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Here are some post-race comments from some of the top finishers in last weekend's Yellowstone SuperTour races: Wendy Wagner, Torin Koos, and Justin Freeman tell what it was like up at the front, and look ahead to the December World Cups.
</p><p><B>How did the qualifying go?</B></p><p>– Great! I didn’t expect to qualify first and my skis were frickin’ great, and that helped. But I think I’m starting to ski a lot better now too which is nice, after Anchorage. I honestly was very surprised to win the prelim. And that gives you a lot of confidence going into the heats. So I think that helped a lot to win the heats as well.</p><p><B>Were you going for a maximum workout or were you kind of being smart in the quarters and semis?</B></p><p>– Oh we definitely took it easy in the first two. Not easy, but the final was definitely my fastest, hardest out of all four. Well, the prelim was hard too. It’s a long course, you know usually [girls] race 900m to 1k, and this was a K and a half, so I think lots of people got tired towards the end that didn’t take it easy in the beginning. </p><p><B>Do you feel like this course was suited to you or not so much?</B></p><p>– It’s a hard course, but I think it’s a good course. I like it when the women race around 1000m though–it was a little long I felt. Because [the event organizers] changed it–now we do the 10k tomorrow, and that’s kind of a bummer because it tires you out for that. But it’s great, I love racing in West Yellowstone, it’s one of my favorite places to race. </p><p><BR><center><img decoding=)
</p><p><B>So how’d you feel in the qualifying round?</B></p><p>– You know, I think my legs were a little tired or something, I just couldn’t really get it going. I was kind of disappointed with it, all in all, you know it’s nice to always put up the fastest time or be right there and I was almost two seconds out today.</p><p>It was an interesting course—all V2 or tucking—it’s really a glider's kind of course, and it’s no secret that I’m a transition and V1 kind of guy. So it gives me something to work on when I do these kinds of races.</p><p><B>What was your strategy throughout the event?</B></p><p>– There was nothing to it, it was really to ski from the front–which is also not much of a surprise–but I didn’t want to ski too hard. I just wanted to control the races and pick it up in certain places just to play with speed a little bit, and then win it in the end. And it pretty much worked out until the Final, I had Newell and Leif coming up on me. Newell and I got a little tangled up and then Leif made a good move, and then we ended up just having a roller derby the last 150 meters. He was able to accelerate a little bit faster about 80 meters out, and got a meter on me and we just stuck really close to the end. I think at the finish it was probably 4 or 5 inches. But he deserved the win. He was obviously skiing really smooth today.</p><p><B>Where did you get tangled up?</B></p><p>– Just at the bottom of the hill there, on the second [lap], when we were really starting to push it.</p><p><BR><center><img decoding=)
