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Gold, Silver, Bronze- SMS road to 2010 |
Contacts:
Jake Duhaime
802.297.4127
Myra Foster
802.297.4137
With her second place finish at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy, Lindsey Jacobellis gave her alma mater, the Stratton Mountain School, the Olympic medal it didn’t have - a hefty piece of Italian silver.
Since snowboarding was added to the Olympic program in 1998, Stratton Mountain School has had a presence on the medal stand at each Olympic Games. Not only is Jacobellis the face of her sport, but fellow alumnus Ross “The Boss” Powers took home a bronze medal in the inaugural halfpipe competition back in Nagano. And four years later, a day after his 23rd birthday, Powers led a U.S. medals sweep of the podium on home snow in Salt Lake City.
Both riders will try and add to the collection in Vancouver next February. Jacobellis capped off a dominant 2009 season by winning the overall World Cup title and her fifth X Games gold medal, but her 18 individual World Cup event titles makes her the most decorated snowboardcross athlete in the world – male or female.
Powers, now 28, moves from the halfpipe to boardercross going from winning a World Cup title in 2004-05, to having to work his way back up the circuit in a different discipline. Powers took home his first World Cup medal last February in Maine.
Jacobellis and Powers are two of more than 100 Stratton Mountain School alumni named to U.S. National Teams and among 30 to participate in the Olympic Games. Part of a nearly four decade legacy of catering to elite boarders and skiers as they strive to reach their own personal goals.
And for those athletes who might not end up on a National Team, nearly all end up at prestigious colleges and universities nationwide, making it a truly unique institution.
“The combination of highly qualified teachers and coaches with experience at the highest level of competition gives our student athletes an edge,” Headmaster Christopher G. Kaltsas said. “SMS alumni have not only matriculated at Dartmouth, Middlebury, Brown and Williams, they have also achieved success in all manner of professions, from medicine to Wall Street.
Some, like Ellery Hollingsworth find success long before leaving school in a cap and gown. Her senior year included a pair of medals on the U.S. Grand Prix series and signing a deal with Gatorade. She celebrated her 18th birthday by opening the 2009-10 World Cup season with a fifth place finish in the first halfpipe event of the season.
Her classmate Lizzie Beerman followed up her sixth place finish at the 2008 Winter X Games with two top 10 finishes on the Dew Tour and opened the 2009-10 season with a sixth place finish at the Burton New Zealand Open.
Danny Davis is best known here for his second place performances in the U.S. Open on home snow, but the 21 year-old bested 2006 Olympic Gold Medalist Shaun White on the pipe at a Dew Tour event last season.
Davis is also known as a member of the highly-popular ‘Frends Crew’, a group of seven snowboarders who turned their friendship into a brand name, with a grass roots approach to the sport as their motivation.
Andy Newell, a 25 year-old from Shaftsbury, went to Torino as a member of the U.S. Cross Country team. The 2003 graduate finished 13th in the sprint relay and 16th in the individual sprint. He competed in his first World Junior Championships at 17.
Newell was the first U.S. Cross Country skier in 13 years to reach the podium in a World Cup race doing so in Changchun, China in March of 2006. He won a silver medal at a World Cup race in Finland in 2008 and has consistently been a top ten presence on the sprint circuit, including a seventh place finish on the Olympic course in January.
The success of the Stratton Mountain School exists not only in the caliber of its graduating athletes, but first class facilities catered to those athletes. Students who live and train at SMS have access to the latest equipment and technology, including a 3,000 foot Skate Park and a Sports Science lab that provides immediate data to coaches, who then customize workouts for each individual athlete based on those results.
“The lab tests athletes improvement and associates it with skiing results,” said Mike Morin, Alpine Program Director. “It directly links improved power from our conditioning program, to results on the hill.”
What remains to be seen is how the SMS experience translates onto the dance floor. Louie Vito moved from Bellefontaine, Ohio to attend the school before turning professional in 2006. The 2008 U.S. World Cup winner will try to make the Olympic Team in the halfpipe, but will also try to continue the legacy of Olympic athletes on the wildly popular ‘Dancing with the Stars’ this fall.
Stay tuned.
