Putnam U.S. Alpine Championships

Winter Park, CO - With the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup Finals and the NorAm Cup season in the rear-view mirror, the U.S. Ski Team returns home for the Putnam U.S. Alpine Championships set for March 31-April 3 in Winter Park, CO. Among those expected to compete are three-time World Cup giant slalom champion and Putnam athlete Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) and three-time Olympic medalist Julia Mancuso (Squaw Valley, CA).

The championships serve as the culmination of a five-month season that crossed continents and countries so America's best alpine skiers could go head-to-head with the world. Top athletes from the over 400 U.S. Ski Team club programs throughout the U.S. will converge on Winter Park for the four-day event.

The event also wraps a full-week of alpine racing at Winter Park which opens March 25 with the Nature Valley NASTAR National Championships, a culmination of the largest recreational ski and snowboard race program in the world.

"U.S. championships are always a fun way to close the season," said Mancuso, after finishing third in both the World Cup downhill and super G standings this season. "I'll definitely be racing everything in Winter Park."

On the elite World Cup level, former U.S. champion Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO) added three more discipline titles to bring her career total to 12, while Ligety proved yet again that he is the greatest giant slalom athlete in recent years and Mancuso put on a season-long surge that resulted in victory at the final World Cup downhill.

Another notable U.S. Champs competitor is Nolan Kasper (Warren, VT), who is also a former NorAm champion. This season, Kasper jumped from 64th to 17th in the world slalom rankings and earned the Europa Cup slalom title. It was the first time an American had won a Europa Cup title since Monique Pelletier also took a slalom title in 1989.

"It's a long season, that's for sure," said Kasper. "But U.S. Champs is a pretty special event. There's no other way to see where you match up against the other top athletes across the country. Plus our families are all there and the coaches from our club programs. It feels like a big reunion."