After enduring and mastering a series of qualifying races and time trials, a trio of skiers from Diamond Peak Ski Team has earned top spots for a trip to the J3/4 Western Region Junior Olympics. J3 racer, Luca Genasi, and J4 teammates, Ty Sprock and Lila Lapanja, are poised to step it up again and go against the top J3s and J4s in the entire Western United States. Diamond Peak’s Alex Tanner also secured an alternate spot for the J3 men. The Western J3 Junior Olympics/J4 Festival is an annual event where the very best 12 - 14 year old USSA competitors from the five (5) Western divisions compete in Super G, Giant Slalom and Slalom over four (4) days. This year’s event will be held at Mammoth Mountain from Thursday, March 22 to Sunday March 25, 2007.

The snow was plentiful and the stakes were high at Snow Summit’s J4 Festival Junior Olympic qualifying races this past weekend, where the top thirty J4 boys and girls in the Far West region met to battle it out over three slalom and three giant slalom runs all in one day. The best two-out-of-three runs are awarded World Cup points and only the top three racers of each group qualify for the Junior Olympics

Veteran J4 Lila Lapanja and first-year J4 Ty Sprock (seldom do first-year J4s go top three), kicked off the Festival by setting the gold standard and laying down two very fast, first-place runs on a challenging giant slalom course.

When the day was done, Sprock had plenty of points gleaned from 1st- and 2nd-place runs in the GS (times of 35.96 and 36.04 seconds respectively) and two 2nds (39.73 and 41.99) in slalom to advance to the JOs. Kelly Kai Tokunaga of Snow Summit and Max Hall of Squaw Valley joined Sprock to round out the top three spots.

All heart and skiing with a broken thumb, Lapanja grabbed a GS 1st and 3rd (35.74 and 36.22) and 4th- and 3rd-place finishes (41.16 and 42.67) in slalom, locking in top points to move beyond her competition. Lapanja will be joined by Sugar Bowl’s Lena Andrews and Allene Kennedy of Squaw Valley on the big trip to Mammoth.

Successfully representing a young J3 program at Diamond Peak, first-year J3, Luca Genasci, secured his points with outstanding slalom and giant slalom break-out performances at his qualifying races this season. Teammate Alex Tanner, also a first-year J3, laid down excellent results against an older and very strong men’s J3 constituency in the region, and was rewarded with an alternate spot on the Far West JO Team.

When all the results are tallied after racing in three disciplines—giant slalom, slalom, and super-G—the top twenty-six J3 men and twenty-one J3 women from the Far West region are chosen to compete in the Junior Olympics. For a complete list of selections and individual race results, please visit the Far West website.