WYATT BURKHARDT (main photo) and Abe Brunka (above) are just two of the many local athletes currently competing in the USASA National Championships in Copper Mountain, Colo.
WYATT BURKHARDT (main photo) and Abe Brunka (above) are just two of the many local athletes currently competing in the USASA National Championships in Copper Mountain, Colo.
Sixty athletes from the USA Snowboard and Freeski Association (USASA) Hood Series have accepted invitations to compete at the USASA National Championships in Copper Mountain, Colo., for freestyle skiing and snowboarding events which began on April 1 and go through the 12th.
Included in that 60 are the following snowboarders from the Gorge: Parker Arneson, age 11; Paul Logan, age 12; Julian Munn-Foster, age 13; Max Jones, age 13; and Abe Brunka, age 14. They are all on the Mt. Hood Snowboard Team and are veterans of national competition.
Gorge area skiers include: Wyatt Burkhardt, age 12; Tristan Abel, age 11; Austen Abel, age 14; Lucy Stevenson, age 13; Ollie Stevenson, age 15; Myles Taylor, age 15; Trey Roeseler, age 17; and Tucker FitzSimons, age 19.
Burkhardt won the Woodward Progression Award for his impressive improvement in freestyle skiing this season and will be attending nationals for the first time this year.
Taylor has spent the winter in Bend so that he can train with the Mount Bachelor Sports Education Foundation, but has remained a member of The Hood Series.
Roeseler returns to nationals this year after placing third in halfpipe, fourth in rail jam, and qualifying for finals at last year’s event. Roeseler swept his age group for the Hood Series Halfpipe and Rail Jam competitions this year, and he finished as the series champion for the slopestyle event. Roeseler won both the rail jam and the slopestyle at the Oregon Interscholastic Ski Racing Association state championships this year. In February, Roeseler travelled to Sun Valley, Idaho, to compete in the Big Mountain West Series, where he won the halfpipe and placed second in slopestyle against top-ranked kids from Colorado and Utah.
FitzSimons is in his first year of college at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. This year, he competed in the Toyota Revolution Tour in Waterville, Penn., where he made it to finals in slopestyle. He will be competing in open class rail jam at nationals.
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