PSC Athletes Compete in USA Nordic Cup Series Winter Start

Steamboat Springs, CO ~ The Paul Smith's College Nordic Combined athletes started their season at the US Cup Winter Start in Steamboat Springs, Colorado over the weekend.  The competition is the opening event for the USA Nordic US Cup Series and offered the Bobcats healthy competition in anticipation of potentially competing in the World University Games coming to Lake Placid in January.

Aidan Ripp and Timothy Ziegler took part in the HS100 competition at Hollowsen Hill, which saw each athlete take one jump off the 100-meter hill.  Scores from the opening jumps were determined by distance and style which then transfered over to the Gunderson start order for the ski portion later in the day.  Ripp led the competition for the Bobcats with a jump of 74 meters, followed by Ziegler with 60 meters.  The top jump of the day for the senior division was USA National team member Erik Lynch - this put Ripp two minutes behind at the start of the ski portion.  The competition marked Ziegler's return to sport after a nearly twelve-month recovery from an injury suffered ahead of last year's US Olympic Trials.

The Nordic Ski portion of the event saw temperatures plummet into the single digits as early evening flat light conditions made the skiing challenging.  Ripp started two minutes behind Lynch in the 10k but throughout the race was able to claw back half the time on the leader to end the day with the second fastest ski time and 2nd place podium in the senior category.  Timo Ziegler started the ski off in 3rd place and was able to get some time on the leaders as well, holding onto a podium finish in 3rd place. 

Coach Dougherty noted "Really good performances from Aidan and Timo this weekend - it was a really quick trip as we finished finals and left campus at 2 am to get here.  It's a lot of travel and no time to adjust to elevation change so it was a solid showing, all things considered.  It was great to see Timo back competing after such a long recovery; he has put in so much work to be here and he is well on his way to getting back to where he was before the injury."

The two Bobcat Nordic Combined athletes now wait to see if they get named to the World University Games teams for USA Nordic.