If you’ve been following this website over the last few years you’ve had to read tidbits about Lindsea Lumpkin. She’s nice a veteran snowboard competitor at the rip old age of NINE! She’s a 4th grader who hails from Georgia, but began skiing at 2 years old at Sugar Mountain in North Carolina, and switched to Ski Beech (also in the North Carolina mountains) to participate in the Youth Learning Center under Jeb Brown, who has played a huge role in Lindsea’s early successes. She began snowboarding at the age of 3, on the bunny slopes just outside the cafeteria. Her father Tommy Lumpkin remembers fondly, “Lindsea must have made close to 100 runs down the short bunny hill that first day!”
Lindsea’s first terrain park run was at Silver Creek in West Virginia (part of Snowshoe Mountain Resort) at the age of 4. Her first competition was at The Edge of the World Series and her first sponsor was SkiNC.com. She was just 6 years old at that time and she’s been competing in snowboarding and skateboarding comps ever since.
Her father Tommy stated, “Lindsea and I have a special affinity for SkiNC.com (Ski North Carolina) as they were the first to sponsor Lindsea in any capacity and they have continued to sponsor her each of the last few seasons.”
Her first skateboard sponsor came this year (2006) by Woody’s Halfpipe in Norcross, Georgia, and she’s also sponsored by Rebel Skates. Snowboarding sponsors include SkiNC.com, Burton Snowboards, Windell’s, Aspen Valley Snowboard Club, and Ski Beech.
She loves to snowboard, skateboard, and wakeboard, in that order, and Ski Beech is her “home mountain” in NC. She’s also a fan of the park at Appalachian Ski Mountain and likes the longer trails at Sugar as well. Her favorite resort of all is Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen. Lindsea has participated in trips to Windell’s Camp in Welches, Oregon in 2005 and 2006 and she calls it “the funnest place on Earth". Despite her young age, Lindsea has traveled to Buenos Aires, Rio, Iguassu Falls in Uruguay, Manaus, Brazil in the Amazon, Hawaii, Malta, Germany, England, Italy, Mexico Jamaica, and Canada, and of course numerous destinations in the United States!
Lindsea’s proof positive that natural talent supersedes the need to live on a ski mountain and she attributes much of her early success to her dad and coaches who really made a difference: Jeb Brown of Ski Beech, Mark Wilkinson of Aspen, Reed Silberman of Windell’s Camp, and the AVSC Coaches at Nationals.
She’s a straight-A student who says she wants to be a pro snowboarder and skateboarder, and she’s smart enough to have an alternative life-plan. If the snowboarding and skating thing doesn’t work out, she’d like to be a vet. She lists her best friends as Drew, McCall and Katie. She enjoys censored hip hop music, baggy basketball shorts and skateboard shoes, and Heelys.
Keep your eyes open for Lindsea for the rest of the season and into the future.
Lindsea Update! Her father, Tommy, writes, “What a season !!! Depending on where you are it’s either awesome or pathetic! On December 15th we were in Aspen and Lindsea had the full blown flu but somehow managed to silver medal in her first giant slalom race at Snowmass with the Aspen Snowboard Series (USASA sanctioned). Her best time beat the next kid by 6 seconds—BUT—between runs the lift broke down w/ Lindsea high above ground by herself sick as she could possibly be for 40 minutes!
She was almost hypothermic but still managed to make her second run. Even though it was a struggle she didn’t miss a gate. She just couldn’t go the second race—but—the scores from April’s nationals—coupled w/ her silver finish give her the series championship for giant slalom!
This past weekend she got 2 gold finishes in slalom—and got a gold finish in slopestyle!
She’ll go back to compete five more times before nationals and right now she is in top 5 in national rankings for all events.
Check out the photos! You can also visit Lindsea’s website (created by SkiNC’c “AppNet”) at www.LindseaLumpkin.com
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