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Summit residents Minor, Miller win para-snowboard World Cup banked slalom

Mike Minor of Frisco, center, stands atop the para-snowboard World Cup podium after winning the season's first World Cup event in the Netherlands on Wednesday.
Courtesy Mike Minor

FRISCO — A day after they each won at the season-opening Europa Cup event, Summit County para-snowboarders Mike Minor and Zach Miller each won their respective divisional races at the season-opening World Cup event in the Netherlands.

Wednesday’s World Cup competitions took place on the same banked slalom course and with the same competitors as Tuesday’s Europa Cup event. On the 18-turn banked slalom course at the indoor SnowWorld Landgraaf competition venue dubbed “the freezer,” Minor comfortably won the upper-limb division by more than two seconds with a time of 43.20.

“Ride fast, take chances,” Minor said to reporters in Landgraaf. “I just like to go as fast as I possibly can on a snowboard, as fast as humanly possible.”



After not competing on the World Cup circuit last season, the Pyeongchang 2018 Paralympic gold medalist Minor has won two competitions in two days to start the season and will look to break the 44-second mark during Thursday’s third and final day of banked slalom competition.

Wildernest resident and Minor’s fellow Adaptive Action Sports rider Zach Miller has also opened the season with two wins in two days. On Wednesday’s World Cup course, Miller bested runner-up Owen Pick of Great Britain by just nine-hundredths of a second.



Miller won his first World Cup competition Wednesday, a day after winning his first Europa Cup, on the strength of his second and final run after he didn’t finish his first run.

“It took a long time, and it’s been a long journey,” Miller told reporters in Landgraaf. “I’ve been on the World Cup circuit since 2013, so to be able to really put the fastest time down today and get a gold medal, it feels incredible. It feels like all the hard work over the years has really paid off.”

Three other Summit County-based Adaptive Action Sports snowboarders competed in Thursday’s lower-limb two division along with Miller: Garrett Geros (ninth, 48.47), Joe Pleban (11th, 49.11) and Alex Rivera (12th, 49.50).


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