Eliza Grigg and Jack Adams crowned New Zealand Alpine National Combined Disciplines overall champions.
September 7, 2020 11:17 am | by John Adams
Jack Adams
Eliza Grigg and Jack Adams were crowned the Alpine National Combined Disciplines Overall Champions at Coronet Peak today.
Today was the third and final day of the National Alpine Championships, National Para Alpine Championships and the National Alpine Junior Championships with the athletes competing in Slalom today.
Eliza Grigg, a Team Hutt athlete, has had a stellar Alpine National Championships, earning a medal of each colour this weekend finishing first in Super G on Friday, second in Giant Slalom yesterday and third is Slalom today. Her achievements over the last three days resulted in her being crowned the women’s Overall Combined Disciplines Champion. “This is my first time winning the overall which I am super excited about, it’s been a lot of work”.
Jack Adams, a Coberger Academy athlete, won the Slalom race today and finished second in both Giant Slalom yesterday and in Super G on Friday. Off the back of his fantastic results this weekend, Jack was awarded the men’s Overall Combined Disciplines Championship trophy for his first time. “It is nice to get the overall, it’s a beautiful trophy”. Winning the Slalom today, Jack explained that “It’s been a good competition with Willis this weekend and I prefer slalom, I know he prefers Giant Slalom, so I was hoping for a good race between us but unfortunately he straddled on the first run”. Willis Feasey, 2018 Winter Olympian, who won both the Super G and Giant Slalom this weekend had a DNF on his Slalom landing him in second place overall.
Olivia Flight and Harrison Messenger are the Junior Alpine National Combined Disciplines Overall Champions. Olivia, a Coberger Academy athlete, finished second in both Super G and Giant Slalom this weekend and finished third today in Slalom. Harrison, a Wanaka Ski Team athlete, had a fantastic weekend winning all three races, resulting in him being the clear winner of the men’s Junior Overall Championships.
Piera Hudson, World Cup Slalom athlete, blew the competition out of the water today when she won the women’s National Slalom Championships over four seconds ahead of the second place time. Piera enjoyed the Slalom course today, explaining that “first run, there was a little bit of a whoopsie, but I managed to recover and get back in there and then just had to go full charge to make up for it”.
Jack Adams
Adam Hall and Corey Peters, Paralympians and World Cup Para athletes, both continued to carry their momentum from the past two days. Adam won the men’s standing National Para Slalom, his third gold medal this weekend. Corey won the men’s sitting National Para Slalom race, also his third win of the weekend. Kirstie Fairhurst is the women’s sitting National Para Slalom Champion after completing two successful runs on the course.
The race today was also a National Points race for under 14 and under 16 athletes, whose national champions will be crowned at the Snowvision National Youth Championships held at Cardrona starting on the 25th of September.
Read more about this on Snowsports.co.nz
Racing action in the Southern Hemisphere was heating up over the last few days with New Zealand hosting their National Championship series at Coronet Peak
August 21, 2018 3:33 pm | by John Adams
The SapphireOne Team have had a busy week competing in the New Zealand National Championships Slalom and Giant Slalom events at Coronet Peak, Queenstown.
Jack Adams, Theo Coates, Connor Leggett and Shaun Findlay fought the fierce competition in the GS and Slalom events and had some significant results.
Once again the event drew a large international crowd including Belgium, Slovakia, Austria, Russia, Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Norway, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Germany, USA, Japan, Canada, Sweden, Great Britain, Korea, Ireland and of course Australia. World Champion Ted Ligety was training on the hill and decided to drop into the Slalom events at the last minute. Fantastic opportunity for the athletes to watch the World Champion in action.
Jack and Theo just missed out on the all essential “flip” in the first run of GS coming 32ndand 33rdafter Run 1. If they had made the “flip” and come 29thand 30ththey would have been 1stand 2nd skiers in the 2nd run. A start that can make a difference of 2 seconds or more in the final result.
Day 2 the boys had a similar finish in Run 1 however Theo didn’t finish Run 2 and Jack made a few too many errors. Team mate Connor leap frogged both boys to finish an impressive 32nd.
The Slalom event as usual took it’s fair share of casualties with Jack and Connor not finishing Day 1, and Jack and Theo not finishing Day 2.
Photos above of Jack (Slalom) and Theo (Giant Slalom) in action.
New Zealand racers Adam Barwood and Piera Hudson claimed back-to-back National titles at the National Championships. Barwood and Hudson claimed the Slalom Championship titles on Tuesday, having also been crowned Giant Slalom National Champions in Sunday’s race.
In the men’s field, defending NZ champion Adam Barwood never looked in too much danger of relinquishing his title, so long as he could hold on in the tricky snow conditions. After the first run Adam was placed fifth with Willis Feasey as his closest teammate way back in 19th place.
As it was, a mistake in the bottom half of the course on run two would put an end to Feasey’s second run charge for the men’s national championship title while Barwood hung on, dropping back to eighth overall but managing to retain the men’s slalom title for another year.
The women’s leader after the first run, Hudson started 30th in run two and had to battle the ruts to get to the finish. A few mistakes on the bumpy course cost her the overall lead, finishing in sixth place overall, but taking the National Ladies’ Slalom title.
Congratulations to all the competitors and good luck to those competing in the Australia New Cup starting next week (August 20) in Mt Hotham, Victoria, Australia.
To see full results from this series, click here.