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From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.

Tag: USSA SuperTour

  • 2014-15 NENSA Eastern Cup Series Preview

    (NENSA press release)

    By Sophie Hodges

    We are down to three months away from the next Eastern Cup, NENSA’s signature race series, and it is time to get prepped for all the excitement to come! In case any of you have been keeping up with the Farmer’s Almanac, this year is supposed to be a winter to remember, so lets get excited!

    I personally am very excited for this winter, because we have a new venue, Rikert Nordic Center! For those of you who have not skied there before, I can assure you, it is a wonderful place to ski and a beautiful woodland area, perfect for this year’s Eastern Cup Opener. Rikert is equipped with snow-making guns, and will be properly prepared for the races byDecember 20th. 

    Keith Wilkerson from the Frost Mountain Nordic ski club, co-director of the races with Mike Hussey of Rikert Nordic Center are putting together an exciting weekend of races. Says Keith Wilkerson, ”We’ve partnered with the Better Middlebury Partnership, our local business development group, and the Addison County Chamber of Commerce, to engage the larger community in hosting this event. Middlebury Inn has agreed to be our host hotel and we’re fine tuning the details for a special Saturday evening reception for skiers and fans in town. We’re also really excited about having Eastern Cup racing on Rikert’s homologated course. Our goal is to put on a marquee event.” Looking forward to it, Keith!

    After Rikert’s event, we have weekend number two, at Black Mountain in Rumford Maine! The first day of this weekend, January 17th, is also the Bates College Carnival which looks to be very promising, and according to Becky Woods, “Bates is thrilled to be hosting at Black Mountain and working with the Chisholm Ski Club. The planning is in full swing – it should be a great event. We are excited to have one race day that is a combined Carnival and Eastern Cup!” Thanks Becky, sounds like it’s going to be a great weekend!

    The next in line will be race weekend number three, at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center, in Craftsbury Common, Vermont. This is going to be an exciting weekend because on February 6th-8th, Craftsbury is hosting a USSA SuperTour, the Dartmouth Carnival on February 6th and 7th, and the NENSA Eastern Cup on February 7th and 8th. 

    Everything will be super busy, and my advice to you would be to make sure your skis are labeled! Liz Guiney, from the Craftsbury Green Racing Project says that everyone at Craftsbury is “really excited about this event for a few reasons. The first is that the Outdoor Center will be hosting in our new Activity Center, which is spacious and directly on the nordic trails. The skiers will have plenty of room to change, spread out between races, and get warm next to the fireplace. The other exciting aspect of the race weekend is that it is a combination Eastern Cup, carnival, and a USSA SuperTour. This means that the best college racers, juniors, and professional skiers will all be competing together, which will raise the level for everyone involved. It’s going to be a great event and an awesome time to ski at Craftsbury!” Hope to see you all there!

    The final weekend of the Eastern Cup series will be held in both Oak Hill, Hanover, New Hampshire, and the Holderness School, in Holderness New Hampshire. Day one, February 14th, will be held by the folks at Oak Hill, who say, “race committees have met several times and energy is running high! The excellent snow ‘in town’ through the latter half of last year’s xc season left all of us energized about getting outside on skis, and the Eastern Cup is a community-building way of celebrating Nordic skiing and racing.” Day two will be put on by the Holderness School, and it is also the Cheri Walsh Memorial Eastern Cup race. From the race organizers at Holderness: “As always, we hope to use the traditional Cheri Walsh course which we believe showcases fun agile classic skiing in it’s purest form. The best part about hosting the race is that it brings the best skiers in the region to our home club, and allows our ski community to come together and experience ski culture at it’s best. We always hope that a young Bill Koch skier will see the best Eastern Cup skiers and say to themselves, ‘I can do that’.”

    Eastern Cups are open to skiers from all levels, and even draws some of the nation’s finest talent. Katharine Ogden, one of last year’s Gallagher Cup winners says “I am really excited for this new season of racing and can’t wait to race against a new batch of skiers for my fourth year in the Eastern Cup race circuit!”

    Says Patrick O’Brien, also a winner of last year’s Gallagher Cup, “the Eastern Cup circuit is a valuable development tool for skiing in New England because it allows citizen, high school, and senior racers to come together and compete against each other. Skiing is normally a pretty small sport in the US so any time you can get those often separate groups to all compete on the same course you are going to increase participation and make for a higher level competition. A high school freshman can see where they stand agains a World Cup starter or USST member. The Eastern Cup circuit is also critical development path for our junior racers to practice higher level starts before heading to Junior Nationals come March. Having a unified race circuit throughout the winter is one of the reasons New England has historically been one of the strongest regions at Junior Nationals!”

    We are excited to see you all out there, ready to race for the first weekend, December 20th and 21st!

  • USSA SuperTour: Ellefsson, Reid Win Classic Races in Aspen

    Sylvan Ellefsson (Vail, Colo.) continued his winning streak from last weekend’s Boulder Mountain Tour in Sun Valley, Idaho, winning the 10K classic race in 27 minutes and 13.8 seconds. Glenn Randall (BSF) was second, some eight seconds behind Ellefsson. Reid Pletcher (CU) was third.

    “It’s nice to be racing back in Colorado, and it was such a picturesque day,” Ellefsson said to FasterSkier after the race, noting that the altitude made the already tough course profile particularly punishing.

    “It’s pretty brutal, but that’s what I was born and raised on,” he said with a laugh.

    Ellefsson believes prior exposure to altitude was a big benefit on the challenging course, and knowing how bodies respond to the thin air at 8,000 feet.

    “Honestly, part of the winning trick was definitely to be safe and be a little conservative on the first lap. It’s hard to go all out on the first lap and hold it,” he said. “My strategy was to ski technically sound, big and strong. It was going well, so then I could go down harder on the second lap.”

    With the confidence from last week’s Boulder Mountain Tour and today’s SuperTour victory, Ellofsson is looking forward to day two of the USSA SuperTour in Aspen: The 21-kilometer Owl Creek Chase.

    “I’m really excited. I feel fast. It’s a brutal course and there will definitely be some head games and some cynical games out there, but I’m excited to get it going and see what happens,” Ellefsson said, noting that this will be his second attempt at the Owl Creek Chase.

    “The take away from last year is that I need to find a group to ski with and not ski the course on my own,” Ellefsson said.

    Junior wins women’s 5K

    In the women’s race, Joanne Reid of Colorado University made a statement on her first visit to Aspen. Showing no respect for altitude or course profile, Reid charged right out of the gate and never slowed down. Still a junior, Reid beat everyone on the challenging course, despite setting out on the 5K course without a plan.

    “I’m not going to lie, I totally had no strategy. I just tried to have good technique and pushed all the way. I felt terrible at the top of the long hill, but then there is a little downhill and I recovered a little. That helped me keep pushing even though it hurt a lot,” Reid explained, admitting that she forgot her coach’s advice about starting out conservatively.

    “I was so friggin’ tired at the top because I didn’t listen to my coach. But there were all these people cheering along the course and I had really fast skis,” Reid said.  “You know, racing is always a mix of luck and skis and everything,” she concluded.

    “Aspen is so nice. There were a lot of people out today, and it’s so great to see what this is doing for our sport. They had a DJ out there, and it was the coolest thing. Then they had a barbeque on the deck and it was totally a party,” Reid said to FasterSkier after the race.

    Terese Andersson of University of New Mexico was second, while Morgan Smyth of Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Club was third.

    The importance of oxygen

    Smyth, arriving at altitude Thursday night and with no time to acclimatize, felt like she pulled off a good race all things considered.

    “It was exceedingly difficult. It’s definitely the highest I’ve ever raced,” Smyth said, noting that she certainly felt the altitude.

    “I went out doing pretty well as we climbed up, then there’s a pretty good recovery at the top before the rolling section at the end,” Smyth explained.

    “The second half was tough,” Smyth said, adding that Saturday’s effort was her first race in three weeks.

    Now Smyth is looking forward to the Owl Creek Chase tomorrow.

    “That’s a totally different race. I’ve never raced that far and it will be my first mass start skate race this year,” Smyth said, explaining that the 20K skate was her favorite distance in college.

    “It will be an adventure. I have no expectations, but the goal is to maintain contact with the main group, that’s the big thing,” said Smyth, who is entirely new to the course.

    With near perfect hard wax conditions, sunny skies and a course lined with cheering spectators, the stage was set for some fast and spectacular racing on the Aspen trails Saturday.

    “It was nice to do a one-lap race after so many short-loop races this season,” Morgan Smyth said to FasterSkier.

    Complete results here.

  • USSA SuperTour: CXC Teammates Kuzzy and Compton Win Skate Races

    Garrott Kuzzy (CXC). Photo: Hallie Herz.

    In the men’s race, a large group of CXC skiers plus comeback kid Adam Kates (Big Thunder) skied together as a pack from the start. The group made a substantial gap to the rest of the field on the first climb, and from then on the race was determined.

    “We had a good solid group going, and once we started climbing we pulled to the front and kept the pace. There was no playing games here, pretty much pedal to the medal the whole time,” said Garrott Kuzzy (CXC) who finished in 39:38.5 and won the race by almost 10 seconds to Brian Gregg (CXC) in second place (39:48.1). Adam Kates rounded out the podium in third place, two seconds behind Gregg.

    “It was the CXC freight train, and Adam Kates, the Canadian coach, also did a lot of work,” Kuzzy said, noting that it was a hard race for everyone. Kates was the only non-CXC-skier among the top six finishers.

    “There was not a whole lot of sprinting to the finish. People were pretty happy to be done at that point,” Kuzzy recalled.

    Kuzzy explained that details and margins determined the race.

    “It was a couple of minor moves on my part, having my teammates up there and good boards, for sure. And lots of people cheering along the course always helps,” Kuzzy said.

    Can’t stop a train

    Race director and head coach at Michigan Tech Joe Haggenmiller saw the CXC train in action from the sideline.

    “Nobody was really able to close in on the gap. It broke down to about 10 guys, and Kates was in that pack. Then a few more fell off after that,” Haggenmiller said to FasterSkier.

    Haggenmiller added that there were six guys in the pack that came to the finish together. Kuzzy was the first to cross the finish line, and had a 10-second margin to his teammate Brian Gregg in second. But only 22 seconds separated the next five racers, with Kates being the only variety in the race uniform. Santi Ocariz was fourth (39:52.8), Matt Liebsch fifth (40:03.4) and Bryan Cook sixth (40:20.6).

    Winner of Friday’s sprint and yesterday’s 10K classic, Michael Sinnott (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Olympic Development Team), was starting to notice the cost of the two first victories. He was seventh in the 15K skate, clocking in at 41:02.5.

    “My race was okay. I was quite tired,” Sinnott admitted.

    But there are USSA SuperTour points awarded for seventh place, so Sunday’s effort still knocked another 14 points off Lars Flora’s overall SuperTour lead. Sinnott’s goal for the season is to win the overall SuperTour, and over the course of the weekend, Sinnott was able to gain 74 points on Flora (Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Club), who now only has a 23-point lead: 297 to Sinnott’s 274.

    Caitlin Compton (CXC) racing at the U.S. National Championships.

    Compton in charge

    In the women’s race, there was little suspense after Caitlin Compton (CXC) took the lead, which she did early on.

    “Caitlin hammered it out today. She had a pretty big gap and skied much of the race by herself,” Haggenmiller said.

    Compton finished the brutal 10K course in 31:38.6. Teammate Maria Stuber, the winner of Saturday’s classic race, was second, finishing more than a minute behind (32:50.7) and Carolyn Freeman (UWGB) skied into third place for her second podium this weekend, recording a time of 33:38.5. Freeman was second in the classic race yesterday.

    With firm tracks and some new, squeaky snow, the conditions were solid for all the racers.

    “I was probably not the fastest conditions in the world out there, but it was definitely fair,” Haggenmiller said.

    Complete results here.

  • SuperTour: Sinnott Continues to Dominate Podium, Stuber Wins Womens

    SuperTour: Sinnott Continues to Dominate Podium, Stuber Wins Womens

    Mike Sinnott striding at the 2011 US Nationals classic sprint. Photo, flyingpointroad.com.

    Michael Sinnott (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Olympic Development Team) won the 10K individual start classic race Saturday in 29 minutes and 35.2 seconds. Adam Kates (Big Thunder) in second place was just over a second behind, crossing the finish in 29:36.5. Garrott Kuzzy (CXC) was third, clocking in at 29:37.5.

    “I could definitely feel the sprint from yesterday, but I felt pretty good,” Sinnott said to FasterSkier after the race. His strategy for the race was to focus on skiing smoothly and keep the tempo up through the double-pole sections in early part of the course.

    “The course has a lot of transitions, so I tried to make sure I skied well,” he said.

    After Saturday’s victory, Sinnott earned another 30 points for the SuperTour series, and is now only 37 points behind Lars Flora (Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Club) for the overall lead.

    “The goal is to get ahead of Lars (Flora). I want to have a buffer on Lars so I don’t have to sweat too much when the SuperTour hits home later this season,” the Sun Valley skier explained.

    Surprise comeback

    While Sinnott certainly was among the favorites on the start list and didn’t disappoint, Canadian Adam Kates (Big Thunder) came out of left field and raced straight into second place in the men’s 10K classic.

    “I heard it was tight. I was one of the first skiers out so I didn’t know how tight it was,” Sinnott said. “When I finished I had a mental idea of how I had done, and I knew it was tight.”

    “I would categorize him as at least a semi-retired skier, coaching with one of the Thunder Bay programs. He just decided to jump in the race earlier this week and then we see him on the leader board at 7.5K. But Mikey (Sinnott) was able to come back and take the lead again,” race director Joe Haggenmiller of Michigan Tech said.

    Maria Stuber

    Stuber tops women

    Maria Stuber of CXC won the women’s 5K individual start classic race in 17 minutes and 48.3 seconds, leaving her a comfortable 5-second margin down to Carolyn Freeman (UWGB) in second place (17:52.7) Yesterday’s sprint winner Christina Turman (Northern Michigan University) was third in 17:53.

    “I had no idea that I won when I finished. I thought I heard someone said I was second,” Stuber said to FasterSkier, explaining that it was a nice surprise.

    For Stuber, the classic victory was particularly tasty, as she has worked hard for a long time to make progress on her technique.

    “It was fun to finally feel that my classic skiing in coming along, since that has been a weakness of mine,” Stuber said. “I think the work I did last year is paying off now, and I did a ton of work on it.”

    Stuber also noted that with a course as technical and full of transitions as the one at Michigan Tech, it was a benefit to know be familiar with the terrain ahead of time.

    “I’ve raced this course literally a million times in college. You have to go out hard to go all the way. Knowing the course is for sure a big benefit anytime, but especially here where you have to go out so hard,” Stuber explained.

    Sunday: Mass Start Skate

    The SuperTour concludes the stop at Michigan Tech with mass start skate races Sunday, 10K for the women and 15K for the men. And Sinnott is ready to continue the surge.

    “The mass start should be fun. You never know what happens, there is always an element of chaos in a mass start,” Sinnott said, adding that he thinks his chances for the podium are decent. “I think a lot of people are starting to feel a little worn down by now, and others might feel a bit more worn down than I do right now,” he concluded.

    Haggenmiller predicts that Sinnott and Kuzzy will be fighting for the podium, and that Brian Gregg (CXC) and Santi Ocariz (CXC), who was fourth in the classic race, will be right up there as well.

    “And apparently Adam Kates too, his form ain’t too bad either,” Haggenmiller added.

    Stuber is also excited for Sunday’s skate race.

    “The skate race will be good. It’s my favorite technique. It should be a good one,” Stuber said, adding that her strategy is to open hard to be with the front pack and then stay there and see what everybody does. She suspects that her biggest contender will be teammate Caitlin Compton.

    “Caitlin will be back on her game again tomorrow so I probably won’t control much of it,” Stuber said with a laugh. “She’ll have a good one.”

    The forecast calls for a little more snow during the race, but nothing that should cause the wax tech to lose any sleep.

    “When it’s skating, it doesn’t get as tense in the wax room when it snows,” Haggenmiller said.

    The mass start skate races start at 9:30 am with the men’s SuperTour race, and continues with the women’s SuperTour race at 11:15 am.

    Complete results from Saturday’s classic races here.

  • Sinnott Pulls Perfect Race at the SuperTour in Michigan

    Michael Sinnott (SVSEF) felt like he couldn’t have asked for a better afternoon to do a classic sprint qualifier.

    “It was beautiful racing, blue skies about 20 degrees and fast, hard tracks,” Sinnott, said to FasterSkier after the race. “It was fun.”

    Second place is not first loser

    With a time of 3:20.30, Garrott Kuzzy of Team CXC was only 0.3 seconds behind Sinnott, and more than eight seconds ahead of Petter Sjulstad of Michigan Tech in third place. He clocked in at 3:28.70.

    “Once I finished, I knew that I placed really well,” said Garrott Kuzzy of Team CXC. Missing first place by a split second was simply how the dice fell this time, he explained.

    “I had done pretty much everything right. Mikey (Sinnott) was just that much faster today,” said Kuzzy, who won both the USSA SuperTour races on home turf in Minneapolis last weekend.

    “It was really fun to do well at home last week,” he said.

    Fast, technical course

    Kuzzy noted that when the team drove up to Michigan on Thursday, it was raining lightly, which resulted in a hard, slightly crusted course as it froze onto the surface overnight.

    “Conditions were beautiful, and it’s a brand new course. It was a great course for a qualifier,” Kuzzy said, adding that he didn’t consider skate skis and double-poling.

    “It’s a hard, technical course. Skate skis wouldn’t have been as fast today,” he said.

    Double sweet victory

    For Sinnott, Friday’s victory awarded him not only the 250 dollar prize money. It gave him another 30 SuperTour points in the pocket, which reduced Lars Flora’s (Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Club) overall lead by nearly one third in just over three minutes.

    A couple of weeks ago at US Nationals, Sinnott’s entire season focus got rearranged when he narrowly missed being named to the US World Championships team headed for Oslo next month.

    “My season goals got derailed. I skied well, but I was just not named to the team. I was the next in line. That was a little disappointing. So now I’m trying to be the overall leader of the SuperTour,” Sinnott said, noting that he has eight SuperTour races to make up 67 points on Flora. And Flora won’t even be here for a good part of those.

    “I like my chances,” Sinnott concluded with a grin.

    No-heat qualifiers

    Friday’s classic sprints at the Michigan Tech Nordic Training Center featured a qualifier event on the 1.5K highly technical course for both men and women, but no subsequent heats. This is a unique race format that showed up last season and serves several purposes, Kuzzy and Sinnott explain, adding that they enjoy the no heat sprint races, and see the value in the exercise.

    “It’s a race format that doesn’t really happen anywhere else outside North America, but it’s designed to identify the fastest qualifiers. It’s important to qualify fast, because if you qualify low in the US you still make it to the rounds, but in Europe you wouldn’t necessarily make it to the rounds,” Sinnott said.

    No heats also mean that the sprint takes a lesser toll on the athletes and allow more of them to do a three-race weekend with full-on distance races.

    “With full heats, that means that the skiers who go all the way in the sprints have three more races in their legs the next day than those who didn’t make the it out of the qualifiers,” Kuzzy notes.

    Challenging classic course

    The SuperTour continues tomorrow with 5K classic for women and 10K classic for men, both races with interval starts. Sinnott has tested the course before, knows what’s in store, and has respect for the challenge.

    “We had nationals here a couple of years ago. There are long hills and it’s easy to bury yourself. I need to keep the lid on for the first lap to have a good second lap,” Sinnott said.

    In the women’s sprint race, Christina Turman of Northern Michigan University won in 4:05.20, with a comfortable 5-second margin to Deedra Irwin, an older junior who is redshirting with Michigan tech this season, in second place with the time 4:10.50. Audrey Weber (Go! Training) was third, finishing in 4:11.50.

    Complete results here.

  • USSA SuperTour Goes to Michigan Tech for the Midwest Grand Prix

    Featuring NCAA qualifiers, Super Junior Olympic qualifiers for both the Great Lakes and the Midwest regions, high school, youth, masters and citizen racing, the Midwest Grand Prix in Houghton, Mich., boasts fields of more than 400 racers.

    Friday features classic sprint races for both men and women. The sprint will consist of qualifiers only, not heats. Saturday the action continues with 5K classic interval start for women, while the men do 10K. The SuperTour concludes on Sunday with 10K/15K skate mass start races. Additionally there are classic and skate races of various distances for high school, youth, masters, citizen and adaptive skiers on both Saturday and Sunday, making sure volunteers and race organizers won’t have time to get bored.

    All the races will take place on the Michigan Tech Nordic Training Center, the host of the 2007 and 2008 US Senior Nationals, which features your standard tough FIS homologated courses, says race director Joe Haggenmiller, the head coach for nordic sports at Michigan Tech.

    Haggenmiller points out Chris Cook (Steinbock Racing) and Michael Sinnott (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation) as some of the strong contenders in the starting lineup. Last weekend’s podium sweepers Caitlin Compton (CXC) and teammate Garrott Kuzzy are also back for more.  Stay tuned.

    Event details and schedules here.