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Tahoe ski cross racers Mara White, Nico Monforte qualify for Junior Worlds

Staff report
Mara White, a junior at North Tahoe High School, has enjoyed a successful season racing ski cross. With her results, White qualified to compete in ski cross at the FIS Freestyle World Junior Championships in Ski Cross in Val Thorens, France, from March 22-24.
Courtesy photo |

A season of hard work and success has set up Mara White with an opportunity to rub elbows with the world’s fastest ski cross racers.

White, a junior at North Tahoe High School and member of the Squaw Valley Ski Cross team, qualified to compete in the FIS Freestyle World Junior Championships in Val Thorens France from March 22-24.

Leading up to her selection, White put together a fine season in which she regularly hit the podium, and even held her own with top-10 finishes against Olympic racers in a World Cup event at Nakiska, Alberta. Following the Junior Worlds competition, White will race at the French Nationals on March 26 and the U.S. Nationals at Copper Mountain, Colo., on April 8.



All that racing and traveling comes with expenses, however, which led White to create a GoFundMe page in hopes of gaining sponsorships.

“I have a dream,” White says on her fundraising site. “I dream of flying down mountains chased by other skiers, I dream of launching off jumps shoulder to shoulder and I dream of being the fastest and standing on the podium. My goal is to ultimately make it to the US Ski Team to compete in ski cross at the 2018 Olympics in South Korea.”



Check out White’s fundraising page at http://www.GoFundMe.com/SkiMaraSki.

Monforte back on track

Nico Monforte — a former Far West racing standout and 2013 North Tahoe High grad who was climbing the ski cross ranks before suffering a major injury — will join White at Junior Worlds.

Monforte has raced twice at the Val Thorens venue and hopes to earn a podium finish to cap his successful season.

A mechanical engineering major at University of Nevada, Reno, Monforte returned to ski cross racing this season after undergoing four surgeries and 18 months of rehab for a badly broken leg. He suffered the injury in a freak freeskiing accident the day before the 2014 Junior Worlds competition.

This past week Monforte placed second for his Nevada team at the U.S. Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association National Championships in Lake Placid, N.Y. — in a photo finish. He placed third and fifth in a NorAm ski cross event at Copper Mountain, Colo., to qualify for Junior Worlds.


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