FasterSkier

Tag: races

  • Craftsbury Spring Tour Registration Extended Until Wednesday

    Craftsbury Spring Tour Registration Extended Until Wednesday

    The trails are gorgeous in Craftsbury!

    With over two feet of snow falling last week on an already superb spring base, the trails at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center are in perfect shape for the upcoming Spring Tour on March 18-20.  The weekend kicks off with a classic prologue on Friday afternoon, followed by a continuous pursuit on Saturday and handicap start freestyle races on Sunday.  Saturday night will feature short 100m out and back sprints and a BBQ with live music.  The Outdoor Center is offering special rates to racers for the weekend but we are filling up quickly, so please contact the reservations office at www.craftsbury.com or 802.586.7767.  All up to date race information can be found at craftsbury.com/springtour, including registration, courses, start times and up to date start lists and results.  We also have decided to extend registration until 5PM on Wednesday 3/16!

    We are expecting strong fields, highlighted on the men’s side by former NCAA champion Franz Bernstein, freshman phenom Scott Patterson, and Craftsbury’s own Tim Reynolds, fresh from racing the OPA Cup Finals in Ramsau, Austria.  Craftsbury’s Ida Sargent and Hannah Dreissigacker highlight an equally strong women’s field that also includes CXC’s Maria Stuber and UVM’s NCAA trio of Caitlin Patterson, Amy Glen, and Lucy Garrec.  The Craftsbury Spring Tour are the final NRL/FIS races in the East, so don’t miss this last opportunity of the winter!

  • The Competition is Heating Up in Muonio

    The Competition is Heating Up in Muonio

    The race season started off last weekend in Muonio, Finland, but that was just a preview.

    This weekend, the Olos resort will be hosting three more races, with a start list including over 600 skiers from twenty-two different countries.

    In addition, the Americans have arrived in full force: the Craftsbury Green Racing Project has been joined by the U.S. Ski Team (USST), and the Maine Winter Sports Center’s (MWSC’s) collection of athletes from around the country.

    Game on.

    For the USST, each athlete is expected to race twice. Simi Hamilton, Andy Newell, and Kikkan Randall will contest Friday’s skate sprint, as well as Saturday’s 5 k/10 k classic race. Noah Hoffman, Kris Freeman, and Liz Stephen will only compete in the distance races – Saturday’s classic race and an identical skate competition on Sunday.

    Morgan Arritola contracted the 24-hour flu before leaving the States and only arrived in Finland last night, but was skiing this morning and is tentatively scheduled to start the distance races.

    USST Continental Cup Coach Bryan Fish was enthusiastic about the skiing in Muonio when FasterSkier caught him in the waxroom this morning.

    “It’s great skiing here – it’s really nice to have a good set track right away. It’s like we’re jumping right into mid-season skiing,” he said.

    He said that in the early season, it’s important for athletes to get race starts to compare their level to the competition. Muonio is the perfect place to do that, because there are so many top athletes in attendance, Fish continued.

    He’s right about that. The start list is crammed with World Cup stars like Andrus Veerpalu (EST), the entire Finnish national team, the entire German national team, the entire Italian national team, Justyna Kowalczyk (POL), and Petra Majdic (SLO).

    That’s why the private teams have come as well. In addition to Ida Sargent, who qualified second in the classic sprint on Sunday, the Craftsbury Green Racing Project brought NCAA All-Americans Pat O’Brien, Hannah Dreissigacker, and Dylan McGuffin, as well as five other athletes.

    “Last weekend was a good warm-up for this weekend, because there’s definitely a lot more people. It’s exciting,” Sargent said.

    Among the skiers with the Maine Winter Sports Center trip are 2008 NCAA Champion Glenn Randall, 2006 Olympian Leif Zimmerman, senior competitors Audrey Weber, Fred Bailey, and Adele Espy, and top junior Sam Tarling.

    For these athletes, the draw is mainly points – and experience. With a few athletes on the start list with FIS points of zero, and a minimum penalty of 15, a good race here in Muonio could have very low points indeed.

    For the rest of the American ski community, this is exciting news, because these points will be used to calculate penalties around the country during the regular season when the athletes in Muonio return. Both privately-funded trips will be heading back to the U.S. in two weeks.

    The U.S. Ski Team, though, will stay in Europe. According to Fish, these races will decide which athletes will travel to the World Cup openers in Gallivare, Sweden, and who will stay in Finland for more domestic-level racing.

    “Everyone has a good, professional demeanor here,” Fish said. “Our expectations for the athletes are realistic, but they’re also high.”

    When asked whether he had a feel for who might pop a big race this weekend, he smiled.

    “Hopefully everybody will.”