Team USA has impressive medal count at U.S. Adaptive Nationals

The U.S. Adaptive Ski Team wrapped up competition against its American counterparts at the 2011 U.S. Adaptive Alpine Championships on Sunday.

Skiers from Canada, Netherlands, Serbia, Mexico, Sweden, Turkey, Slovenia, Poland and Iceland also added a bit of international flair to the races held at the Alyeska Resort in Alyeska, Alaska.

Coming off a successful run in Kimberly, Canada at the Canadian National Championships, Team USA continued its recent medal tear and collected more hardware.

Coach Ray Watkins had only positive things to say about the experience.

“These are good, promising young kids that are climbing their way up and we are excited and happy about the performances so far,” Watkins said.

For the women, Danelle Umstead (Park City, Utah) with guide and husband Rob Umstead in the visually impaired events, along with Laurie Stephens (Wenham, Mass.) in the sitting events, pulled together an impressive haul of medals.

Umstead placed first with a time of 1:17.73 in the visually impaired downhill while Stephens placed first in the sitting downhill with a time of 1:21.00. Same results in the super G and super combined where Umstead clocked in with times of 1:51.44 in the super combined and 52.69 in the super G. Stephens joined her on the top of the medal stand with times of 2:12.94 and 1:13.61 respectively.

It was more of the same in the last two days of competition. Umstead placed first in the giant slalom and slalom with times of 2:22.23 and 2:00.37. Stephens did the same with times of 2:05.60 and 2.11.20.

Chris Devlin-Young (Campton, N.H.), Tyler Walker (Franconia, N.H.) and Ralph Green (Vail, Colo.) added to the medal count on the men’s side.

In the men’s sitting downhill, Devlin-Young placed first with a time of 1:09.67 with Walker right behind him in second with a time of 1:11.61.

Green earned his first spot on the medal stand with a first place time of 1:40.69 in the men’s standing super combined. In the sitting super combined, Walker placed second with a time of 1:39.45. Walker earned another silver medal in the sitting giant slalom with a time of 1:51.16.

Green and Walker both rounded out the competition Sunday with medals – Green third in the standing slalom with a time of 1:40.20 and Walker second in the sitting slalom with 1:40.01.

Erik Bayindirli (Deer Mountain, Utah), former member of the U.S. Paralympic adaptive ski team, also had a successful week placing third in the sitting super combined, sitting giant slalom and sitting slalom.

“The results have been good,” Watkins said. “Tyler, Ralph, Danelle and Laurie – they are doing exactly what we want them to be doing at U.S. Nationals.”

When assessing the attitude of the team overall, Watkins described it as upbeat.

“They’re happy, and they’re ready to win more races.”