The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“Conradical” stomps way to first place
A small but committed local contingent of telemark skiers headed to Wyoming last weekend for the 4th Annual Big Mountain Telemark Comp at Grand Targhee Resort.
The event is the lone big mountain telemark competition and attracted both junior and adult skiers from throughout the west for a shot at the freeheel title.
CBMST coach Mark Robbins took Asher Coady, Conrad Truettner and Dane Defrates for the annual pilgrimage to the event along with Western State Colorado University (WSCU) Mountain Sports Team skiers Tucker Cocchiarella and Sam Lesnikoski.
The skiers were met with a big storm rolling through the area dropping as much as a foot of new snow on the venue for the first day with snow still falling.
Confidence was high among the CBMST contingent with several big mountain competitions already under their belt.
“It’s been awesome for them,” says Robbins. “They’ve already had a ton of competition runs in on the alpine freeskiing comps here and were in the swing of things.”
Truettner set the tone for the entire junior boys contingent opening his run with an entrance air, slashing GS turns down the face and then finishing by stomping another air at the bottom of the venue to finish the day in first place.
“Conrad just charged,” says Robbins. “He really stepped it up. He took a high speed mentality into his run.”
Defrates was competing in his first telemark comp and came in as the youngest junior out of 26 skiers at 12 years old and closed the day in 11th place.
Meanwhile, 18-year-old Coady was moved into the adult category and despite being the youngest on the scene skied his way into 13th place out of 29 adults. Coach Robbins closed the day fourth among the men with Cocchiarella placing 17th and Lesnikoski taking 19th place.
Mackenzie Mailly, who currently resides in Bozeman, Montana moved her way into fourth place among the women after the first day of competition.
Continued snow forced a delay on Saturday, the resort received 34 inches total over three days, with the finals moved to Sunday but then the fog rolled in and organizers were forced to count the athletes lone run on Friday as the final results.
“It turned out to be a one and done event,” says Robbins.
Truettner will return to the alpine junior freeskiing fray this week competing in the IFSA Junior Nationals here in Crested Butte March 7-9.
“Hopefully he can take the confidence from his win at Grand Targhee into the comp this weekend,” says Robbins.
