Welcome to all of our GDHL newcomers after their first races. More about their results and others soon, but first here's what you need to know about this weekend:

Friday training is GS at 9:30 and 1:00. Contact Laurel to register.
Adult gate training is GS at 9:30 on each of Saturday and Sunday. Watch for updates from Natalie and signage at the Club regarding location.
Fast and Female and Adult Tech meet at the National chair at 9:30 on Saturday. Adult Tech is back at same time and place on Sunday.
The Interclub team is off to the Peaks for a 1:00 GS start on Saturday. Contact Taylor today if you're interested.
The GDHL race is GS on Millennium on Sunday. Inspection will start at 12:15 and close at 12:45, and the race will start at 1:00.

First Two Races

Handicapping GDHL newcomers is often a challenge. Some are well known, but others haven't raced since they were 14 or 15, have skied in the park since then or have added a lot of muscle. Seems to be less of an issue for women, but 20-something men are a challenge. So, your ranking committee was eagerly anticipating the weekend's results.

With any luck, the monitors in the lodges at the Club will now display GDHL results, including those who have distinguished themselves by finishing farther above their respective rankings than the others. Sadly for Brad McMullen, this comes after a hiatus in his two years of almost unbroken over-achievement. Of course, the monitor will also feature the overall winners, who in our first race were Chris Barber, Alec Libert and Scott McLorie among the men and Kate Ryley, Meghan Barber and Kate Veer among the women. (This distinction will become more important shortly.) Kate took over the hot seat by almost two seconds from early leader Jerry Patten and held it until Scott finished a tenth faster in bib 106 and then Chris broke into the 68's. Kate ultimately finished 5th in the overall overall. Full Super G results are here. Also among those in the top 20 were Patrick Pedlar (9th from 25th rank), Colin Gaffney (10th from 30, as it appears we were too generous in allowing for time on twin tips), Jerry Patten (12th from 28), Thomas Squires (16th from 44) and JF Courville (17th from 49). However, those on the first list will be Warren McDougald (19th from 77, up 58 spots), Doug MacCon (up 42 to 24th, new skis) and Dougie Craig (up 39 to 51st).

Moving on to Sunday's SL, Kate took the lead at bib 44 and on a deteriorating course Trevor Jackson at bib 107 was the first to come within five seconds of her time. Phil Ruffolo and Andrew Athey got a bit closer, then Chris Barber came within a second, but no one did any better, except Chris who managed to shave a few hundies on his second run. Chris was gracious enough to say that maybe the holes in the course slowed him down just enough so he didn't ski out. I should have such a problem. So, men's overall leaders were Chris, Alec Libert and Jesse Shepherd, women's overall leaders were Kate, Meghan Barber and Brittany Stainer and, for the first time in GDHL history (as recalled by me), the overall overall winner was a woman. Congrats Kate! Full results are here. Biggest movers were Warren McDougald (up 53 to 24th) and Ed Barnicke (up 50 to 49th), followed by Steve Jarvis and David Arthur, each up 38. Stephen Kurtz finished just off our virtual podium both days, up 38 on Saturday and 36 on Sunday.

On to our first GS weekend. Another chance to adjust our DIN settings and hope that we'll emulate Eric Guay on a good weekend, instead of the one where he skied out before the fourth gate. Remember, as long as 4 out of 7 ain't bad, your teammates will be happy, and we've got 5 left. There's a lot of video analyzing crashes at Kitzbuehel, mostly with German commentary, but here's a happier piece from Julia Mancuso via Morgan Rubes. See you on the weekend!