World Pro Ski Tour’s 2021-22 Season Concludes with World Championships

​Keefe Gorman advises clients on investment and wealth management matters at Merrill Lynch, for which he oversees such services as managing director at the company’s Ithaca, New York, office. Outside of his commitments at Merrill Lynch, Keefe Gorman belongs to the World Pro Ski Tour (WPST). The tour’s 2021-22 season culminated in April 2022 with the WPST World Championships.

Held in New Mexico’s Taos Ski Valley and presented by Rocket Mortgage, the 2022 WPST World Championships featured a qualifying set, a women’s and men’s parallel slalom race, and a parallel giant slalom race. Normally the top 32 athletes from the men’s and women’s qualifiers proceed to the finals, but organizers reduced the number for the women’s event to 16 due to a turnout of two dozen women. The finals consisted of a super-slalom competition with two gate sets and multiple pro-style jumps, followed by a giant slalom race that tested skiers’ technical skill.

Numerous top-tier athletes and former Olympian medalists from across the world participated in the 2022 World Championships, including 2021 WPST champion Robert Cone, three-time Olympian winner Resi Stiegler, two-time Olympian Tricia Mangan, and 2020 WPST Rookie of the Year Simon Breitfuss-Kammerlander. The winners of each slalom race received a $20,000 prize, and an additional $25,000 was awarded to the male and female skiers with the best overall performance.

Olympian and 2022 National Champion Paula Moltzan achieved the top score among the women with 65 total points, while Olympic silver medalist Linus Strasser and World Championships silver medalist Erik Read tied for most points in the men’s standing. Both amassed a combined 45 points across the slalom courses. Strasser and Moltzan also earned the highest scores in the men’s and women’s super slalom, respectively, and Read won the men’s giant slalom competition. First place in the women’s giant slalom went to Stefanie Fleckenstein, a three-time All-American university racer who made her WPST debut this season.

The 2022 WPST World Championships took place April 8-10. Total prize money amounted to $250,000, an increase from previous years due to a contribution from Taos Ski Area.