From February 4-7 the MVNT traveled to Bend, Oregon with 20 racers aged 12-18. Saturday brought challenging conditions, with 4″ of new, wet snow, which was ungroomed before the race started. The skating race was a mass-start 5 or 10km course, with several large hills. The J2 boys started first, and packed out the trails for the rest of the racers. Kelsey Dickinson (J1) and Jacqueline O’Keefe (J2) won their divisions, Sage Abate (J2) was 2nd, Nina Ekblad (J1) was 3rd, Casey Smith (J1) was 3rd, and all skiers pushed themselves through the tough conditions to ski well.
In contrast to Saturday, Sunday’s classic tracks were perfect, and skiers were surprised to be able to wax with VR40 rather than klister. The MVNT skiers used their good technique to stride up the hills, and notable finishes included Kelsy and Jacqueline, again first in their divisions, and Sage and Nina also holding onto their division places in 2nd and 3rd.
The MVNT celebrated Flash’s birthday with cake and a ‘birthday girl’ crown, and the Team returned energized to continue on to its last JO Qualifier race in Spokane (Feb. 20-21st).
For full results see: http://www.mbsef.org/results/crosscountry/index.cfm?page=09-10
