BOZEMAN, Montana – Skiing at Bohart Ranch heated up this week both literally and figuratively as the top collegiate racers took to the trails for the 2012 NCAA Championship. Photographer Stuart Jennings captured much of the action, here is a look at the top ten women and men in the freestyle 5/10km races. Full Race Report: Graefnings and Soderman win 5/10 skate, Dartmouth top team, at first day of 2012 NCAA Championships
The 5 and 10k nordic freestyle races opened a four-event weekend for the 2012 NCAA Skiing Championships. Both nordic races are being held on a 5.1k lap course at Bohart Ranch in Bozeman, Montana. The trailhead at the venue is measured at 1859 meters (6100 feet) of elevation, the track winding through the woods up the side of the mountain and accumulating a total climb of 167 meters. The course begins with a couple steep...
“It was absolutely nuts. A couple times coming through the field, one guy would turn to another and go, “Where are we?” and then we’d laugh and keep skiing, not sure we were still on the trail. Everybody knew it was going to be a slog, so the pacing was reasonable for a 1:20 race… in other words, comically slow for a 20K. I got really bored at about 7 or 8 K because we...
The fourth weekend of EISA races were slated to be hosted by Williams College as part of their 97th Winter Carnival. But in the continuation of dismal snow conditions on the East coast, Williams had to relocate their home carnival to the Craftsbury Nordic Center in Vermont. The winners of both men’s and women’s races had no complaints, however. Women’s winner Annie Hart of Dartmouth described the 5k race course at Craftsbury as being “a...
EISA Race Weekend #4: February 10-11. It was the 102nd Dartmouth Winter Carnival, but without the snow to host the nordic races of the themed “Sweetest Carnival Ever” had to be moved to the Trapp Family Lodge, the same location as last weekend’s races hosted by UVM. The race line-up was in the NCAA format of 5/10 individual start skate on Friday and 15/20 mass start classic on Saturday. Dartmouth and UVM continued their rivalry...
The third weekend of EISA qualifiers were combined with NENSA’s TD Bank Eastern Cup races and held at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont. The collegiate competitors topped the combined field on each day of individual start races, with only three Eastern Cup competitors cracking into the top ten. The podium saw no new faces this weekend, as Middlebury’s Patrick Johnson took both men’s races, Dartmouth’s Sophie Caldwell won the 5k classic race, and...
The second weekend of EISA racing was hosted by the University of New Hampshire (UNH) at the Jackson Touring Center. Friday held classic sprints and Saturday held 15 and 20 k mass start skate races. Dartmouth won the weekend’s team scores over UVM by grabbing all four individual titles and an impressive nine out of the twelve podium spots, though UVM snagged the remaining three. Heavy precipitation on Thursday night dumped snow onto a very...
The first races of the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association (EISA) were hosted by Bates College and held at Black Mountain in Rumford, Maine – the same location that hosted the US Nationals just two weeks ago. It was the first showdown of the year, and every team wanted to establish their place on the ranking list. Continuing their rivalry from last year, the University of Vermont (UVM) and Dartmouth (DAR) battled for the top team...
DENVER – Håkon Johansen has been named Nordic assistant coach of The University of Denver ski team, Nordic head coach Dave Stewart announced today. Johansen, who skied for the Pioneers from 2000-03, returns to Denver after working in his native Norway. “We are thrilled to welcome Håkon back to the DU family,” Stewart said. The opportunity to coach at DU attracted a tremendous amount of interest, both domestically and abroad. We had many highly qualified...
Holding elite level events, whether World Cup races, National Championships or just FIS points competitions, pose numerous challenges for organizers and National Governing Bodies in the US and Canada. Over the course of the summer FasterSkier will examine the various issues at hand. Today we start with a piece on homologation, with future topics to include snowmaking and prize money, among others. Until this year, the U.S. and Canada have had reprieve from the International...
Three weeks after being flown out of Boulder Canyon with serious head trauma, Reid Pletcher is ready to head home to Sun Valley after his expected discharge from Craig Hospital in Denver this Friday. The
FasterSkier Collegiate Skier of the Year Collegiate Skier of the Year (women): Maria Graefnings (SWE/University of Utah) A senior at the University of Utah, and a native of Falun, Sweden, Graefnings dominated the RMISA circuit during the regular season, winning seven of eight starts. Graefnings transferred to Utah from the University of Nevada when that program was cut. In addition to her success in the western region, Graefnings won the NCAA national title in the...
Today: Rain. Patchy fog. High near 44. South wind between 10 and 13 mph. Wind gusts as high as 34 mph. The forecast for Friday’s 15 and 20k mass start classic races read like a bad joke to the coaches and athletes of this year’s second – and final – nordic race at the NCAA championships. Thankfully, the wind never did pick up. But after it started, the rain barely let up. It rained so...
NCAA 5/10 k skate race There are always a lot of questions and unknowns coming into the NCAA nordic competition every year. The best athletes and schools from one region rarely get to compete head-to-head with athletes and schools from a different region until they travel to the collegiate nationals, making NCAA’s the first time they get test their mettle against the rest of the nation’s elite. It was fitting then, that the first race...
NCAA Preview The 2011 National Collegiate Championship is slated to begin Wednesday, March 9th in Stowe, Vermont. Starting in December, athletes and teams from the Western, Central, and Eastern regions have been battling for hotly contested NCAA spots by competing in regional qualifying races, and this week those qualified athletes will get to see how they stack up against racers from other schools across the country. Only 39 men and 39 women will have the...
Dartmouth’s Eric Packer and Rosie Brennan took individual titles on the second day of the EISA Regional Championships hosted by Bates in Rumford, Maine. For Packer it was his third straight win and second win of the Championships, and for Brennan it was her first win, helping put their team ahead of UVM in both team scores for the day. An inch or two of snow overnight continued to soften the tracks at Black Mountain...
The winners surprised no one in today’s 5 and 10k individual start skate race. Both wearing the leader’s jerseys, UVM’s Caitlin Patterson and Dartmouth’s Eric Packer again stole the show on the first day of the EISA Regional Carnival at Bates. A half foot of fresh wet snow fell yesterday in Rumford, Maine, but overnight winds churned the pack into a fine, soft powder. The course crew at Black Mountain re-groomed in the early hours,...
It was a cold and blustery day for the skate sprint relays on the second day of the Middlebury Carnival. The races were held on an open field across from the Rikert Touring Center, the terrain rolling and the track wide. New snow and windblown drifts covered a rock-solid base and made for conditions that matched the difficulty of the format. Each team had three racers that completed three, one kilometer loops, whose tag and...
With only one NCAA qualifying race in the EISA weekend, the question was: who would step up their game? The answer came from two Dartmouth juniors that were tired of taking second: Erika Flowers and Eric Packer. Out of five podium finishes this season, Packer has not only taken second place in four races (two each of skate and classic) without clinching a win, but is also ranked second overall on the EISA points list....
Day 1: 5/ 10k classic race Aspen, Colorado- For what is probably the biggest weekend of racing in Colorado, Denver University (DU) hosted its collegiate invitational double as SuperTour races for the Aspen Nordic Festival. Elite and casual racers all registered to race at one of the most popular ski venues in America for the weekend event. In the mix of skiers from all schools, the University of Colorado (CU) took home the individual victories...