With the 2018 Winter Olympics just around the corner, the host site of the 1960 games — Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows — got into the Olympic spirit last weekend by hosting one of the stops for Team USA’s Winterfest.

The 13-stop festival touched down at a packed Squaw Valley on Saturday, Jan. 13, with activities and events to build excitement for the upcoming Olympics and Paralympics.

Guests took part in curling challenges, the Team USA’s Social Truck where they could create gifs of themselves, a s’more station, and more during the daylong celebration of the Olympic games.

The highlight of the day’s festivities were guest appearances from local legends and four-time Olympians, Daron Rahlves and Marco Sullivan, who spoke to the crowds, signed autographs, and met with the next generation of skiers.

Rahlves came up skiing in the area, and qualified for three Olympic teams (1998, 2002, 2006) for alpine, and then qualified for Team USA in 2010 as a freestyle skier.

Sullivan qualified for the alpine squad in each Olympic year from 2002 – 2014, and was a four-time World Cup medalist.

“I grew up skiing Squaw,” said Sullivan during a question and answer session with the crowd, “I didn’t have a specific goal, but I just knew I wanted to be a professional skier and go out and ski with my friends as much as possible.”

With several athletes recently qualifying for the Olympics and more set to qualify this weekend at the U.S. Snowboard & Freeski Grand Prix at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, Sullivan reflected on what it was like to make an Olympic squad.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” he told the crowd at Squaw on Saturday. “To be from a mountain town, the biggest thing I could for my country, I felt, was to represent them at the Olympics. And to do that, to accomplish that goal, it was great, it was kind of what I worked for ever since I was a little kid.

“To reach your goals in sport or in skiing, is just getting out there and doing it, getting on the hill as much as you can, getting out there with your friends and chasing around the mountain … doing whatever you can do to just ski and ski.”

The day’s festivities went into the evening with live music, drinks, and food at the Village at Squaw Valley.

Snowboard & Freeski Grand Prix

One of the biggest competitions of the season, the U.S. Snowboard & Freeski Grand Prix, will touch down at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area this week as athletes look to make one final push toward making the Olympic team. The competition serves as the final slopestyle and halfpipe qualifying events before the Feb. 9 start of the Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

“Mammoth Mountain is proud and honored to continue the tradition of hosting the world’s best athletes in our Unbound Terrain Parks,” said Mark Brownlie, Chief Operating Officer, Mammoth Resorts in a statement from US Ski & Snowboard.

“With all eyes on the final stop of the Grand Prix, we couldn’t be more excited to be a part of these athletes’ Olympic dreams as they are named to the team here at Mammoth.”

Several riders and skiers from the Truckee-Tahoe area and Mammoth are expected to be competing, and vying for a spot on the Olympic team. The full start list will be released later in the week.

Racing will begin at Unbound’s Main Park on Thursday, Jan. 18, with the men’s snowboard slopestyle qualifiers. Men’s and women’s snowboard halfpipe qualifiers will be the following day, with the men’s and women’s freeski halfpipe finals taking place that night on the park’s 22-foot halfpipe. Freeski and snowboard slopestyle finals will take place the following day with the snowboard halfpipe finals going off later that night, followed by the naming ceremony for qualified members of Team USA. Sunday’s racing will conclude with men’s freeski slopestyle finals.

Contact staff writer Justin Scacco at 530-550-2643 or via email at jscacco@sierrasun.com.

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After more than two years since her last International Ski Federation (FIS) World Cup race, Squaw Valley icon Julia Mancuso was set to make her return to skiing on Friday, Dec. 8, at St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Unfortunately, Mancuso’s return would have to wait, according to a statement from the FIS, as a dense fog, known locally as Maloja Schlange, hung over the super-G track, prompting officials to flip the events scheduled for the day, with slalom held first as part of the ladies’ alpine combined competition and super-G pushed back until later in the day.

Mancuso would compete in the slalom race, but finished last of the athletes who completed the course with a time of 50.52 seconds for 41st place. Vail’s Mikaela Shiffrin, 22, posted the fastest time at 42.53. Truckee’s Stacey Cook, 33, also raced and finished with a time of 49.96 for 40th place.

Unfortunately, the fog wouldn’t lift during the remainder of the day forcing officials to cancel the ladies’ alpine combined event and super-G.

Mancuso made her return to super-G the following day, but it wasn’t an eventful one as the American skied out of bounds shortly after beginning her first run.

“Well that was fun! I didn’t make it too far, but I still took a lot of positives out of the day,” Mancuso posted on her Twitter account following the race. “I can’t wait for tomorrow!”

Switzerland’s Jasmine Flury, 24, won the race with a time of 1:02.59. Shiffrin was the top American with a time of 1:03.96 for 20th place. Cook was 45th with a time of 1:05.53.

Mancuso wouldn’t get another opportunity to compete at St. Moritz, as the super-G and alpine combined events scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 10, were canceled, according to the FIS, due once again to poor visibility from snow and fog on the upper portions of the slope.

Women’s World Cup racing is scheduled to resume on Saturday, Dec. 16, in Val d’Isere, France. Shiffrin is the defending overall champion, and currently leads the point race with 521 points. Germany’s Viktoria Rebensburg is in second with 376 points.

Men’s alpine

Men’s alpine skiing returned to Europe last week after competition in Beaver Creek, Utah.

U.S. skiers continued to struggle against the world’s best with Park City’s Ted Ligety, 33, posting the American’s fastest time during the two runs for a total time of 1:53.94 and a 16th place during giant slalom on Saturday, Dec. 9. Ligety struggled during his first run, but posted the fourth fastest time out of 30 competitors in the second run.

France’s Alexis Pinturault, 26, won the race with a total time of 1:51.18.

Tim Jitloff, 32, who grew up skiing in Tahoe and attended the University of Nevada, Reno, was the next fastest American with a total time of 1:54.43 for 20th place.

Racing continued the following day with slalom, but no American was able to qualify for the final round of skiing. Local skier Mark Engel, 26, raced but did not finish his first run.

Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen, 23, holds a 285-274 lead over Austria’s Marcel Hirscher, 28, for the overall cup lead.Nor-Am Cup

In the smaller FIS Nor-Am Cup tour, Carnelian Bay’s AJ Hurt came into her race in Panorama, British Columbia, Canada, a week off her 17th birthday. And while she struggled in the first two events to open competition on Dec. 10, with a pair of did not finishes, Hurt rebounded the following day to post her third, first-place finish of the season in super-G. Hurt is currently in fourth place for the overall Nor-Am Cup race with 294 points. Canada’s Roni Remme leads the race with 502 points.

Keely Cashman, 18, who also competes for Squaw Valley Ski Team, raced in Panorama as well last weekend and took a sixth and a third in super-G, and finished sixth in alpine combined. Also competing in Panorama and posting a ninth-place finish in super-G was Truckee’s Maureen Lebel, 19. Out of the Sugar Bowl Academy, 20-year-old Luke Winters also competed in Panorama last weekend, where he took a 20th and 15th place in super-G.

Erik Arvidsson, 21, who raced for Squaw Valley Ski Team, competed at an FIS event at Sunday River Ski Resort in Maine, on Dec. 8-9. Arvidsson didn’t finish the first day’s slalom event, but bounced back for a fifth place in the following day’s racing.

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