The second and final nordic race of the 2012 NCAA’s was held on a blue-bird Bozeman day which reached 60 degrees by race’s end. Spectators who witnessed the 15 and 20 kilometer mass start classic races on Friday were treated to non-stop action and nail-biting finishes in both the men’s and women’s events, as the title for both races ended in a two-way sprint to the finish line. In the men’s 20k it was a...
All 2012 Cross Country Junior Nationals coverage is brought to you through the generous support of Complete 3×3 k freestyle relay results Audrey Mangan contributed reporting.
All 2012 Cross Country Junior Nationals coverage is brought to you through the generous support of Complete results from Friday’s classic individual starts
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...
All 2012 Cross Country Junior Nationals coverage is brought to you through the generous support of OJ boys 15 k freestyle mass start results Ahmed Advances on Descent Elizabeth Simak came this close to locking up a Junior Nationals title. At least her teammate got it instead. The OJ girls 10 k freestyle mass start might as well been a sprint given the way it turned out for the frontrunners. After Simak (Midwest/F.A.S.T. Performance Training)...
All 2012 Cross Country Junior Nationals coverage is brought to you through the generous support of J2 boys sprint brackets Overall results Kern Claims Championship Upon Return Just over a week ago, Julia Kern was racing in Estonia at the J1 Scando Cup and led the American women in the 5 k classic, placing 14th. If that wasn’t impressive enough, consider she’s a J2. The Cambridge Sports Union skier from Massachusetts returned to the states...
All 2012 Cross Country Junior Nationals coverage is brought to you through the generous support of OJ girls heats results Overall results (scroll for J1 girls) Lustgarten Leads New England In a 1.3 k sprint, there isn’t much time for decisions. So when Eric Lustgarten, a sophomore at St. Lawrence University, forged ahead on the second and final significant climb at Soldier Hollow, he knew there was no turning back. Previously hanging behind his New...
Emil Jönsson needed this. He had been sick for too long, without a top 10 result since December and mostly out of contention for a World Cup podium since the end of last season. Two weekends ago at the freestyle sprint in Szlarska Poreba, Poland, the Swede was 62nd. That was behind him. This was Lahti, Finland, where he won the classic sprint last year. With some of the trickiest descents on the World Cup,...
Whatever condition they were in a week ago, most of the members of the U.S. Ski Team would rather forget it. The ride to Davos, Switzerland, had been rough enough with Kikkan Randall and Andy Newell suffering the worst of a stomach bug that affected the team for most of February. Newell wrote in a Feb. 23 blog post that he and Randall vomited right before leaving Poland for a nine-hour road trip. With two...
“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...
All American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. HAYWARD, Wis. – Rounding one of last corners in the American Birkebeiner 50-kilometer skate race, Holly Brooks felt a pang of familiarity. Stronger than déjà vu, the 29-year-old from Anchorage, Alaska, knew she had been in a similar position in the same race before. From Brooks’ standpoint, finishing second in the 2009 Birkie by one-tenth of a second to Rebecca Dussault of...
All Madison SuperTour and American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. MADISON, Wis. – At the first 90-degree turn on the four-corner course around Capitol Square, Jennie Bender almost came to a stop. Standing up, she scanned her three competitors in the women’s A-final at the SuperTour 1 k freestyle sprint on Sunday. The Central Cross Country (CXC) Elite Team skier was looking for one in particular. Bender eventually drew...
All Madison SuperTour and American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. MADISON, Wis. – Finland’s Jari Joutsen could have been mad or at least frustrated with a split-second lane change that forced him out of his spot into another skier in the A-final of the SuperTour 1 k freestyle sprint on Sunday. After the race as he stood next to Philip Furrer, the Swiss who claimed the victory, Joutsen smiled....
All 2012 Madison SuperTour and American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. MADISON, Wis. — As Dmitriy Ozerskiy patiently awaited his turn to take a look at the result board, his Russian teammate, Maxim Fadeev, approached him. Fadeev had just heard the news that Ozerskiy won the SuperTour freestyle sprint qualifier, 0.06 seconds ahead of Jari Joutsen of Finland. Fadeev was the third fastest around the 1 k loop,...
All 2012 Madison SuperTour and American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. MADISON, Wis. — Jennie Bender of Central Cross Country (CXC) won another qualifier in the second straight day of sprints around Wisconsin’s state capital, posting the fastest time in 2:04.0. After winning Saturday’s classic sprint qualifier by more than 6 seconds, Bender had less of a gap on Sunday. Hilary McNamee of Maine Winter Sports Center was...
All 2012 Madison SuperTour and American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. MADISON, Wis. – Two hours seems like a lot of time between qualifiers and heats, but when it comes down to it, sprints are sprints. They’re restless from start to finish. Between the SuperTour 1 k classic races at the heart of Wisconsin’s state capital on Saturday, some athletes killed time by running around downtown. Others, like...
All Madison SuperTour and American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. MADISON, Wis. – Most of the men in the SuperTour classic sprints on Saturday probably didn’t have a clue who Jari Joutsen was. He certainly had an international reputation with several World Cup top-30 results. Yet to the 22 others in the 1 k sprint around Madison’s Capitol Square, Joutsen was just another competitor – one Finish skier...
All Madison SuperTour and American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. MADISON, Wis. — Jennie Bender of Central Cross Country (CXC) did as she intended in Saturday’s 1 k classic sprint qualifier, the first race of the Madison SuperTour, posting the fastest time by 6.1 seconds. Bender won the city sprint qualifier in 2:18.7, ahead of Hannah Dreissigacker (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) in second. Hilary McNamee (Maine Winter Sports...
All Madison SuperTour and American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. MADISON, Wis. — In his SuperTour debut, Jari Joutsen put forth a strong showing for Finland, winning the men’s 1 k classic sprint qualifier in 1:55.1. The 33-year-old, who skis for Vetelin Urheilijat, beat Skyler Davis of the U.S. Ski Team and Stratton Mountain School (SMS) by 1.1 seconds. Davis was the second-fastest qualifier on the snow-covered streets surrounding...
All 2012 Madison SuperTour and American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. MADISON, Wis. — Here’s a look at how SuperTour race organizers make a city sprint possible in downtown Madison. Starting at 6 p.m. on Friday, some 90 trucks carted manmade snow from an energy facility about a mile or two from Wisconsin’s State Capitol and dumped it on the city streets surrounding the square. Madison’s Don Miller Subaru...