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Show Waxing and relaxing help JII-JIN skiers to victory at Jackson Hole f f .".v - 4 v. I ' i i 1 . I . ' bv David Hampshire Waxing and relaxing. Those were two of the key ingredients helping Park City racers to six of a possible eight first-place trophies in downhill competition at Teton Village, near . Jackson Hole, last weekend. Ray Dicius, who coaches the Junior II (14-15-year-old) and Junior III (12-13-year-old) members of the Park City Ski Team, credits the right choice of wax and the use of relaxation techniques for helping to give the athletes the edge over their Intermountain Division competition at Jackson. Leading the Park City assault were Stephanie Palmer and Danny Tebbs, each with two wins, and Bret Johnson and Tyler Tebbs, each with one. Dicius, who joined the Park City Ski Team after coaching at Solitude last season, uses relaxation techniques, techni-ques, including "a lot of imagery ', work," as a standard part of preparing for a race. After three training runs at Jackson, he said, the skiers could actually close their eyes and imagine themselves going down the course. "They could picture themselves skiing through the gates, setting up the turns," he said. Subtle movements of their feet, hands and heads even suggested what kinds of turns the skiers were rehearsing in their minds, he said. "There is firing of the same muscles almost in the same mode as when they are skiing." Then there was the choice of wax. ' ' Basically Park City, for four days in a row (including training days), hit the wax pretty well perfect," he said. According to Dicius, the Park City skiers had the advantage because they were the only ones to stay at Teton Village itself instead of in Jackson, about 15 miles away. While But Dicius's crew was right behind, with Shannon Nobis and Ali Saloman finishing second and third both Saturday and Sunday. It was one of Saloman's best weekends ever, leading Dicius to speculate that she may be developing develop-ing a flair for the downhill. Another natural in the downhill, according to Dicius, is Hilary Felton, who finished sixth among the JH1 girls Saturday and seventh Sunday. He said Felton made up a lot of time in the flat parts of the course thanks to an astonishilng ability to stay in the tuck position. "I think she was bom in a tuck," he said. Another JIII from Park City, Essie Doilney, missed her starting time Saturday and was sent to the end of the line. Nevertheless, she managed to finish eighth, then moved up to fourth Sunday. In other results: Jeremy Nobis finished fifth and seventh among the JII boys. Erik Johnson and Scott Black s finished 11th and 17th among the JII boys Saturday. C.J. Baltz finished 23rd among the jm boys Saturday, then moved up to 16 th Sunday. In the same age group, Ross Toelke moved from 24 th Saturday to 14th Sunday while Carter Gregory went from 26th to 19th. Another Park City skier, Jason Maasberg, finished 22nd both Saturday and Sunday. Jason Parkin, who is officially in the JIV (ages 10-11) group, placed 33rd and 20th competing against the older JII boys. Bridget Leschom finished 11th and 15th among the JII girls. Next on the schedule for the top JII skiers is a series of downhill races at Sun Valley Jan. 25-27. Meanwhile, Mean-while, the younger members of the JII-HI group are preparing for a pair of giant slalom races at Nordic Valley Feb. 2-3. Danny Tebbs had two wins in downhill at Jackson. the temperatures plummeted to 22 below zero in Jackson (at night), they stayed at a relatively balmy 11 below at Teton Village, then rose to about 30 degrees at the top of the course by the middle of the following day. Staying at Teton Village, he said, allowed the Park City team to calculate more accurately the wax to use. "We were basically using a wanner wax than the other teams." Whatever the ingredients, the Park City advantage was apparent during the races, particularly in the JII class. Stephanie Palmer, in her first year as a JII racer, was in a class by herself, finishing 3.33 seconds ahead of the field Saturday and 3.96 seconds Sunday. In the boys' JII races Tyler Tebbs and Bret Johnson divided the hardware. Tebbs won on Saturday by 1.5 seconds over Mike Overcast of Jackson Hole. Johnson was fourth. Then on Sunday Johnson skied into first place, knocking Tebbs into second by .47 seconds. Dicius pointed out that Palmer has won five of the six JII-JIII races she has entered this season. Among the boys Tebbs has won four of six with Johnson winning the other two. Among the JIII boys at Jackson, Danny Tebbs, Tyler's younger brother, upheld the family tradition with a pair of wins over Mark Norton of Hailey. The only first-place trophies to elude the Park City skiers were in the JIII girls class where Picado Streit of Hailey posted the two fastest times. |
