ALPINE:

Mielzynski kicks off finals week with Nor-Am slalom win

March 15, 2011 — Alpine Canada  

WHISTLER, B.C. ― Erin Mielzynski kicked off the Northwest Funds Nor-Am Cup Finals in Whistler, B.C., by winning the slalom Tuesday.

Mielzynski, of Collingwood, Ont., was seventh after the first run but clocked a fast second run to clock to record a combined time of 1 minute, 44.06 seconds. This is her first career Nor-Am Cup victory.

"My Nor-Am season didn't start out that well because we've been in Europe so much," said Mielzynski, 22. "I did the first two races in Colorado and I didn't do that well, but today was good.

"The first run was fine. I made one mistake; I put my pole between my legs. The second run was more solid. The snow has made the conditions difficult, especially for the later girls. It kind of gets rougher and rougher, but I love Whistler and I love being here."

Another Canadian landed on the podium, with Elli Terwiel of Sun Peaks, B.C., finishing second with a time of 1:44.18.

"This race was quite important to me because I'm trying to be in top two in the Nor-Am standings, which will get me a World Cup spot for next year, so this is a step in the right direction," said Terwiel, who is now in second place with 266 points in the overall slalom standings, 83 points behind first place Mikaela Shiffrin from the USA. The women take part in one final slalom race on Wednesday.

"The conditions were really tough today and you really had to ski aggressively and also smart,” Terwiel said. “You couldn't let yourself get too out of control. I think that coming from B.C., these are conditions that probably suit me more than people from other provinces because I ski in soft snow a lot."

McLeish, of Canmore, Alta., a member of the Prospect Group, finished sixth with a time of 1:45.88, making her the second fastest skier in the junior category.

The men raced a giant slalom Tuesday and the fastest Canadian was Jeffrey Frisch of Mont-Tremblant, Que., who finished seventh with a combined time of 2:06.46.

"My second run was better than my first run," said Frisch. "It was really hard for me this season to get into the rhythm."  

It was a podium sweep for the USA men's team Tuesday as Tim Jitloff finished first with a time of 2:03.38, Tommy Ford finished second (2:03.81) and David Chodounsky finished third with a time of 2:04.22.

In the junior category, two Canadians made it into the top three with Prospect Group athletes Philip Brown of Toronto, Ont., finishing first and Erik Read of Calgary, Alta., finishing second.

Brown was eighth overall with a two-run combined time of 2:96.97 and Read finished ninth (2:07.38).

Volunteers worked hard on the two race tracks to make the conditions as fair and secure as possible after heavy snow fall the past few days.  

"Even with the bad conditions you have to have your objectives at the beginning of the day and then go with it," added Frisch. "The weather was OK, it was the same for everybody. It's actually a really good hill with great volunteers and they've done a good job to pull off the race today."

The women will race another slalom event Wednesday and the men will compete in giant slalom.