CBMST athlete Solon Gray makes trip to national championships

“He was rested and ready to go”

Crested Butte Mountain Sports Team (CBMST) J3 alpine racer Solon Gray made the most of what limited training he got this year to qualify for the Junior Championships in Aspen March 6-12.
While his peers get as many as five days of race training, Gray makes the trip to Crested Butte from Lake City two days a week during the season to get his training and coaching time in.
As a result, the CBMST coaching staff planned out his competition schedule preparing Gray for the championship week.
“His starts have been calculated,” says CBMST director Drew Cesati. “He was rested and ready to go.”
Gray was ready to go, almost too ready to go, when he jumped on course for a couple of downhill training runs to start the week.
On the first day of training, Gray careened off course and into the fencing lining the course.
“He rattled his cage,” says Cesati. “He punched it into the bee netting at 60 miles per hour.”
Gray recovered from the crash to post a 20th-place finish in the downhill on race day and then put together back-to-back 11th-place finishes in the Super G and the giant slalom.
Gray closed out the week of racing against the nation’s best J3 alpine athletes with a 29th-place finish in the slalom.
“He was beating kids who have four times the training he does,” says Cesati. “It was great to see. He’s got a nose for the fall line. He matched expectations for sure.”