Week of February 24
**INTRO TO SKI LEVEL DEVELOPMENT
Saturday February 22 was our last day of our 6-week class with our newest GTSC skiers – and what a day it was for all! Obstacle courses, cupcakes (thank you Coach Sherry!) and fun – oh my!
We had a blast getting to know each of our skiers and are so proud of you all! The progression in this group is by far the most impressive to watch.
Please keep skiing with your lil rippers and we hope to see you all back stronger than ever in 2026!
**SKI LEVEL DEVELOPMENT
Wednesday February 19th was the last day of our 6-week program with our Ski Level Development skiers – our biggest group of skiers at GTSC! Coaches planned a super fun night of stations around Hickory Hills – including our “thank you” stations to all our Hickory friends, and cookie station (thank you Coach Nora!).
Thank you for sharing your skiers with us and allowing them to join our community of independent skiers that are rocking around Hickory Hills!
Please keep skiing and continue working on all your amazing new skills!! See you soon!
**RACE CLINICS
This is our final week of all our Race Clinic programming! :
Monday Night Race Clinic (USSS focus):
- Final date was Monday, February 24th – you have all graduated as SLALOM rippers!! Thank you for an awesome year!!
Wednesday Night Race Clinic:
- The final date of WNRC is Wednesday, February 26th – will be SL this week. We had so much fun with all of you – thank you!
Race Clinics (Tues/Thurs):
- FOCUS this week will be on:
- Individualized drills and feedback
- Assess goals and review sports psychology tips
- Welborn qualifiers and alternates all welcome to join us.
- Tuesday – SL; Thursday – GS
**MIDDLE SCHOOL RACE TEAM (MSRT):
Last week our MSRT racers once again proved how resilient they are – and our coaches led the way! After a good week of training, our MS Race at Boyne Mountain started off with a bang – riddled with some off-the-wall oddities and a race that wouldn’t go… but that didn’t stop our skiers and coaches from an absolutely awesome day of perseverance! Free skiing and duals racing for fun, you say? One heck of a consolation prize folks!! Thank you to all for great attitudes!
For the week ahead – please see Schedule. This week we do NOT have a middle school race – we are training and fun only!!
Looking ahead to next week – the 1st week of March – we are looking for fams to MARK THEIR AVAILABILITY in TeamSnap if they plan to attend. We are looking for 6 or more MSRT skiers confirmed to hold practice March 3-5. Thanks!
Let’s crush this week, MSRT!
**SUNDAY RACES:
Our Sunday Racers had a busy weekend as many chose to race at both the HRT Invitational (Saturday) and our final GTSC Sunday Race (Sunday) – wheeeeehoo! And a grand showing it was by all our fearless racers!! We had so many returning racers, and LOTS of brave newbies trying it out for the first time =) Thank you for being a part of our amazing race family here at GTSC – what a fun season!
As we look towards the Welborn Championship Race on March 2 – just a few reminders to GTSC families on where to find more information on this race:
- Welborn is a qualification-based Championship Race.
- The top 5 racers from each club, plus 1 alternate, are invited to race on behalf of each attending Club.
- Final GTSC Welborn qualifiers have been confirmed and are shown here;
- All racers ski both GS and SL.
- The race is at The Highlands – the 2025 Welborn Cup Fact Sheet is under Files and shared out via email and here:
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Welborn Cup Fact Sheet 2025.docx - Please note information on Lift Tickets and Waiver – required!
- Note tab #2 at bottom for race volunteer workers! Free lift tickets and super fun!!
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- If your racer also races USSS, they must NOT have competed in more than 50% of the CR3 USSS Races, and regularly raced on behalf of GTSC.
- GTSC identifies the top 5 racers per age group by scoring weekly Sunday Races. The GTSC scoring system is transparent and shown on our website.
- Weekly results are shown here: https://timing.gtskiclub.org/
- Welborn Cup ranking/standings are shown here: https://timing.gtskiclub.org/wellborn.php
- Huge thank you to all our timing crew (Steve Nowak, Kelley Travis, Rob Mittelstaedt, Bill Bageris…) and Tim Barrons (backend IT assistance) for helping to ensure we have this information week to week! (trust me, it didn’t used to be this available folks!!! It was a lot of parent math going on to try and know where you were – ha!)
Let’s crush our final week of Race Clinics and with our Welborn prep!!
Please reach out anytime to coaches with questions!!
**USSS & FIS Race Teams – MS USSS, HS USSS, Intro to USSS, and FIS
Last week, an awesome crew of our fearless U14 & U16 USSS racers headed to Indianhead for the Central Region Championship Races! This race brings together the top racers of our entire Central Region – Michigan, Wisconsin, Minneapolis, Illinois, etc – it’s a highly competitive race and super exciting times! Congrats to all who made the trip and represented our Club so well – we are proud! Coaches saw some of the most amazing sportsmanship and competitive racing of the season out of our athletes, thank you all for being amazing.
We are so proud to have GTSC racers heading to both Vail and Winter Park, Colorado for the U14 & U16 Rocky/Central Junior Championships in March. Let’s GO!!! For those that qualified –
- Watch the WhatsApp – it’s where much of the updates are posted!
- Please note the Championship Race information being shared out through Central Region.
- Typically swag orders are due SOON – so keep your eyes peeled!
- Start making travel accomodations with pals and think about lift tickets (check the race Fact Sheets for family discounts!).
- Reminder the IKON works at Winter Park (any GTSC Fall Campers!) and EPIC pass works at Vail.
For the week ahead:
- Training – We will host training per our Schedule – note – no MS racing during the week.
- USSS Racing – Next weekend please mark your availability for the CR3 USSS Championships and register through Skireg! We hope to have a good showing at this final CR3 race of the season!
- Please be sure to mark your availability in TeamSnap so we can plan accordingly.
As we enter into our final racing day of the season, let’s crush our final practices and races!