Audi Ajax Cup, AVSC\u2019s largest fundraiser, and was part of this past year\u2019s winning team alongside pro Megan McJames.<\/p>\n

Finally, it was Purple Knights coach Gus MacLeod who saw enough and offered him a spot on the Saint Michael\u2019s alpine ski team this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the one coach who wanted me,\u201d Throm said. \u201cI met with him last fall and he\u2019s a really good guy. Super good coach, so it just worked out really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throm recorded four top-10 finishes over the season, all in giant slalom, including one podium. Throm was one of five Saint Michael\u2019s alpine skiers \u2014 three men, two women \u2014 to make the NCAA championships, held March 6 to 9 in Stowe.<\/p>\n

He finished toward the bottom of the pack in giant slalom, taking 24th, while finishing 19th in slalom. While he has competed in super-G in recent years, his focus nowadays is purely on technical events as there are no speed races at the collegiate level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a different scene when you are in school,\u201d Throm said of skiing while also being a college student. \u201cA lot more work and a lot less time skiing. I feel like most sports when you go to college you end up playing them way more. Skiing is kind of different. You are skiing less than you ever have been before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throm was one of two former AVSC athletes who competed in alpine races at the NCAA championships. Sky Kelsey, who competes for the University of Alaska Anchorage, finished 29th in the men\u2019s slalom and 16th in GS.<\/p>\n

The University of Utah won the 2019 national championship \u2014 a combined alpine and Nordic affair \u2014 while host Vermont was second and the University of Colorado was third. Alaska Anchorage was eighth and Saint Michael\u2019s 13th out of 24 schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext few years, hopefully the same kind of stuff,\u201d Throm said of moving forward. \u201cMake NCAAs and hopefully ski better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AVSC also had a lone representative on the Nordic side of things at the NCAA championships. Anna Fake, who attends Montana State University and grew up in Telluride, was 27th in the women\u2019s 5k freestyle and 22nd in the 15k classic.<\/p>\n

Carbondale\u2019s Evelina Sutro, a non-AVSC athlete who attends the University of Vermont, had a stronger showing. She was ninth in the classical race and third in freestyle, even edging U.S. Ski Team member Katharine Ogden by a spot. Ogden won the classical race at Stowe.<\/p>\n

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

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

Aspen’s Ben Throm, of Saint Michael’s College, competes during the men’s giant slalom race during at the NCAA skiing championships, held at the Trapp Family Lodge on March 7, 2019, in Stowe, Vermont.Brett Wilhelm\/NCAA Photos | NCAA Photos Ski racing on the East Coast is as it should be \u2014 icy and fast. Aspen\u2019s Ben […]<\/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-2442010","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 16:27:18","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\/2442010","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=2442010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}