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Swenson Wins 20 km Race In New Zealand

FasterSkier · August 9, 2005

The following article was sent to us by Team Today: <www.teamtoday.org


New Zealand — Aug 6, 2005.

(note: these are the times posted. They don’t really add up, but anyway…)

Carl Swenson won today’s New Zealand Pursuit Race at Snow Farm. The course distance isn’t really known — but took Carl a hair over 41 minutes to complete. Conditions were warm with the air well over freezing but the snow staying firm.

Name			Overall time	Skate time	Classical time

Carl Swenson		1-  41:12		2-  9:56	1-  21:36
Andrew Johnson	        2-  42:29		3-  10:09	2-  22:15
Kris Freeman		3-  42:54		1-  9:48	4-  23:20
Erik Brandsdal		4-  44:08		4-  10:25	3-  23:03
Martin Braanerud	5-  45:33		5-  10:51	5-  23:54

Kris Freeman took the lead from Andrew Johnson on the first big climb of the day and blasted ahead by 15 to 20 seconds. On the second of two classical loops Kris took a wrong turn letting Carl and Andrew regain the lead. Carl came into the exchange first and, not knowing Kris was now behind him, cranked through the skate leg wondering how Kris could be skiing so fast that he could no longer even see him.

Johnson maintained a steady pace to keep second place ahead of a hard charging Freeman.

“I felt really strong today,” said an obviously pleased Freeman.

“Carl looked better today than he looked all last year,” said Coach Loefshus. “He looked really snappy.”

“AJ did not have the power he had in the other hard sessions this week — it’s been a hard week of training, for the whole team really, and we’re going to keep up with the hard training and high volume for the rest of the camp — that is what we’re here to do,” said Coach Vordenberg, “but it is good to see race-bibs on again and feel that twinge of excitement.”

This afternoon Kris is going for a distance ski, Carl is doing specific strength on skis with the sprint team and Andrew is doing spenst and general strength.

Tomorrow the distance skiers are going for a long ski in the morning (up to 4 hours) — and some for a shorter ski in the afternoon.


Swenson Wins 20 km Race In New Zealand – FasterSkier