SERIES ENDS ON A MISSION Spring
WASHINGTON RESORT HOSTS WESTERN REGION ELITE FIS SPRING SERIES
BY SHAUNA FARNELL
In a final effort to bolster FIS points for the season, racers of all levels — including a few from across
the globe — converged on Mission Ridge, Wash., April 8-13, for what started off as a very wintery Spring
Series.
Although several inches of fresh snow prevented the races from starting on schedule on Day 1, organiz-
ers still managed to pack in two super G, giant slalom and slalom races for both men and women over
the condensed time frame.
Squaw Valley racer Nick Daniels started the ball rolling in the first super G, beating the Czech Republic’s
Mark Syrovatka by just 0.04 seconds as Mission Ridge’s own Colby Granstrom rounded out the podium
0.33 seconds off the pace. Granstrom, 19, gaining his way to Series MVP status, won the following day’s
SG, beating Syrovatka by 0.26 seconds as Jared Goldberg rounded out the podium.
Once men’s giant slalom got underway, it was veteran Dane Spencer who finished first, beating Sweden’s
Philip Brattstroem (second) with Granstrom in third.
Miles Fink-DeBray was king of the second day of GS racing, however, beating Hig Roberts and Charlie
Reynolds, who finished second and third, respectively, within a few hundredths of each other.
Granstrom was back in force in the tight gates, winning the first slalom and taking second in the last
and final race as David Chodounsky was second in the first race and Paul McDonald nabbed a pair of
podiums, third in the first slalom and winning the last.
Stacey Cook got the gold star on the women’s side with a podium in every race at Mission Ridge. Local
Brooke Wales started things off, winning the first super G by 0.31 seconds over Cook as Pamela Thor-
burn rounded out the podium. Cook came back
the next day to edge Wales for the win by 0.33 sec-
onds as U.S. teammate Keely Kelleher was third,
nearly a second off the pace.
Slalom was next on the menu for the women
and specialist Hailey Duke shined brightest, beat-
ing Sarah Schleper and Cook, who nonetheless
scored her first slalom podium in nearly three
years, by more than a half second. Schleper was
on top in the next race, beating Cook by more
than a second as Vanessa Berther rounded out the
podium. It was Cook’s turn back on the top step
in GS, winning both races and sharing both podi-
ums with Schleper and 17-year-old Abby Ghent.
Ghent took second to Cook in the first race with
Schlep in third and the two swapped places in
the final race of the Series, Cook winning with
Schleper 0.58 seconds behind and Ghent and the
rest of the field more than a second back.
