Former Freestyle Junior National Mogul Champion and Killington Mountain School (KMS) alumnus Nick Keating ‘10 worked his way into the finals and placed ninth in his World Cup debut last Thursday at Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid, N.Y. Keating, of Waterbury Center, is a member of the U.S. Development Group. Kelsey Albert (KMS ’07) just missed the finals, finishing 13th. In all, five KMS alumni including Bryan Zemba ’10, Darius Baradaran ’12 and Colin Lang ’13 challenged the best mogul skiers in the world at the Lake Placid World Cup.
Keating skied to a sixth-place position in qualifying with a 23.87 and finished ninth overall with a 24.05, missing sixth place and the cut for super-finals by less than four-tenths of a point. Albert missed women's finals by an even narrower margin, finishing the day in 13th place with a 19.98, 0.13 points out of 12th and 0.15 out of 11th position. Lang put together a strong top-to-bottom run and just missed the top 30, while U.S. Ski Team member Zemba had some trouble in the middle section. Baradaran wowed the crowd with incredible turns and air during training but went a little too big in qualifying and failed to finish.
As an added bonus, three KMS skiers got to train and forerun the course, getting a close look at the level of competition they hope to reach in the next few years.