FasterSkier

Category: XCFeeds

A collection of live feeds from cross-country ski blogs around the web.

  • My First Euro Win!

    Today is a good day. I just got done with my first European victory! Before I get to the details, let me bridge my blogging gap and explain where the heck I am and what the heck is going on:
    I am in Feutersoey, Switzerland. We are here for the Swiss Cup FIS races this weekend, and many of us are using them as a intermediate stop between U23s in Turkey and the OPA Cup races in Slovenia next weekend. Feutersoey is a gorgeous Alpine town, very close to Gstaad. It’s also at some altitude, which is good because our races in Rogla next weekend are too, so we are keeping our bodies acclimated. Plus, it’s just a gorgeous place. This is the view from my balcony:

    After training for a few days and getting a good goggle tan, it was time to race Saturday. Both the women and men did 10k races, and it was hard work. Start time was noon, so it was about 9ºC and a good slow slushfest. Given my heritage as an Alaskan polar bear, I knew I needed to make sure that I was hydrated before I started. I also raced in a T-shirt, which was a really good decision. I didn’t even think about the heat once while I was racing, and I actually had the best warm-weather skate race of my life. Visualizing Eagle Glacier slush intervals probably helped too- if you can survive those, you can survive any slop! I finished third, which was just fine with me. I was happy with the way I had focused throughout the race, I went as hard as I could, and that’s all I can ask of myself. In the guys’ race Tad Elliott practically floated his way over the mire, finishing second to Remo Fischer (World Cup podium finisher).

    The next race was today’s 10k classic mass start. All the juniors and U23s started together at 9:30. When we arrived at the course, expecting slightly firmer slush, we found some bomb-proof crust. The trail was the approximate consistency of a slushy left out in -40º. The tracks that had been put everywhere were hard enough to chip a tooth on. By everywhere, I mean everywhere. The high-speed corner in the last kilometer had tracks all the way around, making it even more exciting than it already was. Luckily I don’t mind sketchy downhills, so I started to think it could be a good day for me. A swiss girl took the lead out of the start, and went out pretty hard. She popped out of the tracks about 1.5k later on a sharp corner, and I ended up leading for the rest of the lap. I tried to keep it pretty relaxed, but by the lap it was just one other girl and myself in the lead pack. I followed her for the start of the 2nd lap, and noticed that her skis seemed to have a lot more kick than mine did. My original plan had been to really hammer the last uphill before the finish, it was pretty gradual and quite long. I started to rethink that strategy, and with about 2k to go I passed her hard on a gradual section in the shade where my wax was working better. After that I just hammered as hard as I could, trying to make my skis kick as well as I could. By the finish I had made 11 seconds on her, and I got my first win in Europe! It was a great feeling.

    Even though I know the field was not as strong as Nationals, SuperTour, or U23s, it’s certainly stronger than the last race I won. Winning isn’t everything, but it really feels good to get an actual first place every once in a while. My award was the wall decoration in the title photo of this blog. The coat hanger is from yesterday’s race. They both say ‘Feutersoey Langlauf’ on them, the perfect (albeit bulky) memento from here. Better than conventional medals, that’s for sure!

    Other than racing, we haven’t done a whole lot of things here. Lauren, Casey and I went over the pass to the French part of Switzerland. Here are a couple of photos from that:

    The delectable desserts are macaroons, my new favorite food. They’re made mostly of almond paste and deliciousness!

    Tomorrow we drive to Rogla, it should take about 10 hours. If I am lucky, we will stop in Italy for a good lunch! I apologize for my complete lack of Turkish updates. I will fix that soon I promise. Rogla isn’t too distracting, I will have plenty of blogging time. Until next time!

  • Ruhpolding through an Athlete’s Eyes

    Biathlon World Championships Sprint 2012

    A beautiful day in Bavaria!

    Behind the scenes: what the team wax cabins and changing areas look like from the outside...

    Behind the scenes: what the team wax cabins and changing areas look like from the outside…

    ... And from the inside. With about 20 staff and athletes sharing this one room, it can get a little crowded.

    … And from the inside. With about 20 staff and athletes sharing this room, it can get a little crowded.

    Race day surprise! I failed equipment control on the first attempt today for too light of a trigger weight on my rifle. (The humidity and warm weather caused it to change slightly since I last used it for the relay a couple days ago.) While Coach Armin quickly fixed the trigger, I took the opportunity to take a couple pictures. Coach Jonne (right) reassured me that I'd still have plenty of time to zero afterwards.

    Race day surprise! I failed equipment control on the first attempt today for too light of a trigger weight on my rifle. (The humidity and warm weather caused it to change slightly since I last used it for the relay a couple days ago.) While Coach Armin (left) quickly fixed the trigger, I took the opportunity to take a couple pictures. Coach Jonne (right) reassured me that I'd still have plenty of time to zero afterwards.

    Range officials and coaches preparing for race start.

    Range officials and coaches preparing for race start.

    The post-race exodus of 30,000 fans as seen from a hill on course. Today I found myself in the unique position of starting last out of a field of 118 competitors. As I jogged to the starting pen 20 minutes prior my start I noticed a constant stream of fans already leaving along this route trying to beat the rush. However, most stayed until the end and I am very grateful to them.

    The post-race exodus of 30,000 fans as seen from a hill on course. Thanks to all the spectators who stayed until the very end of the race!

  • First Ski at Soho & Opening Ceremonies

    2012 J2 Team in the Soho Stadium
    What a busy day!   The 9 of us were reunited with Tyler and Matt this morning who arrived late from DC and we started off the day with a quick morning jog and breakfast in the hotel.  After the coaches grabbed the vans, we piled in and headed up to Soho to check out the course.  It’s just about an hour drive up through the mountains – quite a scenic view of Utah!  We started out skiing under cloudy skies and somewhere between our first and second lap of the sprint course the clouds parted and we had sunny, blue skies for the rest of the day. We did 2 laps of the sprint course and a lap of the Olympic 5k – rave reviews all around!  Our J2s were pros at skiing the course nice and easy in L1.  We hit up a grocery store on the way to our hotel to stock up on snacks and Gatorade for the week and then checked into our hotel.  We’re at the Zermatt Resort, only 5-10 minutes from the venue.  Sprawling is a pretty accurate way to describe how spread out the resort is – it takes a good 6 or 7 minutes to walk from most of the coaches and athletes rooms to the conference room where meals are served!   It’s a very nice place though and I think everyone is quite comfy here. Tomorrow we’ll dial in the sprint course, test skis, and get a pre-race ski in.   Matt is the head coach for the JN team so he was running around all day doing everything: picking up late kids at the airport, running errands, attending coaches meetings, and keeping the rest of us organized.  Liz is a J2 age group coach, so most of the pictures here are of that group, but we’ll try to get some shots of everyone in the next few days. 
     Hamish, Gino, & Paddy cruising through the stadium.
     J2 boys coming through the stadium.
     Koby, Henry Harmeyer (Mt Mansfield) and Max LaChance (CSU).
     J2 girls head out for a lap of the sprint course!
     Zoe Snow (CSU), Hadley Moreau (CSU), Brooke, & Katharine.
      Eli Hoenig, Gino, & Paddy pause in the stadium for a quick picture.
     J2 age group coaches: Dennis Donahue (Ford Sayre), Liz, & Cam MacKugler (SMS ’05/Frost Mountain Nordic)
    Pretty clean wax room – it’s early in the week. : )  Justin Beckwith (head kick wax tech) checks in with an athlete on ski selection for Monday’s race. 
     View from our wax cabins out to the stadium.
     Athletes scrapped skis outside the wax cabins and hit the trails this morning.
     
    Heather, Issy, and Rachel – present and future Midd girls!
     Lunchtime scene at Soho!
     J2/J1 girls! Hadley, Katharine, Tessa, Rebecca, Brooke, Cate.
     J2 van!  We pack a 15 passenger just perfectly with 13 athletes + 2 coaches.
     J2 team hits up the grocery store – roommates Gavin McEwen (Hamish’s little bro) and Koby stock up.
    Nothing makes a J2 happier than a trip to the grocery store! 
     Sweet shopping carts girls.
    Tonight we had the opening ceremonies up at Utah Olympic Park.  Outside and chilly, but fortunately only 30 minutes!  
     We watched a ski jumper hit one of the jumps to open the ceremony, right before the flame lighting.  We all hustled back to the vans after the ceremony was over, headed back to the hotel for dinner and a team meeting, and headed off to bed.  Stay tuned for more photos from tomorrow!  

  • 10km Swiss Cup

    Waxing in a barn for the Swiss cup, but these races are legit.  Remo Fisher (6th in a World Cup this year) was the man to beat today.  Congratulations to Tad today who went for it and gave it a good go.  He was 1 second up on Remo when he got me from 30 seconds back at 5km.  I hung on him for 2km and he made me hurt real good.  Warm out there today but we had some fast boards.  Strange conditions today.  Even at 55F my fastest skis today were with an s2 grind.  Typically a cold grind but if was great today with a little more structure.  I dropped off Tad and had a real hurt session before coming around a bit to hammer it into the finish.  4th place today for me which I am very happy about.  Excited for tomorrow’s 15km mass start classic race.

    The barns and buildings here in Switzerland are sweet.

  • S*%t Happens

    Shit happens… even if you really don’t want it to.

    Only days after the mishap during the World Championships Mixed Relay I got to experience my own target mishap.  Thank goodness mine was in a NorAm.  If having a season of domestic racing is to have a silver lining it might be that… messing up happens, best to get it out of the way now.

    Trust me.  I mess up this whole biathlon thing frequently.  But today.  Today was not my fault.  I promise this is not a verbal tantrum.  After spending most the race fighting the urge to throw my arm in the air and yell, “Really!?!? I do not understand!”  all I can do is laugh and shake my head.  Maybe shrug my shoulders.

    Alot of things were out of our control today.  The weather has no idea what it wants.  Sunny. Sleeting. Pouring rain.  50mph wind gusts…. If you want to know what shooting in a hurricane feels like you should have come out to VanHo this morning.  I came into shoot standing and the mat was upside down… I didn’t even notice until I was sliding across it precariously close to the firing line.  Apparently the wind had tried to blow several mats away while we were out on course… oops!  (didn’t stop me from hitting 4 of 5!)

    The biggest flop of the day was my prone shooting.  Skiing in behind a pack of youth men in their uniformly awkward baggy spandex suits I jumped into a clean point. Lucky number 9 (note that whatever number I end up with for a race, shooting, bib number, what have you… makes it either my favorite/lucky number even if it is only for the 30seconds that I’m on the shooting mat)

    Range procedure. Boom. Good work Corrine. Check. Good shot. hit target! YOOOHOO! open bolt. close bolt… What!?!?  Oh right… yeah someone pushed the wrong button.  All of a sudden I found myself looking at a closed target.  All the paddles were up.  I opened my bolt and called for a range official… ok not that calm… I yelled, “HEY!!!! Someone fix my target!”  (I was in the heat of the moment ok?)

    They cleared the target.  The next three targets go down seamlessly.  I then forgot I had ejected a round and had to hand load my last shot. Hit!  5 for 5 and feeling good.  Knowing you don’t have to ski that stinking penalty loop is the best feeling in the world.  I always think to myself, “Hah! Hah! Sucker!” as a ski by it.

    Today it wasn’t clear… do I ski the penalty loop?  I did in fact shoot five bullets. and hit five targets.  I had to make a choice… I didn’t ski the penalty loop.  At the moment it felt right.  In retrospect it might not have been the best option… but sometimes the best option is not the one you want to go with right away.

    I spent the rest of the race wondering if I would get a two minute penalty for that skipped loop.  I felt like a resentful child.  I was NOT going to be punished for something I didn’t do. Hah! As if!

    I still don’t know if I got that two minute penalty or not.  And honestly… oh well? Lucky for me it is just a NorAm.  It is just a biathlon race.  And guess what else?  Despite that target hiccup… It was my best day of shooting in a race ever!  …90%  Go me!

     

  • Thomas Ave Ski Party

    One of the things we have been waiting all year to do is get out skiing with the neighborhood kids.  The last few weeks the kids have stopped over every few days to ask, “Can we go skiing today?”  With the Birkie coming up and battling a small flu bug we weren’t able to make it happen.  Today though everything came together for a great day in the snow.


     

    Rudy Project shades makes skiing way cooler

     

    Finally there is snow on the ground in addition to the man made loop. 

    Antja excited about her first time on snow. Is it better than street skiing?

    photo 1

    This is fun…. .

    photo 2

    …Sometimes this is really hard. I want to go as fast as you and Brian.

  • 2012 SMS Summer Camp Dates Set

    Our popular dryland summer camp dates have been set. The BKL camp will be August 12-15 and the Junior camp will be August 16-19.

    For information and registration, click here.

    Click here to see a short video from the 2011 BKL camp.

  • JN Travel Day

    9 of the 11 of us are in Salt Lake City this evening – we’re still waiting on Matt and Tyler to arrive on their later flight, but rumor has it they’ve been rewarded with first class seats for enduring the long wait in DC.   We had a super early flight out of Albany, but Issy & Anika (above) were on cloud 9 after finding Starbucks! 
     Paddy, Hamish, & Koby – smiling at 6:30am! 
    Our flight from Albany was late taking off so we almost missed our connection in Chicago, but fortunately the kind folks at Southwest held our flight to SLC so they could put our skis on the plane. Sweet!
    Flying into Utah – not too shabby! 
     Roommates Katharine & Brooke kick back after a long travel day to watch a movie together.

  • Ready, Set, World Champs!

    Mini Brazilian Biathlon fan at the Opening Ceremonies.

    Usually when thinking ahead to a big event like World Champs, you envision all the possibilities. Something crazy might happen, something great might happen, someone’s going to lose their cool for sure. But in all the times I envisioned the start to World Champs, it never went like this. I’ve never had a penalty in a relay, and the most I’ve been behind this year when tagging off to the second leg is 56 seconds. 1 penalty and 2:31 back later, I’ve learned that it has to happen to you at some point. The Mixed Relay was my day to realize this. Unfortunately it was my worst relay of the year on a day when it was most important, and my teammates had excellent days. Luckily, I have several more races to pick things up and make good things happen.

    So, Sprint race tomorrow and Pursuit on Sunday. I’m ready to move forward!

    Annelies and Susan enjoying the sunshine and an Alcohol-free beer for recovery!

  • Sprint Relays

    March is Championship month and we have different groups going to the BKL Festival, Jr. Nationals, NE J2 Championships, EHSC’s, Canadian Nationals, the Bretton Woods marathon AND the Super Tour Finals. We have organized it so that each athlete has 2 major events and it should be an exciting month for all of us.

    Early this morning groups of kids headed out to Utah and up to Great Glen. Those who stayed here got to have a sprint relay on the new soft snow. The trails had been groomed, but 14″ of fresh snow still tends to be soft.
    So… we had an excellent practice of learning to “dance” on top of the snow.
    Mollie figured some stuff out; “I think I went faster when I was going L3.”
    Nick just cruised and worked on flow.
    Mollie tags Corky. Each skier did 4 laps. The team of Calvin and Kate managed to bring home the win over Mollie and Corky :).

  • Quick thought from 30,000 feet..!

    Well, I’m on a plane once again…. Based on my rough estimates, I have flown approximately 25 hours in the past week and 35 hours in the past two weeks (this is airtime alone!)  This is a complete experiment and this “travel heavy” approach is one that is usually NOT recommended.  If everything goes as planned, I will arrive in Lahti, Finland roughly 48 hours before Saturday’s 15k pursuit start. I’m hoping that the mental rejuvenation and time at home will supersede the time spent at 30,000 feet and the jet lag of the 10-hour time difference. 

    Right now I’m simply feeling lucky that they let me on the plane.  As it stands now, I have no ticket leaving Europe, traveling home and apparently TSA and/or Finland (my arrival country) doesn’t like that.  Upon pulling up my itinerary, the lady at the Delta ticket counter informed me that I would not be allowed to fly to Finland without proof (a ticket) that I have firm plans to leave the country.  After multiple phone calls, and my firm negotiating skills, I got the go-ahead THANKFULLY.  That was a close one for sure….
    What’s after Lahti? I’m not sure yet…. It depends on how I ski.  With six women and 4-5 starts for each race we must earn and/or share start rights.  Following the pursuit and sprint in Lahti there are two more regular season World Cups, the first being a city sprint in Downtown Drammen (Norway) and finally, the highly regarded, traditional “Holmenkollen” 30/50k race in Oslo.  At the finale of the regular season I will either make World Cup finals and stay on to race in Sweden or travel instead to OPA finals in Toblach, Italy.  Honestly, I am surprised that the points I scored in the first half of the winter have kept me within reach of making the finals. I missed lots of good point scoring opportunities rehabbing my wrist and traveling home for a short break back in the states.
    At this point, all I can do is ski as fast and my body will allow me to ski. The rest will take care of itself.  Of course my goal is to make the World Cup finals but racing in Italy with a large squad from the US (including many of my APU teammates!) would be a blast as well.  I feel like I have two great opportunities and I am really looking forward to ending the season on a high note!
    That’s it for now… thanks for reading and check back soon for more updates!
    Cheers!
    Holly 🙂

  • Even more photos from Craftsbury

    The week leading up to the final Eastern Cup race was one of the nicest of the year, with warm temperatures and nothing but sunshine every training session. We had some great skis out there with the gang, and I have some photos from the fun balance drills we did at the beginning of practice one day. After the drills we all headed out for a group ski around the lower trails, trying not to tax ourselves too much before the weekend.

    Dev did several 360s in a row and I missed every single one on camera. But he did them I swear.
    MK goes for a 360 of her own and corks it a little. Sick!

    That’s Dev landing a three, but just looking like he’s skiing.

    Smiles all around!

    Dev started like this, then took the ski off and twirled it above his head. He couldn’t get it back on in time and ended up crashing and burning down on the banked turn. It was totally sweet while it lasted, though.

    Fitzy channeling her inner bird, or something.

    The weekend itself was a huge success, as we’ve written about in the posts leading up to this one. But we haven’t seen many photos from the classic day yet, so I’m putting a bunch up to show the action from the 5/10 km race on Saturday.

    Kaitlin skied a great race and finished 22nd, her best Eastern Cup result ever!

    Here she hammers up the 4 km climb, pulling away from her competition.

    MK started behind eventual winner Maria Stuber from the Green Team, and skied a great race, only losing 20 seconds over the 5 km. 

    She finished 3rd for the day and 3rd in the skate as well. Two podiums in a weekend is pretty sweet.

    We had another great weekend of racing at Craftsbury. These guys have been killing it all year.

    Hans was looking to go out and ski an awesome race, and that’s exactly what he did.

    Cruising around the 1 km corner on the first lap looking relaxed, Hans skied up from here, charging hard until he started to get tired at 8 km. He was able to hang on to the finish and finished a fantastic 12th place overall, roughly a minute behind the winner. Sweet day!

    Dev comes into focus.

    Dev was already in pretty good standing for JOs, but with a bunch of fast J1s trying to beat him, he needed to have good races this weekend. Fortunately he went out and had by far the best weekend of his season, pulling even farther in front of the chase pack and moving up to 5th J1 on the list.

    Hans dukes it out at 4 km.

    Our alum David Sinclair started hard and kept going, finishing just behind Paddy Caldwell for second overall on the day. He battles it out with Middlebury’s Taylor Sundali, who also skied well in both races of the weekend.

    Dev actually looked a little tired on the first lap, but really turned it on and moved up on lap 2. That’s how you debate!

    Luke held his own in the classic race and then turned the screws the next day with a great mass start race. He’s racing the Massachusetts State Championship race right now down at Prospect. Good luck, Luke!

    Ian also had a better skate race on Sunday, but his classic form is clearly there as he picked up a 30+ second victory in the classic race of the Maine State Championships two days later.

    David finishes it up.

    We’ll try to get some updates in from Utah. So far all I’ve heard is that there’s some sweet skiing out there and that the kids are getting used to the altitude and feeling pretty good about life in general! Check back!

  • WJC Results As A Predictor Of Future Success

    The never ending question! A commenter asked about this the other day, and I’m happy to oblige, despite the fact that I’ve covered this general topic several times before.

    The difficulties with extrapolating from WJC results start with the fact that they comprise at most 2-3 races from a skier’s entire season. And the posts I mentioned above go into quite some detail looking at trends and correlations. And I think it’s fair to say that there is a relationship between strong WJC results and future success at the World Cup level. But there are precise relationships and noisy relationships:

    Both of the panels above display precisely the same relationship between these two variables. One of them is much more useful for making predictions than the other, though. My general position is that WJC results are certainly correlated with future World Cup success, but that that correlation is so noisy that isn’t of much use on its own.

    To drive this home, I thought we’d take a little trip down memory lane. Specifically, let’s roll back the clock a decade to World Junior Championships in 2002. That year 9 men and 8 women achieved a podium result at that event. I’ve sifted through those folks’ results and I’m going to show you a roughly representative sample of what’s happened to them since.

    Let’s start with four of the men:

    These are their results, by FIS points, for both distance and sprints. It includes every FIS sanctioned race that I have on record for each skier. I happened to pick four men who are still essentially active, but I could have shown you four men who podiumed in 2002 at WJCs who basically stopped racing within five years.

    Of the four, Aivar Rehemaa is arguably the most successful, but none of these jump out at you as current World Cup stars. Indeed, if we focus in on their World Cup distance results:

    We see a whole lot of nothing from al but Rehemaa, who himself had been ok, with occasional strong results. A similar story come from looking at their World Cup sprinting results:

    Now let’s examine four of the women’s podium finishers from WJCs in 2002:

    Apologies for the rough formatting, that first name is Elodie Bougeois Pin. Obviously, Fessel stands out here as a future World Cup star, of sorts. However, she developed fairly late and one could argue that she’s really only had one strong season, last year. Then we have Kravtsova, who stopped fairly early on and Sandbakken who also seems to have mostly stopped racing (though she seemed like she was getting better, at least). Bourgeois Pin has been racing a lot, but mostly plugging away at the same basic level for nearly a decade.

    The World Cup distance results are about what you’d expect:

    and a similar story with their World Cup sprinting results:

     

    Related posts:

    1. <Post-WJC/U23 Development: Germany
    2. <WJC/U23 Preview: USA and Canada (con’t)
    3. <What Happens To Successful World Junior Racers?


  • U23 Men’s Skiathlon

    Check this footage (Ryan Scott and Eric Packer are also in the race) of Noah Hoffman from U23’s. We all knew he was on great form after a second in the classic race. He was right there the whole race looking very comfortable, but pack and team tactics were tough to overcome. He finished a very solid 8th after some break away attempts were nicely countered, blocked or matched. Enjoy the show!

    Direct link: HERE

  • Snow Day!

    Snow day today at SMS!  Kate, Mollie, Anika, Calvin, Matt, and Liz spent the morning on a powder tour around the trail system and then hit up the alpine area for a run down the mountain on nordic skis (thanks Sky!).  It was the first time on a chairlift in a while for most of us, but fortunately soft powder is forgiving when you fall, so we enjoyed the experience and I’m sure the alpiners and boarders found us pretty amusing. : )  In the afternoon the junior girls took their alpine & snowboard classmates out for a lesson!   From left to right: Chloe Daley (alpine), Anika, Mollie, Kate, Marian Lobell (snowboard) and Mary Kate Visnic (alpine).   Tomorrow morning the JN kids take off for Utah – we’ll be sure to update with photos while we’re away! 

     Anika, Kate, and Mollie about to hit up the Sunbowl alpine trails.
     Calvin, Anika, Kate, Matt, Syd the dog, and Mollie on a tour.
     Powder!  We’ve gotten a LOT of snow here in the last 30 hours. 
    Yesterday was our last day of BKL practice with West River.  We practiced tags for the upcoming BKL Festival and worked on our transitions before heading in for hot chocolate and brownies. Mmmmm… : )

  • Spring Skiing in Switzerland?

    I got a note this morning from Brian Gregg, of the CXC team, and right now traveling with the US Ski Team in Switzerland.

    ————————————————–
    From: “Brian Gregg”
    Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2012 7:11 AM
    To: “Nordic Ultratune”
    Subject: M1d

    Hey Mark,

    59F at the race venue for this weekend’s Swiss cup. My skis didn’t make it off of the plane with me. Super psyched when they came during breakfast today. It is freezing at night and the m1d is soooo good in this transformed snow. So happy to have the m1d in my fleet. Races start at noon (ladies first) so structure is going to be key.

    Brian Gregg in Switzerland

    I guess it’s getting to be spring skiing time in many parts of North America (and Europe), but this morning I got up to find new snow, fresh grooming, and 18F !    I was out the door with yesterday’s grip wax before I had a chance to eat breakfast.    It was super!  

    It continues to be an amazing winter here in the Methow Valley, and I think we’re pretty close to 100 consecutive days of grooming now.

  • Canadian Youth Championships

    Last weekend our younger group of racers traveled up to Quebec for their Championnat Jeunesse. We teamed up with strong contingents of BKL skiers from the West River Nordic Club, Frost Mtn Nordic Club, Mtn Top Nordic and NYSEF. We went to have fun and race, and by all accounts it was a smashing success.

    On our way up in the van, sporting the new NENSA headbands for the event!

    Sleeping accommodations – one classroom for the boys, one for the girls.
    The girls’ classroom was a french literature classroom. The boys’ must have been math.

    The race site. Not a big setup, but the trails were wonderful and the event was very professionally run.

    We’ve gotta give a huge thanks to Jim Levins of Toko for making the wax calls and supplying top coats, structure, and kick wax. Our kids had great skis! John Ogden also made the early morning trip up to the race site with Jim (good thing they went early cause they got lost the first day 🙂 But these guys put in some serious time prepping the kids skis on both days and it showed!

    So, we’ll jump right to the awards because the coaches were busy on race day so no pics of actual skiing, but… Here is Miss Mae Chalmers atop the podium in the 11 yr old girls race, sharing the stage with her teammates Emma Perry & Mehana Koch. On day 2 Mae was 6th and Emma 10th.

    I don’t have pics of every podium – I know I’m missing Charlotte Ogden who finished 10th both days.

    11 year old boys made a huge impression with their presence. On stage are Sam Hodges (5th), Tom Hussey (4th), Eli Eppolito (2nd) and Ben Ogden (1st). Whew! Actually, on the second day of competition, these boys went 1,2,3,6!

    Russell Boswell and Everett Sapp kept the theme rolling in the 12 yr old boy category with 3rd and 4th. On the second day Everett finished 2nd and Russell 5th.

    13 yr old girls podium! Chloe Levins made a huge impression with the fastest time of the day (outpacing the boys too). Mackenzie Rizio shares the podium with her in 3rd and Alex Cobb had a fabulous race ending up in 8th. On day two, Chloe won again and Mackenzie was 10th.

    Of the 12 races we entered we won 5 gold medals, 3 silver, 3 bronze, and had 13 top ten finishes. Wow!


    Cheers!

    One last fun note, last year Jim Levins and I went and we were certainly upstaged by the Canadians at the coaches’ dinner on Saturday night. This year we were prepared – table cloth, candles, 4 bottles of wine and real wine glasses. As you can see we had 6 coaches/parents (Randy Sapp took the pic). We worked together and the kids raced together as team NENSA/USA. That was special. I hope you’ll consider joining us next year. The Canadians were very pleased to have us there.

  • March Training: Open to ALL COMERS !!

    Congratulations to all the local skiers that qualified for the “post-season” races:

    1. Junior National Championships [Mar 5-10, Utah]
    2. Eastern High School Championships [Mar 16-18, Rutland, VT]
    3. New England J2 Championships [Mar 9-11, Rumford, ME]

  • More pictures from Eastern Cup!

    While the crew is all out in Utah, and Heidi is still overseas, I’m back in Waitsfield teaching classes and enjoying the late season snow that has finally arrived in the Valley. I don’t have any pictures from out in Utah, but I fortunately have a few in reserve from the past few weeks. I can’t say how excited I am that everyone qualified for JOs, and it was fun watching it all unfold at the final Eastern Cup up in Craftsbury. We had phenomenal races from all of our skiers, and I snapped a few photos of the action. Keep posted for updates about Utah!

    The girls’ mass start.
    Go! MK on the front line, Fitz in the fourth.
    Fitz cruises up the big hill towards the 4 km mark. She skied a great race and moved up through the pack the whole time.
    MK near the front.

    Justin cheers MK up the hill for the final time. She would end up on the podium in 3rd place!

    Fitz hammers home to the finish!
    The men start, with David in the front line and Hans and Dev not far behind.

    David skied smooth and controlled on his way to 3rd, a place he achieved in the crazy carnival race the next weekend!

    Hans started a little too hard in the mass start and faded after the first lap… valuable experience for his upcoming races at altitude, where pacing is even more important. Going hard enough to get 12th place the day before might have had something to do with it!

    Dev moved up the entire race, eventually finishing 19th. This was a great result and overall awesome weekend to end Dev’s regular season. He and Hans are prepped and ready to go for some good results in SoHo!

     

    Our friend Ian Moore skied a great race as well, nipping at Dev’s heels until the final kilometer, then made it four consecutive days of racing by going out and skiing the Maine State Championship, grabbing first and second place in the two races there.

    I always have to give a shout out to my boys from Williamstown, and it was pretty easy out there on Sunday because they skied the whole race together!

    Luke, Robby, and Josh cruise up towards the finish, and ended up in the order you see them here. Sweet!

    David accepts his goodies as the top of the men’s junior podium.

    MK was the second junior and third overall both days in Craftsbury!

  • World Champs is Finally Open!

    Click to view slideshow.
    Hi Everyone,

    World Champs is finally here and conditions are definitely spring-like here in Bavaria. We’ve been training at the Ruhpolding venue the past couple of days and it has been more like a swimming pool than a biathlon stadium. Temps are expected to climb towards 60 degrees fahrenheit today for the Mixed Relay! We attended the opening ceremonies in town last night and if the crowd-size is any indication of how many people will show up for the actual races, it is going to be one of the biggest World Champs ever. Today we start of with the Mixed Relay: Sarah Studebaker leads off, followed by Susan Dunklee, then Tim Burke, and myself in the last leg.

    -LB