Category: XCFeeds

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

Tour de Twin Cities continues

The night sprint is the third race of the five-stage Tour de Twin Cities. The 1.4 K freestyle was held on the fast Theodore Wirth course. The last two stages will be this week end on artificial snow at Green Acres. (unlike the Methow Valley in Washington that had 14 inches of real snow last night)

results

Congratulations to Sam finishing in the mix at 4th. and check out the finish times…the top four were seperated by only hundreths of a second. Thanks to David Owen for the pictures.

The snow looks whiter at night

The snow was 'red hot' at the start

January 26, 2012
Wax of the Day
I’ve added a link to the WOTD from this blog.
Look for the link on the lower right

For the past few seasons I’ve been doing daily updates for the Methow Valley’s grooming report to provide wax-of-the-day information.

On most days it’s a relatively straight-forward proposition: a reasonable glide wax recommendation, and a decent grip wax recommendation. But, here in the Methow Valley, there are 200km of groomed ski trails and they vary in altitude by nearly 2000 vertical feet, and range over an expansive area of well over 30km from one end to the other. Ecosystems change from dense fir/pine forests to shrub-steppe grasslands. It’s a big area. And wax conditions can sometimes be pretty varied.

Although the area is expansive, and space on the daily report is limited, an effort is made to make a worthwhile set of recommendations, and every once in a while there’s a little local commentary to go along with it.

If you haven’t skied in the Methow Valley, this might be the year to drop everything and head to the Northwest. It’s been a banner year for skiing here. Groomed trails opened up before Thanksgiving, and the snow has been consistently excellent. Right now there’s well over 4 feet of snow on the ground and the groomers are busy keeping 120 miles of trails manicured.

Stone Grinding Schedule

You’ve been training to get the most from your skiing, so make sure your skis aren’t a limiter.

Prepare all of your skis to run their best with a fresh stone grind and hotbox service. At Nordic Ultratune, a stone grinding batch starts every Thursday and those skis are ready for shipping on the following Monday — just 4 days later. Return shipping is FedEx Express Saver, which is 3rd day delivery. So, skis that are shipped out on Monday will arrive back to you on Thursday.

Here’s the upcoming service schedule at Nordic Ultratune. Use these dates to make sure you get your skis ready before your most important events.
- Skis in by Jan 26 will ship out on Jan 30 and arrive to you by the Feb 2nd.
- Skis in by Feb 2 will ship out on Feb 6th.
- Skis in by Feb 9th will ship out on Feb 13th.
- Skis in by Feb 16th will ship out on Feb 20th and get to you by Feb 23rd
You can see that there are still a few service batches scheduled before the big Marathon races (including the Birkie!). There is still time to get a fast grind on your skis before your biggest events! But don’t delay… …fast boards are a joy to ski on, and they’re a real advantage.

Download a work order form here. A description of some of the grinds is here.
January 25, 2012
Winter WONDERLAND

For the past four weeks I’ve been traveling on the race circuit, first in New England and now in the Twin Cities. Everywhere I’ve been folks have been lamenting the poor winter they’re experiencing in their home area. “There’s no good skiing anywhere in the country!” they would moan. I would then quietly interject that the Methow Valley is in fact quite good right now.

“Met-what?”

Exactly. It’s time everyone learned about the most phenomenal cross-country ski destination in North America. Over 200km of immaculately-groomed, interconnected ski trails traversing a 50-mile long river valley with over 300 days of sunshine per year. And this year, the snow just keeps coming:

http://www.mvsta.com/grooming2.html

Buy your tickets now and get a piece of winter in the place you can always find it.

January 25, 2012
Noah Hoffman’s Pacing
I was interested (rather than offended) to read about Noah Hoffman’s pacing strategies in Sunday’s classic WC race. I have a limited supply of data on split times (what I do have is thanks to Jan over at worldofxc.com, though) so the following data is definitely incomplete.

Hoffman seemed determined to not start too fast, something that apparently he does quite often. Since pacing interval start races is so much different than mass start or pursuits, we’ll only look at his splits for interval start races. I only have split times from a total of eight WC-level interval start races for him (of varying lengths). Here’s a simple graph showing them all together, with Sunday’s race highlighted with the black dashed line:

This is a very crude representation of split times, where I’ve simply plotted how fast Hoffman skied each timed section compared to the field. So, for example, the y-axis means he had the 20th fastest, 40th fastest, etc. split time on that section.

In order to compare races of different length I’ve converted the x-axis from raw kilometers to a percentage of the total race distance. (This may be dubious, since pacing strategies will be markedly different in a 15k versus a 30k. However, these data consist of two 10k’s, five 15k’s and only one 30k, so I think we’re on fairly safe ground.)

Certainly Noah’s first split was slower than his subsequent splits on Sunday. And it was the 3rd slowest initial split of the eight I have. But it seems to me like he proceeded to ski the rest of the race fairly consistently, rather than gradually accelerating. At least, until he faded a bit on the last section.

This is in contrast to several of the other lines here that begin with fairly quick initial splits, but by mid-race he’s clocking only ~60th fastest time on each section or so. So whatever he did seemed to work.

I should say that I’m fairly cautious about my ability to analyze split times. I’m sure the coaches are keeping more detailed data on this sort of thing than I have access to. But it’s interesting, nonetheless.

Related posts:
January 25, 2012
Antholz, Italy

I am now enjoying a week off from racing after competing 8 times in the last 18 days. I decided to stay right in Antholz, Italy after the last races for my off week. Antholz is the perfect place for … Continue reading →

January 25, 2012
Rolling with La Nina

Rolling with La Nina

In so many ways we have been incrediblylucky here on the East Side of the Green Mountains this winter. Thismorning was just one of those times and one of my favorite kinds ofskis. The temperature rose last night in the Valleys into thefifties and many ski areas with groomed tracks were forced to shutdown at least grooming if not skiing for the day. The rain saturatedthe snow to such an effect at these places that skier traffic wouldruin the precious remaining snow. It’s days like this that you needto think outside the box.

A lot of that is knowing where youmight go. One of my favorite spots just to the south of Waitsfieldand Warren is on a Forest Service Road. The drive is a welcomechance to talk about geography, as we are leaving our home watershed,the Mad River, which flows north eventually to the Saint Lawrence,and dipping into the top of the White River which takes a southerlyjourney through the Connecticut. All this transition takes placeas we drive South on Route 100 through an area known as GranvilleGulf.

As we head over the watershed gap andinto the Gulf proper, winter seems to shut in around us, thethermometer in the van dips into the mid-thirties, and ice flowscreep over the bedrock lining the small canyon. The pavement isfrozen with water that has been cooled from the frosted roadbed andone always needs to use care on this section of road. There is stillevidence of the Flood that followed Irene, complete with a newlystraightened wayside stream. As the walls of the Gulf widen and weenter into the Granville Valley the stream is littered with piles ofdebris and erosional deposits where the small stream used to meander.

Our destination is a just a mile belowhere where we will take a right up West Hill Road, and eventually aForrest Service road leading into the back of the BreadloafWilderness. The road along this stretch reminds one of a hobbitland, as it is carefully carved into the hillside, Patterson Brook(one of the highest reaches of the White, draining water from the topof the Green Mountain Ridge) is to your left and it’s hard not topeer over the edge to catch a glimpse of the clear waters runningover and through ice and snow. The road is slick today and my eyesstay towards the right side of the road where groundwater ice flowsgrace the mossy road bank.

I had scouted the trail earlier in themorning and the VAST Trail Groomers had done a top notch job, with afull double pass with their drag. With an average width of 30 feet,nearly FIS legal, we set foot into our own manicured-personalwilderness. Our ski takes us gradually upwards, following the banksof the river and winding through a set of old cabins, beyond theClark Brook trailhead, before looping onto the southern flanks of thePatterson Valley.

After nearly an hour of skiing we reacha height of land and discuss our options; we can simply turn aroundand wind down to the van, or we can press on a little further and tryour luck at a steeper and perhaps more adventurous descent that wouldplace us at the bottom of the Valley. Several of us chose the latterand stepped of off the groomed surface onto a day old skin track. The trail descended into a swamp, moosey country, with ample hoofprints to trick your mind into thinking that any of the upturnedstumps littered around the swamp might actually be one of thesemegafauna.

We slipped around the swamp on a quitegraceful trail, with light rises and swooping turns, hoping that ourintuitive compasses were bearing in the right direction and that wemight arrive back at the van in a timely fashion for lunch! Soon wewere greeted by a series of steep descents that were only manageablebecause of boot-deep sticky snow. We hooted and hollered, andoccasionally face-planted on our way through hardwood and hemlockgroves and to our surprise emerged from the woods at the base of WestHill Road, hardly a ten minute walk back to the van.

We skated through another warm patch inthis La Nina winter – the cold Valleys and the snow-shadow of theGreens making our experiences as skiers in this new era possible. Our desires for skiing and our love for exploration and adventurekeep us coming back and as we head back to do a track workout atTrapps our minds our open and our bodies are crazing speed!

January 25, 2012
Postcard from Ridnaun

Its funny how things work–first I didn’t make any plans for my season, hoping to qualify to race in the IBU cups. Then when I raced poorly and didn’t qualify for that, I decided that I didn’t want to set myself up for more frustration, so I made plans for the season that didn’t involve biathlon at all. I almost went to the eastern cup instead of the biathlon NorAms in Jericho, but I decided that they might be my last biathlon races of the year, so I should go. And then SURPRISE, even with poor shooting in the races, I was named to the biathlon U-26 team! And a few days later I was on my way to Europe. As I write this, I’m in the van on the way to Osrblie, Slovakia, where the races will be held. Crazy!

I came over a few days early to get adjusted to the time change and to train in Ridnaun, Italy where several other members of the team were training. I’d heard that Ridnaun is beautiful, and that it always either sunny or snowing. When I arrived it was snowing like crazy. and in the first day I was there we got at least a food of fresh fluffy powder. It was a winter wonderland! After a few days of snow, the sun came out and I got to see the big beautiful mountains that surround the little valley. It really is something of a paradise. But enough writing, let me show you some pictures!

Oberauerhof, our home away from home. It was right on the ski trails, and not far from the end of the valley.

.

Along with a nice range and well-groomed biathlon trails, there was a ski trail that looped all around the valley and connected all the little villages and guest-houses.

These snow guns probably won't need to get used for quite a while.

Susan came over during her time off between world cup races, and we went on a sledding adventure! At the end of the valley, we got sleds out of the sled-shed, and then we hiked up a switchbacking trail that led to little hut (the Stadlalm).

We parked our sleds outside the stadlalm.

And then we went inside and got delicious weissbiers! Prost!

What took a half-hour to hike up took about 5 minutes to sled down. It was so much fun! I'd get going so fast and feel totally out of control, and then there would be a big switchback and I'd drag a foot and try to steer around the corner and sometimes I'd make it, and sometimes I wouldn't.

There were beautiful views on the way down.

Nice-looking barn! All of the buildings–houses, barns, sheds–are well-built in Ridnaun. They obviously last for a long time and hold up a huge weight of snow all winter, and they are also beautiful to look at.

One afternoon we took the bus down to Sterzing, the bigger town at the base of the valley. There were lots of fancy shops, and so many places to buy delicious-looking cheeses, sausages, breads, hand-made pasta…

Now, after spending 16 hours in the van yesterday (we got lost a bunch of times), I’m in Slovakia! There’s a lot of snow here and it looks hilly and sunny and pretty cool out the window–so I’d better get off my computer and start exploring it!

January 25, 2012
Ski Lessons Available

If you’re in or near the Methow Valley this winter and looking for an opportunity to learn cross-country skiing, look no further! MOD Squad athlete and elite Nordic skier Sam Naney is now offering private and small group lessons, by appointment.

Sam utilizes his extensive experience as a professional ski racer and seasonal junior development coach to provide a one-of-a-kind lesson which exposes the skier to the most efficient techniques, making their skiing experience much more fun for less effort.

For more information, scheduling and rates contact Sam at samuel.naney@gmail.com.

January 24, 2012
A Healthy Hallelujah

Finally! I am feeling rested; rip-roarin’ ready to rumble, really. After a weekend of restorative rejuvenation in Homer, it’s go time again!

My Mom, Dad, sister, two dogs and I all piled into the truck and road tripped down south last Friday. Besh Cup races 3 and 4 are always held somewhere south of Anchorage, alternating between Soldotna and Homer. No offense to any Soldotnites out there, but I really like it when the races are in Homer. It’s usually warm, sunny, gorgeous and a welcome ski vacation! While this year’s ‘warm’ temperatures were around 15ºF with a chilly breeze, they easily beat out the subzero temps that everyone was escaping from. Average temps last week were -30º in Fairbanks, and -10º in Anchorage. It was actually a convenient time to be recovering from a cold because intensity sessions were getting cancelled or postponed left and right! I did a lot of really easy classic skiing alongside brilliant clear sunsets… it wasn’t too bad considering. But I digress. The Besh Cup weekend was just what the doctor ordered- fun racing, lots of sleep, and amazing scenery.

Conveniently, APU and FXC all stayed in the same hotel out on the spit. I hadn’t ever stayed in the Land’s End before, and I was pretty impressed! It seems that some places in really unique locations like that will just rest on their laurels, assuming that the perfection of their view will make up for any shortcomings. The Land’s End did no such thing, providing skier specific discounts at their restaurant and comfortably quirky and clean rooms. I got a huge kick out of my bed folding down from the wall, and loved the little breakfast nook in my parents’ room. We were able to all wax in a conference room with wall-to-wall tarps on the floor, along with almost every visiting team. The Winter Stars also took advantage of the hotel, which made the whole situation even more fun. It was almost like a JOs atmosphere without the exclusivity.

The races were held on trails that I had never seen before, up on top of the ridge north of town. The venue was very unique, from the giant gong to the quadruple-switchback downhills. It was super exciting to check out a new place to ski, and the races were quite fun. Homer’s relatively cold temperatures and wind made racing deceptively difficult. The trails were not rocket-fast, and the quantity of snow caused the snowmachine grooming to get a little punchy. On top of that, the courses had surprisingly little rest due to the winding downhills. The races were not exactly the quick-twitch finesse contest that I had expected, and instead had quite a bit of continuous effort.

The view from the trails left nothing do be desired: see the photo at top. That’s Redoubt, the volcano responsible for a few ash-falls in the last couple of years. It looks like it’s just right across the water! (well… it is right across the water). The drive down was absolutely gorgeous as well–

And it looks like skiers figured that out a while ago. The spit itself was spectacular on Saturday evening. The ice and the water reflected all the colors of the sunset in a chilled yet vibrant spectrum, as recorded by Bert Boyer:

January 24, 2012
Stowe Training Trip

By Issy, Mollie, Gino, & Charlie

On the quest for snow, we headed out for Stowe, Vermont on Sunday. The first day we all did a 2 -3 hour easy classic distance ski with the majestic view of the Vermont mountains in our sights and the sun setting down upon us. From there we drove to our accommodations for the next three nights. We are staying in the oldest ski house in Vermont – a rambling, large white house up on a hill off Route 108 – and though the house is a little quirky, we are all comfortable and enjoying the company of our teammates and comparing notes on who snores the loudest. 🙂

After snuggling with Simon and Bear (the house cats) all night, we headed out for our morning jog on Monday. We feasted on eggs, bacon, and oatmeal for breakfast and then started out for another beautiful classic ski. Half the team skied from the house (a little trail-breaking required on a backcountry trail to reach the Trapp’s trails) and the rest of the team drove up to the lodge and started from there. Nearly everyone on the team has “skied to the Cabin” by this point and we’re all enjoying the ripping downhills that the Trapp’s trail system has (Mollie says she’s learning to love them). In the afternoon, we did a short and sweet tour of the race course on skate skis to prepare for the upcoming Eastern Cups and, more importantly, our TT with GMVS tomorrow. 🙂 In the afternoon, we went into town and found a coffee shop (the team’s favorite activity, besides skiing).

Today we pushed the pace on the race course (“It was sweet,” says Gino) with some level three intervals. Skyler came down from Jericho and joined us. Everyone started the workout with some starts and finishes, including a boy’s team favorite – in a pack of ten: ripping down the Telemark Trail into the field, banging a hard U turn backwards into the finish and then sprinting away to an imaginary “finish line”. Lots and lots of photos to come once we get home tomorrow and Liz has her camera cord back. Then everyone got down to business with two long L3 intervals on the race course. Though we got a fair amount of rain last night, the trails at Trapp’s held up well and still have plenty of cover.

We’ll ski again this afternoon and tomorrow we’re looking forward to a continuous pursuit classic-skate TT with GMVS in the morning before departing for home, maybe with a stop at the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Waterbury, before we hit the highway.

Stay tuned for more pictures tomorrow…

January 24, 2012
2011 Fossavatn

In April Dave and I skied the Fossavatn 50k race in Iceland. Minnesota Trails Magazine asked us to write articles and submit photos for the winter edition featuring the Skinny Ski Series. We dutifully sent in our stuff but since the Series is not happening this year they didn’t get published. Dave’s article focused on the race and the editor asked me to focus more on the experience around the race so here’s my article. I would highly recommend this race experience to all ski adventurers out there. Check out this video of the race: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWVIci3PdRE

Dave and I were joined by Dave’s wife, Paula, and my dear, longtime friend from our Austin, Texas years, Martha FitzSimon. Thank you, Paula and Martha for the awesome race support!!!

The Fossavatn Ski Marathon began in 1935 as a 20K race and has since added 7K, 10K and 50K distances, all classic. It is a small race in terms of number of participants (approximately 300) yet it attracts an international field and occasionally some of the best skiers in the world (past winners have included Oskar Svärd and Suzanne Nyström, both Swedish Vasaloppet champions and World and Olympic champion, Thomas Alsgaard).

The intimacy of the race is further bolstered by its setting in a small fjord town. Ísafjörður is tucked in the remote West Fjords region, an 8,500 square mile peninsula in the north we

st corner of Iceland with a population density of less than 1 person/square mile!
If you arrive in Ísafjörður by noon on Thursday

you can attend the master class lead by one of the international guests. Imagine getting a personal critique by a former world champion!
On Friday a bus takes visitors to the venue to preview the course. I was struck by the unique beauty of this sparse land. There is no vegetation but plenty of hills and mountain plateaus. Imagine the moon with snow. From a single vantage point we could see much of the 50k course.Despite being literally a few miles

from the Arctic Circle the temperature never gets very cold, but that doesn’t mean weather can’t be severe. The winds can be brutal although, mercifully, we had almost no wind this year but we did have a heavy fog. Because it’s nearly always above freezing for the race the locals are good at selecting and applying klister (whereas we cold weather racers from the Midwest US are hard wax experts). Knowing that getting good kick could be tricky we brought lots of klister but to cover our bases Atomic Ski rep Henry Wisnewski also sent ‘zero’ waxless skis for Dave and I. Since it snowed several inches the night before the race and we weren’t sure what to expect at the higher elevations on the course, we elected to go with the zeros.

The locals successfully opted for klister so I think both were working that day.
Towards the end of the first half is the first of two long climbs in the race. Checking my heart rate monitor altimeter after wards I learned that it was 45 minutes of continuous up. About 20K later is the second big climb. This one is shorter but steeper and unlike the first climb there is a reward at the top: a 7K downhill run to the finish line! So even though my thighs and triceps were protesting with spasms, I enthusiastically ‘ran’ up the hill and thoroughly enjoyed the ride down to the finish line.
After crossing the line each skier is given the traditional post-race treat: A little blue bag with a bun and a hunk of chocolate. We lingered a bit to pose for pictures and talk to fellow skiers but we needed to hustle down mountain because there were celebrations waiting in Ísafjörður.
The cake feed and awards ceremony at the high school gym is amazing. I think nearly every family and bakery in town brings a Scandinavian treat. Hungary skiers and their friends and family load up plates with more pastries than I could count, most of which I’d never tried before! I took small portions because the servers kept replacing empty trays with something brand new and I wanted to make sure I left room for seconds………OK, thirds.

After a couple of hours to digest we dressed up and headed to the cultural center for a late night of food, drinks, entertainment and dancing with fellow skiers from Iceland, the US and Europe. Local talent included a magician, a jazz band and a rock band.
The Fossavatn marked the end of a long but fun ski season that included the Skinny Ski Series, Birkie and Masters World Cup. Now, on April 30 I completed my last and longest race of the year and I could not think of any better way to mark the occasion than to celebrate with friends in a beautiful, remote, vibrant village in Iceland.

January 24, 2012
Timcomb EC skate ’12

Some nice V1 skate footage. Bonus section of some of the top open men.

DIRECT LINK HERE

January 24, 2012
Valley Cup Results

Yesterday we hosted the Valley cup at Ole’s in Warren. This is one of the oldest races in Vermont with a 37 year history. There is a very cool trophy with the names of the winners, which includes Olympians, Mike Gallagher, Bob Gray and now, Garrott Kuzzy! We had an awesome field of skiers show up, including Ford Sayre and Frost Mountain Nordic. There were 35 men and 9 women in the 10km and 8 skiers in the 5km Junior Event. We also hosted a BKL Race, pictures and results available on the MRV Club Website!

The men’s start.

Winner, Garrott Kuzzy.

Results:

Men

1. Garrott Kuzzy — 29 — 23:46

2. Tim Donahue — 42 — 24:07

3. Evan Dethier — 22 — 25:03

4. Sam Merrens — 16 — 25:27

5. Hans Halvorsen — 18 — 26:00

6. George Voigt — 17 — 26:01

7. Hugh Prichard — 43 — 26:02

8. Reid Greenberg — 38 — 26:31

9. Devlin Shea — 17 — 26:41

10. Dan Greenleaf — 44 — 27:00

11. Malcolm Groves — 16 — 27:05

12. Bryce Wing — 53 — 27:08

13. Damian Bolduc — 34 — 27:12

14. Keith Woodward — 61 — 27:18

15. Sam Rossier — 17 — 28:27

16. Mike Kavanaugh — 45 — 28:38

17. William Conlon — 17 — 29:00

18. Tom Strasser — 57 — 29:32

19. Will Gochberg — 27 — 29:38

20. Steve Crafts — 40 — 29:45

21. Jon Miller — 35 — 30:08

22. Alan Cote — 45 — 30:21

23. Rob Rosen — 55 — 30:24

24. Jarleth Oneil-Donne — 37 — 30:30

25. Larry Martel — 55 — 30:45

26. Jon Jamieson — 44 — 30:53

27. Pepi Guggenberger — 47 — 31:24

28. Steve Messier — 51 — 31:40

29. John Lazenby — 62 — 32:18

30. Scott Harding — 44 — 32:44

31. Eric Lindbeck — 52 — 34:00

32. Perry Bland — 62 — 34:49

33. John Witmer — 48 — 35:49

34. Luke Foley — 30 — 41:59

35. Tristan Leggett — 30 — DNF

GMVS Coach, Athlete and Earth Science Teacher, Evan Dethier.

Hans Halvorsen

Heidi Halvorsen charging to a victory in the women’s 10km.

Women

1. Heidi Halvorsen — 16 — 28:26

2. Alia Johnson — 17 — 31:36

3. Emily Miller — 18 — 31:38

4. Marilyn Ruseckas — 52 — 33:25

5. Jessica Bolduc — 36 — 34:27

6. Caitlin Haedrich — 17 — 35:22

7. Kate Willaims — 45 — 35:33

8. Amy Jamieson — 41 — 36:29

9. Sarah Landergraf — 16 — 37:55

Junior Race:

Boys

1. Forrest Hamilton — 12:53

2. Tucker Cadon — 13:37

3. Colin Pogue — 15:56

4. Noah Eckstein — 16:14

Girls

1. Elizabeth Goss — 17:06

2. Alexi Kim — 17:08

3. Ava Kendrich — 23:03

4. Chloe Riven — 24:09

It’s all about having fun and enjoying the snow!

Local superstar, Noah Eckstein.

Madeline Strasser skating to a BKL victory.

Devlin and Kaitlin skiing as rabbits for the J3’s.

Carl Kellogg and Mathew Ellis getting instructions.

January 23, 2012
A weekend of Community Events

Saturday MK Cirelli and Kaitlin took a trip to Mountain Top for the Annual Paintball Race.

MK took the Victory in the Adult Race and Kaitlin took Third in the High School Division.

Good racing and good times for sure!

January 23, 2012
Otepää Sprint Recap
I think I’ve been remiss in mentioning this, but as always thanks go to Jan at worldofxc.com for helping to provide the heat times for these sprint races. Let’s see how the men’s finalists fared first:

There were apparently some crashes in this race, as evidenced by the outlying slow times. But in general I’m noticing that each round was progressively faster until the finals, when things backed off, but only slightly. And Cologna really was just skiing faster than everyone. It’s interesting that he outpaced everyone by so much in qualification. I wonder if that was intentional, or if he could do it over again he’d back off a bit. Here’s a look at the difference between the two semifinals:

Not too much of a difference there, may be a second or so (not counting the crashes). As for the women:

Even more so than the men, the times here just kept getting faster with each round. The finals didn’t actually get faster, but they didn’t really see the drop-off in times that the men’s final did. As for these semifinals:

Again, not much of a difference, overall, although semifinal 2 was nominally faster.

Related posts:
January 23, 2012
Even Rougher Week

January 23, 2012
YOG Closing Ceremony Pictures

70 nations, over 1,000 athletes and 100,000 spectators were part of the first Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria.The flame was extinguished this evening and the Olympic flag passed to the mayor of Lillihammer, Norway, where the next YOG’s will be held in 2016.

Now everyone is off to the dance. We’ll have a long travel day tomorrow.

January 22, 2012
More Pictures From Youth Olympic Games

Today is an off day so we have slept in, relaxed and walked around town. The athletes are being encouraged to participate in a bunch of activities at Congress (the place where we eat lunch and dinner). Paddy and Heather have done enough activities to get their free sunglasses and water bottles. Activities range from drumming and cooking classes to mountain awareness.

Each evening there is a medal ceremony in down town Innsbruck. The ceremony takes place at the end of this street.
I thought this was a statue until he waved at me.
It is a very nice town with narrow walking streets and plenty of cafes and shops.
The drive down from Seefeld yesterday was slow and slippery. Many trees had broken and toppled in the road due to the heavy snow (about 2 feet of sticky stuff). When cars slowed to get around the fallen trees, they lost their traction and then the trouble began. They closed the road to any vehicle without chains and that helped the situation. The drive, which normally takes 30 minutes, took 2 hours. We got back just in time to shower, eat and head to the medal ceremony in town.
Medal smile 🙂
Nice TV screen in the background eh?
Flags for the relay teams.
Happy athletes.

January 22, 2012
Tour de Twin Cities or “In our Back Yard”

Sunny skies, crisp temperatures and light winds combined for some good classical conditions Saturday morning for the Mayor’s Challenge events. Sunday brought warmer but damp and cloudy conditions for the Mayor’s Challenge freestyle races at Theodore Wirth. Thanks to Bruce http://www.skinnyski.com/racing/ and David Owen www.davidjowen.com for the pictures.

results

Caitlin finishes first in this race!

Brian leads pack….

…but ends up 4th in a tight finish

January 21, 2012
Relay Bronze at YOG’s!

This morning we had a biathlon/cross-country relay race at the Youth Olymoic Games. The first leg was biathlon girls, followed by x-c girls (Heather), then biathlon boys and finally the x-c boy (Paddy). Each biathlete shot twice and there were big swings in placings depending on how acurate each was. Our biathletes, Anna and Sean, put it all together and skied great races.
Here is Anna looking stong and smooth. There were 24 teams so it was tight most of the time.
Heather woke up with a nasty head cold last night and wasn’t even sure that she could race. Her instructions were to ski smooth and relaxed. In the snow storm, this was the way to ski and she had a good solid leg.
Sean was a super star today. He shot and skied really well and pulled the team into second place!
Paddy got to start with the Russian, French and Swiss breathing down his neck. The Russian (who won Tuesdays race) caught him and they took turns leading before the Russian boy pulled a bit ahead on the last steep climb. Paddy sprinted hard but was 1/2 second out of the silver.
Happy team-mates!
Yahoo!!!!
Team gets interviewed by Eurosport.
This truck did not have any snow on it yesterday!

January 21, 2012