Photo credit: MikeTrappSnowboarding.com
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – As the Pyeongchang Olympics enters the home stretch, a Cape Codder more than 6,700 miles from home is getting ready for his Olympics debut.
Snowboarder Mike Trapp, a Marstons Mills native and 2006 graduate of Barnstable High School, will compete in the Giant Parallel Slalom event.
“I’m feeling very excited,” Trapp said. “There’s definitely a lot of nerves in there as well, but most of all I’m excited and ready to lay it down.”
Qualifying begins at 7:30 p.m. eastern time, which will be Saturday morning in South Korea.
Competitors will take part in two timed runs on separate courses with the top 16 racers moving on to the medal round. Riders will then be seeded based on their qualifying times and will race against one another until the medalists are determined.
Trapp is coming off his best performance at the World Championship level, finishing 16th in the parallel giant slalom in 2017.
Trapp learned to snowboard in the mountains of New Hampshire and Maine while vacationing with his family over school and Christmas break trips. He first got on a snowboard at the age of 9 and began competing at 12.
With no mountains on Cape Cod, he went to the Waterville Valley academy in New Hampshire in middle school and high school and took classes in the morning while training in the afternoon.
Trapp works as a mechanic for the Prime Mercedes-Benz dealership in Hyannis from April-September and spends the rest of the year training in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Trapp, 29, says this will be his last professional competition and plans to return home to Cape Cod following the Olympics.
“It won’t be a letdown at all,” Trapp said of the Winter Games coming to an end. “I’m excited to come back and get back into the normal routine of life. It’s been a long year of being on the road and traveling from country to country.”
Mike’s wife Kelly, his parents Lee and Robert, and his brother Christopher and his girlfriend are in South Korea to watch him compete.
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