Slow, slushy conditions at TAMC Nordic Heritage Center in Presque Isle for Thursday night's individual skate sprints played into the hands of some of the strongest all-around distance skiers. Qualification started around 4pm, with recently-arrived Anders Haugen (Rossignol) posting the fastest men's time of 2:01.8 ahead of Canadian speedster Phil Widmer and Steve Scott of the Maine Winter Sports Center, who had been focused on this event for months.
Right behind these sprinters however were well-known distance skiers not often seen near the top of the qualification times: Chad Giese (4th in qualifying), Kris Freeman (5th), David Chamberlain (6th), and several others. On the women's side, Canadian superwoman Dasha Gaiazova continued to show top form at Spring Series, posting the fastest qualifying time of 2:24.5, 2.4 seconds ahead of Kikkan Randall (APU.) Canadian Christine Bisson had the third-fastest run at 2:28.2, while Alice Nelson (2:28.9), Kate Underwood (2:31.1) and Annelies Cook (2:32.0) took the next three spots.
But with 30 women and 30 men moving on to the heats, there was plenty of potential for some serious re-shuffling of the rankings. At 6pm the first women's quarterfinal got underway and the show was on for real.
After the awards ceremony, Freeman explained that for him the conditions “made it better because it made it harder…but I don't like skiing in this stuff.” Kikkan Randall commented on what would normally have been a relatively fast course: “It was actually really grinding, it took a lot out of you every lap, but it was fun.”
Thanks to volunteer shovelers, the paved rollerski loop underneath stayed mostly out of sight though coverage was dangerously thin especially on the last hill. Barring a heavy rain storm there seems to be enough snow for the last two events, the 5/10km skate races on Saturday and the mass-start national championship 30/50km classic races on Sunday.
Women's qualification results: http://www.nensa.net/sched&result/2006/Women_SS_Sprint_Qual.pdf
Men's qualification results: http://www.nensa.net/sched&result/2006/Men_SS_Sprint_Qual.pdf
Women's heat bracket results: http://www.nensa.net/sched&result/2006/Women_SS_Sprint.pdf
Men's heat bracket results: http://www.nensa.net/sched&result/2006/Men_SS_Sprint.pdf
Be sure to check out lots more photos and videos from Spring Series in our new <Multimedia Gallery.
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