Representing Duluth in Aspen Colorado

For the next week, most students will be sitting in school, and working on homework, maybe getting out a little bit. Not Henry Roningen. He left Wednesday to compete at the skiing Junior Nationals in Aspen Colorado.

In order to make it to Junior Nationals, skiers ages 15-16 need to be ranked in the top eight for their region. Roningen ranked eighth in the Midwest region, which was just good enough to get him the invite.

Skiers are ranked by a series of three qualifying events that took place over the past three months. In the Midwest, skiers only compete in giant slalom and slalom, since there are no places large enough to hold super G or downhill events. However, everyone that qualifies in all four events. “I qualified for all four events, but I’ll only be racing in two. I’ll use the other days to practice.” Roningen said.

When the Nationals event begins on March 6, there will be three days for training; the next two days will be the downhill and super G events. Neither of which Roningen will be competing in. The next day will be the giant slalom race, followed by a day off, which will be followed by the slalom race. Each of which Roningen will be racing in. All of the events will be over the same day they begin.

Skiers will get two runs, and be given a combined time to determine where they rank. “Basically if you fall or mess up you’re done,” Roningen said.

At the end of the week, there will be four winners, one from each event. Each of those skiers will be invited to ski with the USA team, and depending upon how those skiers do there, they could hypothetically be headed for the Olympics in 2010. Roningen said, “Pretty much I’m going to a qualifier of a qualifier of the Olympics.”