Rumford Sprint and Distance Skate at Nationals

Hello from Rumford! It’s been an exciting few days of racing here. The courses have held up well under the pressure of hundreds of racers, and we got to race the 3.3 kilometer loop today for the first time. 4 times up the fearsome High School Hill for the boys and 3 times for the girls. No small feat! We have had stellar results so far: Both Dev and Heidi were the 8th place J1s in the sprint! 

Heidi in the sprint qualification.

Heidi skied away from her quarterfinal and semifinal heats, winning each by several seconds, but was done in by an early fall in the A Final. Still a great day of racing. Dev’s qualification left him just 1.3 seconds out of the junior heats, but a strong OJ field took most of those 24 spots and Dev was 8th on the list. 

MK in qualification.

MK also qualified for the rounds, gaining valuable high-level sprinting experience. Though her quarterfinal left her disappointed, she skied great all day! Fitzy skied well in the sprint, but had a better race today, skiing three strong laps in the women’s 10 kilometer skate. MK and Heidi also skied well, separated by only a few seconds. Heidi was once again the 8th J1 across the line!

Dev, Josh, and I crushed 4 laps in the 15 kilometer skate race, though we all feel like better racing is in store for us tomorrow. The skis have been great all week, and promise to be again tomorrow. A huge shout-out to our waxers Janice Sibilia from NENSA and Ben Husaby from Bend, as well as to Justin, who has been paying special attention to the GMVS boards.

30 kilometers for me tomorrow (yikes!), 10 km for the boys, and 5 km for the girls. Time to rip some classic skiing!