Skiers reach the top

"Things are Looking Up. "

When the last snowflake had settled at the end of the ski season, eight Dartmouth ski racers had been named to the all-East Ski Team, one had been crowned Combined National Champion, another was named NCAA National Champion, six had been named all-Americans (Tom Foote '87, Terry DelliQuadri '88, Miles deChamps '87, Eva Pfosi '88, Nancy Lane '87, and Leslie Thompson '86), and seven Alpine and Nordic skiers had been chosen to represent the United States in international competition.

The glory started with lots of lonely workouts in November. Many have attributed Dartmouth's successes on the slopes to the ski teams' tough dry-land workouts in the fall. The men's head coach, John Morton, added a new wrinkle to the training for Nordic skiers this past year. They went through a specialized program called V02 testing, which measures the body's efficiency in using oxygen. Morton felt the tests "confirmed that several of the hardest trainers are reaping the benefits" of their dedication. Top score for the team was achieved by junior Peter Gallenz, whose numbers approached those of members of the elite ski racing community. Meanwhile, the Alpine team was going through its paces in Memorial Stadium - bounding up and down the stadium seats carrying teammates on their backs, on one leg, backwards, and in various other ski-specific strength and concentration tests.

The snow - natural as well as artificial, in the first year with snowmaking at the Skiway - finally came, followed closely by the suc-cesses. Dartmouth took its first win at the first carnival, beating host Bates and nine other squads. Miles DeChamps maintained the Green's winning ways at the UNH Carnival, taking the slalom in flawless fashion. Not to be outdone, last year's NCAA Giant Slalom National Champion Tom Foote sped to a stunning 3.5-second Giant Slalom victory at the St. Lawrence Carnival the end of January.

While most Dartmouth racers were at Lake Placid, three of their Nordic teammates competed at the U.S. Team tryouts for the World Cup. Captain Leslie Thompson upset the best Nordic women in the country for a win in the first tryout, while junior Kathy Maddock recorded a strong fifth. Both were offered World Cup berths, and while Maddock went to Europe later in the season for the competition, Thompson turned down the chance in favor of the NCAA Championships.

Back closer to home the next weekend at UVM's carnival at Stowe, Eva Pfosi took the slalom on Vermont's home turf, and Terry DelliQuadri took second place in the slalom.

The next weekend Dartmouth's own carnival was held at the Skiway for the first time in six years. With "perfect" conditions, Foote sped to second place, one-hundredth of a second behind UVM's Dean Keller. But two weeks later, Dartmouth got its own back, when eight Green skiers, including Nordic captain and U.S. Team member Jon Underwood and his female counterpart, Thompson, were named to the all-East team at the Middlebury Carnival.

Attention then turned to the U.S. National Alpine Championships at Copper Mountain in Colorado. Senior Tiger Shaw repeated his last year's victory, emerging as the nation's Giant Slalom and Combined National Champion. Running behind him were Canadian Jim Reed and surprise third- place finisher Foote, who turned in the third-fastest time of the day in the second run. Foote's performance earned him a spot (Dartmouth's fourth) on the U.S. Ski Team. And DelliQuadri vaulted an incredible 14 spots from his first-run start order to land in 11th. "If it were a carnival," smiled men's coach Mark Ford, "we would havewon it."

The results were much the same in the slalom championships the next day. Shaw held on for a third place behind Henricks Smith-Meyer of Norway apd Paul Mahre of the U.S. Team to earn Combined National honors. Sophomore Greg Brockway took a seventh in the slalom, and 1984 team captain Art Lussi's 14th place rounded out a stunning weekend for Dartmouth.

Next on the docket were the NCAA Championships. DeChamps took over where Foote left off last year, winning the NCAA Giant Slalom crown and leading his teammates to an overall National Championship in giant slalom. The victory was especially sweet, since the runner-up was regular-season nemesis UVM. Sophomore Kristi Wilson was a surprise top-15 finisher for the women, and her squad helped Dartmouth to third place overall in the Nationals after the first day of competition.

Senior Leslie Thompson, in her last competition as a collegian, turned in the race of her life. Dueling it out with World Junior Champion Hanne Krogstad from UVM, who had habitually beaten Thompson by a minute or more in carnival competition, Thompson traded leads with Krogstad throughout the 10K event, finally falling short by a scant ten seconds. But Thompson's disappointment was tempered by her selection as a first-team all-American.

In his last race as a collegian, because his eligibility expires at the end of this year, deChamps took third place, while DelliQuadri finished 11th.

Finally, the NCAA competitors joined their teammates Foote, Brockway, and sophomore Billy Hudson in Aspen, Colo., for the end of the World Cup competition schedule. There, the women narrowly missed earning a National Slalom Team Championship, becoming runners-up to Utah.

A nice cap to the ski teams' successes was the naming of women's Nordic coach, Martha Rockwell, to the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame.

Alpine standout Tom Foote '87, left, and women's Nordic captain Leslie Thompson '86, right, were among the skiers winning multiplehonors for the Big Green this year. Both were first-team all-Americans, Foote copped a third place at the U.S. Nationals in the giant slalom,and Thompson made the U.S. Team and came in second at the NCAA Championships