Ella Skoloda, the first Ouray School student to compete with the Montrose High School mountain bike team, has been named Regional Champion in the category of sophomore girls. This is her second year of competition, and she is the first on her team to achieve this honor. She said it came as a “complete shock.”
She realized after her “first race as a sophomore,” in Leadville, where she placed second, “I got to realize how much I have learned since last year, and how much more comfortable I have become on a bike.”
She has seen success throughout the rest of her races and podiumed at each one.
Hopefully, when she competes at state, she will find similar success. She said she is “very excited” to compete on “a whole new level.” She knows it will be a “very different experience from last year,” and is “kind of nervous, kind of excited.”
Besides competing, Ella’s favorite part of the season has been “the nights before and after races.” They always “do something as a team after a team dinner,” she said, and this time to “develop new and better relationships with friends and team” has been “super special” to her. She also said that “getting to cheer my team on is super special to me.”
At the state championship in Glenwood Springs on October 21-23, Ella took 6th place, less than half a second behind a podium finish, a significant improvement from her 24th place finish in 2021.