US Paralympians Evan Strong and Heidi Jo Duce each took home national titles on Wednesday (9 April) at the US Paralympics Snowboard Cross National Championships in Copper Mountain, Colorado.

The event was the finale of an exciting season for US snowboarders, one that saw snowboard cross featured at the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games for the first time in history.

The men’s results mirrored the US podium sweep from Sochi 2014, as Strong, Mike Shea and Keith Gabel took first, second and third, respectively. In Sochi, the three finished in the same order.

It was a close race as usual for the three Paralympic medallists. Strong and Shea, who were separated by just half a second in Sochi, finished with combined times that were a little more than a second apart.

“I’m always stoked to see my boys doing well, and I think they feel the same way as well,” Gabel said of placing third behind his teammates. “We battled for one-two-three, same as in Sochi. If I’m ever going to miss a spot, I’d rather it go to those guys than anyone else.”

Navy veteran Tyler Burdick, who took eighth at the Sochi Games, finished in fourth overall.

On the women’s side, it was Duce who took the top spot. The victory earned her back-to-back national championship titles, as she edged US teammate Amy Purdy at the 2013 edition of the event.

Purdy, the 2014 Paralympic bronze medallist, was absent from the race as she is competing on the TV show Dancing with the Stars. Still, Duce’s competition was in top form. Nicole Roundy, who finished eighth in Sochi, took second place while newcomer Brenna Huckabee rounded out the podium in third.

Duce finished an uncharacteristic fifth at the Sochi Games and said she was happy to be back on the podium to close out the competition season.

“It was nice to have a good race after not doing too well in Sochi. I was glad to be ending the season on positive note,” Duce said. “It was soft because it was spring riding, but I tend to have the best results on Copper courses. They build really good courses.”

Cristina Albert, who earned a career-high fourth-place in Sochi, finished fifth at nationals.

Next up, the US national team will head straight into a training camp in mid-May followed by summer on-snow training in the southern hemisphere in preparation for the 2014-15 season.

Evan Strong has zipped through the past few weeks the way he tears down a mountain. At high speed, everything is just a bit blurry.

“Life has gone crazy,” he said, laughing. “It’s gone so big and I’m still digesting the experience. There was just so much energy surrounding the Games and it’s just … Things have been speeding up like a foot on the gas pedal, and I’ve just been holding on and enjoying the ride.”

Strong was speaking after leaving the White House Thursday following a day spent with about 200 other Paralympic and Olympic athletes meeting President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Two days earlier, the town of Nevada City, Calif., had turned out for a special celebration and parade in honor of Strong, a resident, who won a gold medal in Sochi and led a U.S. men’s sweep in the Paralympic debut of snowboard cross.

After returning to the United States as the only American individual gold-medal winner at Sochi, Strong spent about a week in New York making media appearances. He also learned he’ll be on the front of a cereal boxes that comes out soon.

“It’s kind of like the American dream,” Strong said. “Win a gold medal and be so good to be put on the Wheaties box, so it’s definitely surreal.”

And his whirlwind adventure isn’t over. As Strong talked about Sochi and his post-Games activities, he was being driven through Washington, D.C., to the airport for a flight to Colorado, where he’ll compete this week in the national championships at Copper Mountain. Even though he’d only had two days of boarding at Lake Tahoe since Sochi, he wasn’t sweating the national championships.

In fact, after the long grind of preparation for Sochi and the pressures of performing in the Games, he was looking forward to competing at Copper Mountain.

“I definitely want to go out there and ride fast and ride strong, but it’s also a much more relaxed atmosphere,” he said. “So if you’re not at your peak performance, that’s OK, because you’re there to snowboard with your friends and have a good time.”

In Sochi, Strong, 27, did come up with a peak performance, holding off U.S. teammates and good friends Mike Shea and Keith Gabel in a tight contest in which Strong and Shea took turns in the lead until the final run.

“Being able to share the experience with them and be up on the podium with them and be able to have three American flags raised with the national anthem, it was an explosive experience,” Strong said. “Just amazing. I had so much fun.”

Then to get a chance to go to the White House to be honored with his fellow athletes by the president put a bow on the whole Paralympic experience.

“It was such an honor to be able to, for one, achieve a gold for the country, but to be able to bring it and share it with the president is an amazing thing,” said Strong, who lost his left leg below the knee following a motorcycle accident when he was 17. “It really felt like a great conclusion of being together with all your teammates, the Olympians and Paralympians, at the White House. That kind of acknowledgement brought if full circle.”

The celebration in Nevada City, too — where he lives with his wife, Mariah, and owns and operates a restaurant — was touching in a far more personal way.

As he walks around his town, people greet him and he feels their support, he says. They watched the Games and cheered him on, and he says his friends and neighbors always have been supportive of him. Even his restaurant, The Fix For Foodies, has been packed with well-wishers lately.

“They’ve all been so proud and so happy to see me, and so supportive,” he said. “It’s given me so much good energy. It was good to be able to bring that energy back home to share it with my community.”

Though he’s enjoyed all the attention he’s received and the places he’s gone and people he’s met, he says being home to rest for a few days — and sleeping in his own bed again — has been his favorite recent experience.

“I’ve been running off bare-minimum sleep the last couple of weeks, so being able to get that sort of restful, restorative quiet time at home has been just so nice,” he said.

After the national championships, he’ll get a chance to return home and get back to normal. But in four years, it’s possible he could be in line for more excitement. He has his eyes on the next Paralaympic Winter Games in South Korea in 2018.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I’m having a lot of fun riding my board, getting faster, getting stronger, getting fitter, so as long as I’m still having fun and learning, I’m still going to be around. I definitely want to be around for another Games.”

Doug Williams covered three Olympic Games for two Southern California newspapers and was the Olympic editor for the San Diego Union-Tribune. He has written for USParalympics.org since 2011 as a freelance contributor on behalf ofRed Line Editorial, Inc.

Success for USA in alpine and snowboard World Cups
Men’s snowboard-cross expertsEvan Strong (1:22.40) and Michael Shea (1:22.49) had a close fight for first and second place, with world champion Strong just edging Shea for first place. Shea took the lead after the first run but had a poor second round, dropping all the way down to 10th, leaving Strong to finish the last two rounds in first. Canada’s John Leslie completes the lower-limb impairment podium in third (1:25.79). Continuing USA’s podium rush was Heidi-Jo Duce in the women’s race, picking up second place (1:47.21) behind dominant multiple-world champion Bibian Mentel Spee (1:27.76) of the Netherlands. Mentel Spee’s teammate Lisa Bunschoten (1:48.08) collected her second podium finish of the weekend, following a second place from Saturday (18 January). Marc Dervaes rounded off the wins from the USA in the men’s upper limb impairment race (1:32.00). He was joined on the podium by Aussie Matthew Robinson (1:35.52) and another American, Fatu Matagi (1:43.25), in third.

Heidi Jo Duce, Evan Strong and Joseph Chandler topped the podium in their respective events at the US Snowboard Cross National Championships on Thursday (4 April) in Copper Mountain, Colorado.

Nineteen men and seven women competed in the event, with less than one year to go until the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games, where the discipline will debut for athletes lower limb impairments.

Despite there being five athletes from outside of the country, USA monopolised the podium.

In the women’s lower limb impairment race, Heidi Jo Duce had the winning overall time (1:50.32), despite Amy Purdy having the fastest times on the first and third runs. Purdy was just three-hundredths of a second behind, finishing in 1:50.35. Nicole Roundy came third in 2:11.72.

After a cautious first run, Evan Strong had the fastest times in the second and third runs to take gold in the men’s lower limb impairment class in 1:23.25. Tyler Burdick came second finishing in 1:35.11 and Keith Gabel had the third-fastest time of 1:35.16.

In the men’s upper-limb impairment class, which will not be on the Paralympic programme in Sochi, Joseph Chandler had the fastest time of 1:40.60. Fatu Matagi was second in 1:52.18 and Samoana Matagi third in 2:15.67.

The event is the final competition on IPCAS snowboard cross calendar for this season.

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