Home

Steamboat Springs — For members of Colorado Mountain College's Alpine ski team, cabin fever ends today.

Coach George Thomas said this afternoon's fitness tests will bring an end to the team's preseason dry-land practices. The daily sessions began Sept. 6, and wintry weather has pushed team training inside the CMC gym while the snow accumulates outside.

Not that the team has missed out on early-season conditions.

The team has had seven days of on-mountain training at Copper Mountain, Thomas said Tuesday afternoon after a heated team volleyball match. Thomas said the intense preseason training has whittled the team down to a "pretty motivated and solid" core group of eight members.

CMC races in the nine-team Rocky Mountain Conference of the U.S. Collegiate Ski Association, which subscribes to NCAA Division II eligibility rules. The Alpine team competes only in the technical disciplines of slalom and giant slalom. The Nordic team is based out of the Timberline Campus in Leadville.

Brendan Brousseau, who led the team to the 2006 USCSA National Championships, will not return for a second season with the Alpine team. The team tied for 10th in combined score, and Brousseau qualified individually for the U.S. National Championships as the top overall U.S. finisher.

Of the men's team's two returning skiers, Thomas noted the steady progress Chris Smith has made after spending the summer training at Mount Hood, Ore., as well as Kerry Lofy's physical shape and focus heading into the season.

Thomas thinks his two female racers are good enough to qualify for the USCSA Western Regional Championships from Feb. 21 to 24 in Red Lodge, Mont. They are Kara Norby and Colorado School of Mines transfer Alyssa Wedgwood.

Because three skier scores are necessary for a team finish, the girls team will use a "ghost" skier score. Although the boys team already has set its sight on being one of 19 teams to qualify for the USCSA nationals March 8 to 10 in Winter Park, the girls will try to qualify as individuals.

The team begins on-mountain training at Howelsen Hill and the Steamboat Ski Area after the Thanksgiving holiday, after which it will embark on a packed schedule of daily practices and weekend competitions that run from Christmas through regionals.

CMC will have its first test at the FIS-sanctioned Rocky Mountain Trophy Series races on Dec. 9 and 10 in Winter Park. The first of four USCSA conference competitions is Jan. 20 and 21 at Beaver Creek.

"The way I look at it, if I can get kids fired up who want to develop but don't have a low enough point profile to ski at an NCAA school, we have the resources, funding and academic support to offer them two years to give them solid training and race starts to move up to a pretty high level," Thomas said.

Of these "hungry" racers, Norby said she had lowered her points enough from the past season to have the option to transfer to an NCAA-level program in the future. For now, the Wisconsin native who moved to Colorado to race on the CMC team is excited to begin another season and anticipates heading to a different resort and a new race each weekend.