Podium for Piera in First Races of Season

Loveland Valley Ski Area, USA - (27 November 2013) - 17 year-old ski racer, Piera Hudson (Hawke's Bay) has made a fantastic start to her northern hemisphere season, earning a podium spot in Giant Slalom (GS) at the National Junior Race at Loveland Valley Ski Area, Colorado, USA.

The National Junior Races were contested over four days from 23 - 26 November. Piera earned her best result on the first day of racing, taking third place in GS with her combined time of 1:51:01 behind Croatian skiers Andrea Komsic (1:50:45) and Sasa Trsinski (1:50:70). The result marked Piera’s first FIS podium outside of New Zealand and gave her a FIS result of 36.4.

“It's always nice to get a result like that after all the hard work that myself and everyone who supports me puts into my skiing,” she commented after the race.

“I had good expectations going into the race, I knew most of the girls racing and how I stack up to them so I felt confident for a podium result.”

The following days’ racing saw Piera earn a fifth place in the second GS race and fourth in Slalom.

Find full results here

As the northern hemisphere season progresses Piera’s goals are “to just improve my skiing each day but I definitely want to lower my FIS points and my world ranking in all my disciplines a significant amount.”  The FIS Alpine Junior World Ski Championships in Jasna, Slovakia in February and March 2014 will be her main event focus. Next on the competition schedule for Piera is another four-day block of racing in Loveland with North America Cups (Nor-Am) beginning on 2 December.

Adam Barwood (Queenstown), Nick Prebble (Christchurch), Ben Griffin (Ohakune) and Willis Feasey (Twizel) have also been competing at the Loveland Valley Ski Area in Nor-Am races from 23 – 26 November.

Adam Barwood was the topping performing New Zealand racer, achieving 22^nd place in Slalom and 27^th in Giant Slalom.

Find full results here

Nick Prebble, Ben Griffin and Willis Feasey will compete in the Nor-Am series at Copper Mountain from 16 December with Ben Griffin first travelling to Beaver Creek for a World Cup event on 6 December.

Ends