Turnagain Times: Sports News
Portage Valley Equestrian Rides to 2 Championships
Photo courtesy of the Hall family
Equestrian, Alicia Hall, 17, trains in Portage Valley. Recently, Alicia dominated the field of top riders and horses by winning both the Division Championships.
Alicia Hall, a 17 year old, at Homer High School has won again at one of the premire equestrian competitions in show jumping. Show Jumping is an Olympic Sport and World Cup Competition. Alicia rides and trains at the family ranch in Portage, Alaska
Alicia recently returned from a competition at the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center in Wellington, Flor.
Alicia dominated the field of top riders and horses by winning both the Division Championships in the FEI ‘AA' Rated Childrens Jumper Competition with her 16 h Holsteiner gelding, “ Araucano” and the FEI ‘AA” Rate Pony Jumper with “Luigi”.
Alicia was the guest of CEO Liliane Stransky and her daughter Daniel in Wellington of the Step-by-Step Foundation, which is active in helping underprivileged children in the poorer areas of the world by providing schools and health programs for the children. They have been working in Haiti for a number of years.
Alicia is interested in participating with them on their projects.
Racers Compete at Alyeska for Junior Olympic Qualifiers
Youngster Lane wins first Alyeska GS, Cabana, Nikles take slaloms
Alaska state championships at Alyeska hosted by Alyeska Ski Club were held Feb. 12-15. Athletes statewide competed for the opportunities to race at the USSA Western Region Junior Olympics.
Young Jordan Lane, a first-year J-3 with Alyeska Ski Club, ran off with her first overall victory in Saturday's giant slalom at Alyeska Resort. She had the fastest times on both courses.
ASC J-3 coach Neil Barkel described her two runs as “phenomenal.”
She simply knifed the steep, hard Steilhung pitch out of the start gate, he said.
“She picked up a second on the other girls in just that part,” said Barkel.
Second overall was ASC J-1 Laura Crews. Suzie Doll was third.
ASC's Kevin Kelly, who won Friday, again won the men's race. He had the fastest men's times in both runs Saturday.
Alexander Erickson was second and Juneau Ski Club's Brian Vandor was third.
Very firm snow and clear light dramatically improved race conditions after Friday's drip-fest. Eighty-one racers competed in the Junior Olympic qualifiers.
Alyeska Cup and JO qualifier racing continued with slaloms on Sunday and Monday.
Juneau's Florence Nikles won another slalom Monday at Mt. Alyeska, running her weekend score to three victories in four races.
Alyeska Ski Club's Laura Crews was second and youngster Jordan Lane was third. Nikles won by four seconds, but Crews and Lane limited Nikles' overall margin with fast second runs.
Alyeska's Tanner Cabana, who seems to enjoy spotting competitors a first-run advantage, was seven-tenths of a second behind Juneau's Brian Vandor after the first run. Cabana's sparkling second run pulled him into first.
Vandor ended up second, almost a full second back. Alyeska Ski Club's Nathan Bataille was third.
Conditions were not ideal, but the actual race surfaces remained hard and fair despite some chatter marks.
Attrition again played a part in the men's race as 16 of 41 men did not finish, including usual contender Aaron Wiggins.
Girdwood Olympic Snowboarder Falls in Qualifying Runs
Girdwood's Callan Chythlook-Sifsof took a hard fall on her back during a qualifying run at the Winter Olympics on Tuesday, Feb. 16.
The 21-year-old Chythlook-Sifsof is the first Alaska Native to make an Olympic team. She had a difficult time on the challenging snowboard cross course on Cypress Mountain, which was all the more difficult due to slushy snow conditions. The competition was delayed on several occasions due to thick fog.
Chythlook-Sifsof finished with the day's slowest qualifying time. On her second run, she fell again, got back up and tried to work her way up the jumps in front of her, but finally abandoned her effort.
Finishing out of the top 16, Chythlook-Sifsof didn't make it to the quarterfinals. The qualifying rounds are run alone and the best times advance to the quarterfinals where four racers go head to head.
Canadian snowboarder Maelle Ricker went on to win the Olympic Gold medal in the snowboard cross event.
