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Show Page B2 Thursday, March 12. 18 1 The Newspaper Utahns shine at Dannon Series race PLANT Shamrocks For the Luck of the Irish Behind the Gift Store; Design Coalition Bldg. 610 Main St. 649-6907 I ft I Lunch & Dinner 'H ffl .Seating from 1 1 :30 to 1 0:00 Sj 9ailg Specials . if W hine German Pastries Irk VCS Cappuccino Lxpresso ffl JSj 402 Main Street M. Park City gf nninm w n 5 ii5Djjt!cS3iV!92 f SHOP HISTORIC MAIN STREET a . ca a tea ids! n HQ 1 1 ' 1 1, ROCKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS GIFTS Open 10-8 daily. Specializing in handmade gifts, antiques, quilts and ornaments. Directly across the street from the Cowboy Bar. park city Drop in on h St. Patrick's Day MWBQY for green beer OflEn and cheese. Happy Hr. prices 268 Main SL All day 649-4146 I J Now featuring a r- S Country Daily Special V Kat 8r Mickey and The Home Town Band PLANT i a 1 1 1 1 1 1 T ' f ' t Si. A World Fr SkSInig Arnold clinches WPS title, battle for second continues It seems only fitting that World Pro Skiing should move from th weekend without peers on the tour to a weekend that will feature the only downhill race to be conducted on the circuit this winter. The touring pros left Heavenly Valley to head for Sun Valley, Idaho to participate partici-pate in a downhill and slalom in the $60,000 Volvo Cup, March 6-8. Behind them was the fourth annual John Denver Celebrity Pro Am conducted in conjunction with the $60,000 Hawaiian Tropic Cup, the ninth meet of the 1980-81 season. It was a meet that produced pro-duced (almost at least) the 1980-81 World Pro Skiing Champion, a few new records re-cords for Andre Arnold and enough good cheer and camaraderie on the part of John Denver and guests to last for a long time. The precise Austrian, Andre Arnold, 25, Solden, won both the giant slalom and slalom here, his seventh and eighth victories of the season; he established a career victory mark of 36, one more than Henri Du-villard's Du-villard's three-year record of 35 victories; his double was his third this season and his twelfth as a pro, and by virtue of the fact only two meets remain this winter, Arnold also secured his fourth consecutive WPS ' t t ' VVally Chambers Championship, a tour re" cord. . Arnold defeated Jorge Garcia, 25, Madrid, Spain, in' the giant slalom, Feb. 28. J. P. Barroso, 21, Pau, France, was third, followed by George Ager, 22, Hopf garten, Austria. In the slalom, March 1, Arnold defeated the rookie sensation on the tour, Cary Adgate, 27, Boyne City, Michigan, who joined the tour at mid-season and promptly beat Arnold twice to score a 'back-to-back victory at Winter Park, Col. Feb. 6-8. Yvon Blackburn, 26, Chi-coutini, Chi-coutini, Quebec, Canada, finished third in the slalom, his best finish of the season, defeating Barroso, who moved up to sixth place in the overall standings. With two meets remaining and a maximum of 140 points available to any single racer, the worst that could happen if Arnold didn't race again this winter is that he would end in a tie with Hans Hinterseer, 27, Kitzbuehel, Austria. If that unlikely event were to occur, Arnold still would gain the title by virtue of the number of victories he has accumulated accumulat-ed this winter eight compared com-pared to Hinterseer's single victory. As the pros moved to the $60,000 Volvo Cup in Sun Valley, Arnold had the WPS point, lead with 455, followed t. Patrick's Sag (Tournament Entry Fee: Member 510 Non member S 1.S 1 , Pick up your entry form at Prospector Athletic Club by Hinterseer. 320; Richie Woodworth,; 23, Peabody, Mass.:, 300; Francisco Ochoa, 30 Madrid, Spain, 290 and Carlos Martinez, 24, Rio Negro, Argentina, 205. But for all of the excitement excite-ment and records set by the indestructible Arnold, John Denver and his celebrity friends once again stole the show from the pros. With personalities such as Denver, George Hamilton, ' Susan Saint James, Barbara Mandrell, John Havlicek, Anne Lockhart, William Shatner, Geoffrey Lewis, Charles Haid, Betty Thomas, Karla Bonoff, Ed Podolak, Randi Oakes, Barbi Benton, Michael Brandon and many others, the fans got more than they could have possibly possi-bly expected as the celebrities celebri-ties raced one another and ran into one another. As much fun as the pros and the celebrities had in Heavenly Valley, there was a certain amount of tension as the racers prepared for their journey to Sun Valley, knowing that they would be taking part in the only downhill to be conducted on the World Pro Skiing tour this winter. With Arnold's championship champion-ship secure, the battle now is between Woodworth, Hinterseer Hinter-seer and Ochoa to see who can grab the second spot on the tour this winter, and the downhill could be a critical race for all three racers. March 20 ; and 21 Help us celebrate with all the green beer you can drink!!! t-shirts prizes $i refreshments PROSPECTOR ATHLETIC CLUB 649-6670 The Dannon Series cross- country races came to Park ; City for the first time ever ; Tuesday, attracting 110 competitors from across the United States to the five-kilometer five-kilometer course in Deer , Valley. Finishing first among the classified racers was Kevin Brochman of Stillwater, ; Minn. Top finishing woman '; was Leslie Bancroft from Paris, Maine. Fastest citizen racer of the day was local Steve ' Erickson of Hoytsville, who placed seventh overall, I beating 41 of the 48 classified ; racers. Torill Jensen of Laramie, Wyo., was best ! among the female citizen ' racers. The track was icy, with .snow falling in the morning when the race began, and the ! sun shining later in the day, I challenging racers to find the correct combinations of klisters and hard waxes. The men skied two laps around . the course, while the women skied one. Brochman skied the 10 !: kilometers in 26 minutes and 53 seconds. The 21-year-old has been traveling all over the United States this winter participating in Nordic races, hoping to gain a spot J ' 4 ! k - ' Hi Park City novice makes Junior Olympics I; Eric Smith decided to take ; a year off from his studies at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. He "needed some time in the autumn and spring to work on an energy efficient log house he's building near Olympia. but decided to come home to Park City for the winter, live with his folks Shirley and Rocky Smith, and do a little skiing. I Becoming a Nordic racer was not particularly on his mind, but Coach Al Bronston NCAA tournament Three WAC teams to go By Richard Barnum-Reece ; So it's come down to this: Three teams from the Western West-ern Athletic Conference have been selected to play in the NCAA playoffs. That might not have been the case 'if Utah had beaten BYU in :Provo Saturday. But, as they say, somewhere in the land of Zion, even this shall come to pass. Utah, the Western Athleti-cal Athleti-cal Conference champion by virtue of a coin flip Saturday (they actually share the title with Wyoming), will be the number three seeded team in the Western regionals to be held at Texas-El Paso. The Utes will play Sunday against the winner of the Fresno State and Northeastern North-eastern game. : Brigham Young will play the winner of the Pennsylvania Pennsyl-vania and Princeton game on Thursday. Wyoming, which took on some true ligthweights in their pre-season games but came on to beat number 9 ranked Utah and number 18 ranked BYU back-to-back, will play Thursday against Howard University in the NCAA's. ;; It's the first time that three WAC teams much less two have been selected to play in the NCAA playoffs. To be sure, the NCAA's have been expanded, but no onr can takeaway the im!.;.; ;,i the end of the regular season which put BYU, Utah, and Wyoming all within the top 20 teams in the nation. , Such are the dreams of the on the U.S. Ski Team. His finish in Deer Valley is his best to date in the Dannon Series. In earlier Dannon races in Steamboat and Devils Thumb, Colo., he placed sixth and 12th. This race was his 21st of the season. 1 Bancroft was on the U.S. Olympic Team last year, but has tried to juggle her racing with full-time studies at the University of Vermont this winter. "I thought I'd try going to school and racing this winter because I want ''d to get my college , education under way, she said. "But it has been tough." She has restricted restrict-ed most of her racing activities ac-tivities to the northeast because of school, but came west to participate in the collegiate nationals, in Bozeman, Montana, and decided to drop in on the Park City race. Her time for five kilometers was 15.24. Bancroft has been-a member mem-ber of the U.S. "A" Team for four years. Steve Erickson, besides being the fastest Utahn in the race, was given the title "chief of! course." He spent countless hours over the past week shoveling snow onto the growing bare spots in the f 5 us Eric Smith of the Park City Nordic Team got Eric interested in the sport. First he raced with the team in the local Wasatch . Citizen's Series, and later traveled around the west participating in Intermountain Division Ussa races. Eric's ability as a racer rapidly improved, and he went from being a rank beginner at the first of the season to being named to the Intermountain Division team and participating in ACC ana Big Ten Conferences. Confer-ences. Jerry Pimm, Frank Arnold and Jim Brandenburg Branden-burg have done themselves and the WAC proud. Last Saturday, it went like this: Utah popped out to a 10-point lead and if you happened to be rooting for BYU, your stomach got the immediate quesies. Then, after the Utes were able to get rolling, they were ahead another solid 10 points, 24-34. But it didn't last long. Danny Ainge, who eventually eventual-ly scored 35 big points in his last game ever as a Cougar at the Marriot Center, was on a rampage. He'd never scored as high against Utah as his average (which is right now 25 points a game leading the WAC), and it looked like Pace Mannion was going to hold Ainge down again. But Ainge was at his best against Utah Saturday. Tom Chambers, who appears to be more of an NBA possibility possi-bility than Danny Vranes, scored 27 points in the Utah cause. Vranes played perhaps per-haps the worst game he's . ever played as a Ute against Brigham Young, scoring 12 points with the majority of those points coming at the foul line. For some reason Danny ,.it didn't take good shots," . oa( h Jerry Pimm said after the mss. "I think you'll see him taking good shots in the NCAA tournament, and I hope that you'll see us making if as far as the final Deer Valley course. Erickson's time, 28.22, put him less than two minutes behind Brochman. The only disapointment voiced by Erickson was that he was not allowed to race against the classified race instead of the citizen race, even though the top 12 in the citizen's men category were faster than many of the classified racers. There were three Utahns running as classified racers. Wally Chambers, Salt Lake City, placed 28th, Park City's Eric Smith was 43rd, and Leigh Mallory of Logan was 44th. The citizen's men class was dominated by Utah skiers. Park City men placing were Jim Miller, third with a 30.22 time; Rich Groth, ninth, 33.20; Mike Martin, 13th, 34.20 and John Clayton, 22nd, 42.04. Park City women placing in the citizen's category were Carol Morgan, third, 19.45 and Marsha Groth, fifth, fif-th, 23.30. An awards ceremony was held at the Cowboy Bar, with prizes from Park City businesses given to the top three finishers in each class by Jack Turner of the U.S. Ski Team. I" r1 ii the national Junior Olympics Olym-pics at Steamboat, Colorado last week. Eric raced for the Intermountain Inter-mountain Division in two relays and two individual races, and was the only person per-son from the Park City team represented on the Intermountain Inter-mountain team. "I never raced before this year," he said. "But by the last race, I was catching guys who had been running five minutes ahead of me at the first of the year." four if everything goes alright. This is a team that has a lot of character. I think they're capable of bouncing back and winning." Vranes had no rebounds the first half and three rebounds in the second half. "But you know," Pimm said, "one way or the other it would have been a different game if we would have made some of those free throws. We missed 14 in all and about six of them were the front end of one and one situations. That killed us." Indeed. The University of Utah was smothered by BYU on a Saturday afternoon before the largest crowd that has ever been crammed into the Marriot Center just over 16,000. And that says nothing about the thousands of fans who were watching the game on the tube. It was , to say the least, a barnburner even though the Utes were blown away in the second half after leading at half-time. half-time. Vranes was 4 of 12 from the field and 4 or 5 at the line to come up with his 12 points. Utah shot a lowly 29 percent in the second half. "Our shot selection left something to be desired I think," Pimm said. "This is a better team than we showeq today, although I have to say that we didn't quit 'even though we got down so much. But I think" we're going to bounce back, and with any luck, we'll win five or six games in the NCAA's." |