SIERRA NEVADA, Spain (March 18) - Eliza Outtrim (Steamboat Springs, CO) closed out the World Cup season in a big way Thursday as she took the win to mark the first podium performance of her career during the moguls competition in Spain. She was joined on the podium by teammate Heather McPhie (Bozeman, MT) who was third.

"It's pretty incredible. I honestly couldn't believe it. It was so surreal for so long," Outtrim said. "I really did not expect this at all. I was really just hoping to get a top five, so this win is unbelievable."

On a brand new World Cup course, Outtrim said conditions improved throughout the day, enabling her to have her best run of the year.

"The course got better throughout the day. We had bad weather and poor visibility in the morning, and by the afternoon it had cleared out and the snow got better," Outtrim said. "I came off the top air and went fairly large, and from there I tried skiing fast and I nailed my bottom air. They were probably my best two jumps this year."

Once she was at the bottom, Outtrim still had to wait for teammate and Olympic gold medalist Hannah Kearney (Norwich, VT) to compete before she knew her fate.

"When I was watching Hannah come down I got kind of teary-eyed even thinking that I was going to get second. But, Hannah had trouble on the bottom and they announced her in fourth," Outtrim said. "It was so unexpected. All my teammates are skiing so well and they've had such a great year. As a competitor you should always have the win in your mind, but I didn't really have it in my mind."

The U.S. women have packed the podium on a regular basis, with consistent strong results that helped put the USA on top winning the Freestyle World Cup Nation's Cup title.

Now, with her first win in hand, Outtrim has some plans on how she can carry her success forward into the 2011 season.

"There's certainly a lot of things to work on. I want to focus on skiing faster and getting physically stronger, as well as learning new tricks," Outtrim said. "I think ending the World Cup on this note is going to be a big help for next year. Hopefully I can just remember the feeling of that run and take it into next year."

Marking the fourth World Cup podium of her season, McPhie said that skiing as well as she did on Thursday was refreshing from her run at the Olympics.

"I had to dig deep after the Olympics. Being on the road since the first and being disappointed in how I did there, it was fun to finally ski how I know I can again," McPhie said. "I was psyched to lay down a top to bottom run in semis. Finals was really good. I didn't do as well as I would have liked in the bottom section but everything else about it was really good."

McPhie said she was pleased to watch her teammate Outtrim win the event, given the similarity to her first time landing on a World Cup podium, which was a win at Deer Valley.

"I was so excited for Eliza. Her first podium was a win and I experienced that in Deer Valley, it was so fun watching her face. It was really cool to be up there with her," McPhie said.

The day held something else special in store for McPhie, who only experienced her first World Cup podium this season, as she was awarded second place in the World Cup moguls standings.

"I was very excited to end up third overall on the tour. This is the best it could have gone. I was psyched to ski under pressure during the day," McPhie, one of the team's many Westminster College students, said. "It's so surreal. I think I was 38th or something in the World Cup last year, so it's definitely been a huge leap this year and I'm thrilled."

In the men's event, Jeremy Cota (Carrabassett Valley, ME) took the lead for U.S. athletes, finishing 10th. Guilbaut Colas of France won.

"It was cool to be standing there as a team. We've had an amazing year as a program and it's been so fun to be a part of it," McPhie said. "When you have such a strong team, it forces all of us to raise the bar. I think we have an incredible coaching staff. Alex Moore at the gym has been huge, not just in our strength training but in our overall mentality. None of us got here alone."

The freestylers now head to Squaw Valley in California to close out the year at the Sprint U.S. Freestyle Championships March 26-28.

OFFICIAL RESULTS
2010 FIS FREESTYLE WORLD CUP
Sierra Nevada, Spain - March 18, 2010
Moguls

Men
1. Guilbaut Colas, Frnce, 25.66
2. Dale Begg-Smith, Australia, 24.77
3. Pierre Ochs, France, 24.14
4. Mikael Kingsbury, Canada, 24.05
5. Vincent Marquis, Canada, 23.69
-
10. Jeremy Cota, Carrabassett Valley, ME, 22.84
11. Joey Discoe, Telluride, CO, 22.81
16. Bryon Wilson, Butte, MT, 6.31
- (16 make finals)
26. Dave DiGravio, Farmington, ME, 20.24
33. David Babic, Washingtn, VT, 12.65
35. Michael Morse, Duxbury, MA, 0.00
DNS: Patrick Deneen, Cle Elum, WA

Women
1. Eliza Outtrim, Steamboat Springs, CO, 24.38
2. Margarita Marbler, Austria, 23.73
3. Heather McPhie, Bozeman, MT, 23.71
4. Hannah Kearney, Norwich, VT, 23.47
5. Kristi Richards, Canada, 23.21
-
13. Heidi Kloser, Vail, CO, 19.77
17. Laurel Shanley, Squaw Valley, CA, 0.54
-
DNS: Shannon Bahrke, Tahoe City, CA
# # #


Eliza Outtrim skis to her first World Cup win in Sierra Nevada. (Getty Images/AFP)