KETCHUM, Idaho — The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association puts on a Super Tour where the best nordic skiers in the country compete against each other and this weekend the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation hosted a series of races.
This four-day event features both distance and speed courses tested these athletes who have an ultimate goal of making it to the Olympics.
We caught a perfect weather window on a snowy Saturday to catch some of the speed races on a 1.4 kilometer course north of Ketchum that featured boys and girls U-12 to U-16.
"The course is challenging it is more gradual at the start with little recovery and then it goes into a really steep climb," said Sylvester Williams a racer for team Soldier Hollow out of Utah. "The scenery here is a beautiful it's just sheer white slopes and pine trees."
Once the Super Tour racers started the snow started dumping, but we got to see Sun Valley native Sydney Palmer-Leger in action, Sydney now races for the University of Utah and she finished second in the 15K race on Thursday with a time of 47 minutes and 31 seconds.
Sun Valley was also well represented by Samantha Smith who it still in high school, Smith finished third in the race on Thursday, we are still waiting for results from the weekend and here is a link to where you can find them.
The racers with the best times will move onto period two of the tour that begins with the 2023 U.S. National Championships at the University of Michigan beginning January 2.
Because of the timing and weather, I needed to protect the camera from the elements, I didn't get a chance to interview the Sun Valley racers, but I enjoyed a conversation with Sylvester Williams who raced for the first time in December of 2020.
"I finished dead last by like two minutes from the person ahead of me, not from the person who won, the person ahead of me," said Williams. "Now I’m training five or six days a week and my progression has been minutes a race."
We saw Williams win a close heat in the U-16 competition and after discovering nordic skiing, he us he looks forward to a lifetime of exercise on the snow.
"It is amazing exercise," said Williams. "It is going to be great when I am like 60 and I’m the old fit guy who teaches everyone how to ski, that will be great," said Williams.
