Colorado-Bred Medalists Lead U.S. In Steamboat Freestyle World Cup
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STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, CO. (Feb. 6 – News Release) – Three newly crowned World Championships medal-winners from Colorado – Jeremy Bloom (Loveland, CO), Toby Dawson (Vail), and Michelle Roark (Denver) – will be leading the U.S. Ski Team Friday and Saturday as the sport’s top freestyle skiers return to World Cup action in the Sprint U.S. Freestyle Grand National at Steamboat Ski Resort.
“It’ll be like the Olympics or the World Championships, except we get to start more than just four skiers in each event,” said U.S. Head Coach Jeff Wintersteen. “We want to keep the momentum rolling.”
NBC will televise coverage of the two days of action Saturday, Feb. 15 at 3 p.m. EST.
Bloom, who missed the early part of the season while playing football as wide receiver and one of the nation’s top punt returners, won the World Championships dual moguls gold medal and took silver in the moguls contest last week at Utah’s Deer Valley. Dawson was bronze medalist in both moguls and duals, electrifying the crowd with a huge off-axis cork-7, double rotation off the final jump to up-end Olympic champ (and former World Cup and Worlds champion) Janne Lahtela of Finland. Roark, rebounding after spending most of the last three seasons recovering from knee injuries, was silver medalist in moguls.
U.S. skiers return to Steamboat after collecting the afore-mentioned six medals in moguls and duals at the World Championships, which ended Saturday night. After Steamboat, the tour heads to Japan for three moguls events and concludes March 1-2 with aerials in Spindleruv Myla, Czech Republic, while moguls and duals contests are set for Voss, Norway.
Steamboat has been a comfortable stop for the freestylers. A year ago, local favorite and soon-to-be Olympic silver medalist Travis Mayer (Steamboat) finished second with Bloom third in moguls while Emiko Torito (also Steamboat) was second in duals and fourth in moguls.
“Steamboat does a great job,” Wintersteen said, “and it’s always fun to compete at home and in front of an appreciative crowd.”
