Hello everyone,

First off, I want to congratulate all the NYSEF athletes who took part in the International Children’s Winter Games this past week. Though the field numbers weren’t high, the atmosphere created by the kids and coaches was incredible. Through some trying conditions the kids persevered and came out in the end with some new friends from around the world and maybe a new perspective of what participating in sport can bring. I can only hope that the spirit of friendship and camaraderie will continue and that they will stay in touch with their newfound friends. Only good can come of that!

There were many athletes in the games from the NYSEF family but for us on the Freeride side we celebrate our team members from Gore – Shea Hogan(7th-SS,14th-Team SX), Alex Saltsman(6th-SS, 19th-Team SX), and Pierson Shute(6th-SS,11th-Team SX) and from Whiteface – Cooper Rose(9th-SS, 20th-Team SX), and our medalists Marc Bilow-(Silver-SS,17th-Team SX) , and Robbie Sinclair-(Gold-SBX,5th-SS). Congratulations guys! While the rest of the mountain was shut down with a power outage on Wednesday all of the snowboard competitors and coaches elected to hike the course to get in both their semi-final and final rounds. That’s earning your turns! And on Thursday, the alpine and freestyle competitors braved below zero windchills and blowing snow to complete the Team Ski Cross event in exciting fashion with NYSEF alpiner Sonja Toishi’s team taking silver and Alex Wright’s team edging them out for the gold by .002 of a second. Amazing!

We couldn’t have pulled off an event like this without our great staff – coaches Bob Witt, Justin Perry, Jackson Deeney, Zac Horrocks, Kevin Ladue, & Gore Coaches Andrew Parent and Josh Shute – Zach Ford from race crew and Hadley Driscoll, Race Administrator – volunteers Tommy Thomson, Max Stransky, Antoinette Rose, & Glen Haran – our Slopestyle judges (all NYSEF alumni) Josh Boise, Gavin Fritz, & Tony Russo, and of course, Terrain Park Director Josh Wagner and his crew. Thank you all!

We can all be proud of how our crew represented themselves!