Five duos made Thursday afternoon's finals, including defending champions Rick "Pup" Ascher and Paul "Frosty" Krause, who won again.
BRECKENRIDGE - Every four years, the 10th Mountain Division gathers for a reunion that old soldiers attend by the thousands.Once a year in the mountains by Breckenridge, the Colorado Figure 8 Skiing Championships are held. The latest edition, the 14th annual came off under sunny skies, in warm weather and for the first time on the unblemished snow of Peak 7.
Colorado native Lloyd Yorker, 71, served as one of five judges who scored the 18 pairs of skiers who took first runs in the annual competition.
"It's an honor to be here", said Yorker, as he remembered skiing in Europe during World War II, "I skied for Denver University four years after the war. But I got tired after college, got married, had kids. I ski only twice a year now, and it's here at Breckenridge."
Five duos made Thursday afternoon's finals, including defending champions Rick "Pup" Ascher and Paul "Frosty" Krause, who won again.
Scored both in the field and on videotape by the judging quintet, Ascher and Krause came up with a total of 275.5 points, edging 1992 champions Franz Fuchsberger and Tomas Horacek of Vail (274).
Carey Stanowsky and Dan Cohen, a late arrival, placed third (272).
Rounding out the final five were a pair of teams from Breckenridge, Tim Walsh and Dave "Franz"Tyrell (271.9) and Dan Rosenthal and Rob Sprague (270.6).
Ascher and Krause claimed the top prize of $850 and a pair of Breckenridge season passes for the 1994-95 season. Next February, they will represent Colorado at the Grand National Figure 8 Championships at Jackson Hole,Wyo.
Sprague and Rosenthal won the 1992 Grand Nationals and finished ninth in the World Figure 8 Championships at Whistler, British Columbia. For their fifth place finish Thursday, they claimed a pair of Scott ski poles.
Walsh and Tyrell each won a pair of Miller skis, while Cohen and Stanowsky shared $340.
Fuchsberger and Horacek, who won the Grand National title last week at Jackson Hole, shared $510.
Leading into Thursday's Colorado Championships, Fuchsberger said getting to the final five was the early objective for him and his partner.
"The snow is great and the weather, perfect," Fuchsberger said. "You can't ask for a whole lot better.
"We felt we had a good first run. It comes down to making the final five, and it's a new game again."
Fuchsberger, wearing a matching red outfit with Horacek, said he enjoys the annual competition at Breckenridge. but it is a competition, and they intend to compete.
"It's a friendly atmosphere," Fuchsberger said. "But when it starts, you want to give it all you've got. You want to be right in it.
"At one moment, there's no friendship." Horacek said, "The finals will depend on the snow conditions and who is consistent from top to
bottom." Looking up at the eights he and Fuchsberger and the 17 other tandems left in the snow on the top half of Peak 7, Horacek said, "This hill is even for everyone, which is important for the first run. It's a nice square, and (the snow) doesn't change much."
There were a few hidden rocks, grass or "tundra," as Breckenridge's Todd Windle put it, and a few inconsistencies in the snow for some of the first-run competitors.
"The snow was a little squirrely," said Vail's Chris Usted, who, with his brother Jens Usted of Boulder, were 14th to start. "You'd start to get into a comfort zone, then it would change."
When the final five began, those runs were held on unmarked snow to the right of the first-run site.
At the bottom of the course. Yorker waited along with the other judges, Fiona Van Risen, Rick Rixon, David Thompson and Kim Williams.
The judges awarded points in five areas - distance between each skier, skiers' synchronization, speed (deduction if too slow), turn symmetry and roundness of turns.
Figure eight skiing is synchronization of skiing as an art. Only one turn separates the lead man from his partner.
As the team moves down the hill, their tracks intersecting, the outline of an eight is transposed in the snow.
With the abundance of sunshine and cobalt skies as a backdrop, it wasn't hard to see the figure eights. In years past, snowy skies made it hard to watch the action, and cold weather had its effect, too.
Ethan Guerra, sponsored by the Breckenridge Brewery, remembered the 1988 course, which was warmed a day early, then froze the night before.
"It was all slush the day before. Then it froze overnight, and that slush was tough," recalled Guerra, whose partner is Shane Schaumberg. Last year, the Breckenridge Ski Patrollers earned runner-up honors.
"The main thing is, though, this is the best competition of the year. Everyone is a good sportsman, and we're just out here having fun."
A while later, while waiting for the finals, Guerra enjoyed the warmth of the sun, shedding his shirt and catching a few rays.
Before the finals began, Yorker was busy smearing on sun screen. Past experience as a skier provides wisdom.
"I like cross-country skiing more than anything," said Yorker, who was born in Denver.
"I still like alpine, but I got away from it so long ago. When I came back here once, I still had leather boots and wooden skis."