Winter Park – Aspen’s Paul Britvar had one of those nervous mornings where he imagined crashing during one of his runs and ruining a bid for a three-peat as slalom state champion.
On his second run of the boys and girls state skiing championships Saturday at Winter Park, the worst happened. He fell eights gates from the finish line and thought for a moment about ending his high school career right there.
“I fell exactly where I imagined I would. I almost blew it off. … I’m too proud to have little kids – freshmen and sophomores – beat me. I’m not trying to be cocky; it would just be an amazing humiliation to have someone younger than myself beat me,” Britvar said.
No worries. Britvar picked himself up and finished the race, and those lost seconds did not matter in the end as he claimed his third consecutive slalom title, one day after taking his first giant slalom title.
Evan Johnston of Middle Park came in second, and Fletcher McDonald of Summit was third.
The two-day state championships, with the alpine events at Winter Park and the nordic events at the YMCA of the Rockies Snow Mountain Ranch between Tabernash and Granby, featured four disciplines – giant slalom and slalom for alpine; classic and freestyle for nordic.
About 200 competitors and 14 teams competed, and Summit swept the team race. The girls won their third straight title, their 16th in 32 years of girls competition, and the boys won their third title in four years, the 14th overall.
A few mishaps in the slalom dropped the Aspen boys to second place, and Middle Park took third. Middle Park and Battle Mountain went second and third,respectively, in the girls race.
Chris Woods from Vail Mountain and Jessica Hadford of Nederland were named the Skimeisters for this season, the top individuals who compete in all four events throughout the season.
Kathleen Lyon of Steamboat Springs showed up to represent her school in the slalom after skipping the first day. It was a good decision, because Lyon, whose only other appearance at state was a 10th-place finish in the giant slalom as a sophomore, capped her senior year with a championship. It took a focused second run to do it, however, as Lyon said she practically sleep-skied through her first.
Alex Guras of Summit, the giant slalom champion, finished second, and RaeLynn Miller of Middle Park took third.
In the nordic events, Brittany Perkins of Summit won the freestyle for a sweep of the girls events for the second year in a row, edging sister Briana both times. It was Perkins’ fifth nordic title in her prep career.
Noah Hoffman of Aspen swept the nordic races as well, cruising to the title in the classic on Friday and outlasting a crowd of five in the freestyle.
