Summit County once again justified why people call the area a mecca for competitive winter sport athletes. Some of the best local winter sport athletes found themselves at the top of the podium this week during the United States of America Snowboard and Freeski Association National Championships.

Summit County was represented at Copper Mountain Resort from Sunday, April 3, to Thursday, April 7, by several Team Summit and Adaptive Action Sport athletes.

In the 11-12 year old age division for girls snowboarding, Lily Dhawornvej, who competes with Team Summit, dominated and showed how diverse of an athlete she is as she finished on the podium in three different events.

In the girl’s slopestyle competition, Dhawornvej became a national champion after she put down a run that earned a score of 92.75, which put her ahead of second place by six points.

In the girl’s halfpipe competition, Dhawornvej came within one point of securing her second national title of the week, but she was beat out by Rochelle Rocke Weinberg of Steamboat Springs, who scored a 99 to beat Dhawornvej’s 98.

Dhawornvej got her second national title in snowboardcross when she beat Team Summit teammate, Giada Brienza.

In the Para snowboard cross races on Wednesday, April 6, Silverthorne residents Garrett Geros and Zach Miller — who recently returned from the Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing — found themselves on top of the podium once again.

At the Paralympic Games, Geros won a silver medal in the men’s snowboard cross lower limb two classification. This week, Geros returned to the snowboard cross competition for the first time since Bejiing to secure a bronze medal.

Miller placed first in the race to become a national champion.

In the men’s and women’s upper limb classifications, Adaptive Action Sports had two athletes win gold medals. Colby Fields and Darian Bailey Haynes easily beat out the rest of the competition to become national champions in the event.

Fields raced in his division unopposed but finished his first time trial run in 1 minute 7 seconds. He was then placed in a heat with Paralympians Mike Schultz and Brenna Huckaby. Fields placed second in that heat, behind Schultz, finishing the course faster than his time trial to win the national title in his classification.

“It was really cool. I have never raced in a stacked heat like that before,” Fields said. “To have people I look up to in the sport in my heat is cool.”

In the women’s snowboard slopestyle competitions, Breckenridge resident Alyssa Moroco competed well in the open division, placing fifth overall.

Moroco executed a pretty solid run in order to score 90 points, but it was not enough to break onto the podium.

Kaitlyn Adams, Moroco’s 2022 Junior World Championship teammate and recent Nor-Am Cup champion, was also scheduled to compete in the competition but decided not to start.

Team Summit’s Karis Stang placed eighth in the men’s snowboard slopestyle open division, scoring a top run score of 84.

James Dayton was another Team Summit athlete who placed high in multiple events. He was able to place fifth in slopestyle and halfpipe in the boy’s 7-8 year old age division.

Rounding out the snowboard portion of the national competition was Jadyn Dalrymple and Oliver Bowater-Antrim of Team Summit.

Dalrymple placed third in the men’s open class division. In the boys 13-14 year old age division, Bowater-Antrim placed fourth.

The national competition hosted by Copper Mountain Resort will continue into next week with the some of Summit’s best freeskiers taking their shot at a national title. Competition is scheduled to start on Sunday, April 10, and conclude on Tuesday, April 12.