Mud, paper mills and exertion make for some interesting compositions. Photographer
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Dumped from the U.S. Ski Team (USST) after a sub-par 2010, Torin Koos (Methow ODT) clearly had something to prove coming into the 2011 U.S. National Championships—and he didn’t disappoint. With a victory in Saturday’s skate sprint, Koos collected his second title of the week, coming out on top in a frantic dash to the line with Simi Hamilton (USST) and Lars Flora (APU). Koos’s two victories in Rumford could easily serve as the opening...
At 19 years old and 5’4”, CXC’s Jessie Diggins isn’t all that big. But her performance at the 2011 U.S. National Championships this week has a lot of people expecting big things—and that was before Saturday. Diggins closed out an impressive week in Rumford, ME with a storybook finish in the women’s skate sprint, coming from behind after a fall on the last rise to top Dartmouth’s Sophie Caldwell in a lunge, with APU’s Sadie...
US Nationals Skate Sprint Race Report Waxing was interesting today and showed why I am happy to be a Toko man. I was expecting a lot of styrofoam-like manmade snow mixed in with the bit of old snow that remained. Somehow the snow changed and today skied more like “normal” snow. The wax recommendation would have rocked for sure in what we were expecting so I was relieved to see that the HF Blue/XCold mix...
Sun Valley’s Colin Rodgers lost his shot at the 2010 Olympic team after a battle with compartment syndrome last year. But in Saturday’s skate sprint prelim at the 2011 U.S. championships in Rumford, he showed that he still has his speed. With the men’s qualifier concluded, live timing showed Rodgers edging CXC’s Garrott Kuzzy by a tenth of a second, with Simi Hamilton (USST) in third. Torin Koos (Methow ODT) was fourth, and Tim Reynolds...
2011 Championships to Wrap Up With Skate Sprint
FasterSkierJanuary 8, 2011
One last national title is up for grabs on Saturday in Rumford, ME, as a skate sprint wraps up the 2011 U.S. championships. Rock-hard, borderline icy conditions should make for a lightning-fast, hectic day of racing around the 1.4-kilometer course. The men’s field is headlined by Torin Koos (Methow ODT), but he’ll have his hands full with Simi Hamilton, the U.S. Ski Team’s 23-year-old sprint stud. Koos won last Sunday’s classic sprint in convincing fashion,...
The US National Championships in Rumford, Maine moved into the freestyle skiing on Thursday, with the Distance Skate events taking place for the male and female competitors. Due to low snow conditions, both events were switched from the scheduled mass start format to an interval start format. However, the distances, 30km for men and 20km for women were kept the same and the 2.7km course held up very well for all the racers. With 3...
Interval start races don’t usually end with desperate lunges for the finish line. But that’s exactly how Thursday’s 30 k national championship concluded in Rumford—with CXC’s Tad Elliott sprawled on his back, the winner over APU’s Lars Flora. The scene may have looked ridiculous, but Elliott needed every inch. After an hour and ten minutes of racing, his winning margin over Flora was a mere tenth of a second. “I knew it was really tight,”...
The CCSA got its competitive season off to an impressive start at the Chisholm Ski Club on Wednesday, as the association’s skiers landed a podium spot, four top-10, and six top-20 finishes in the classic races at U.S. Nationals in Rumford, Maine. In both the men’s 15K and women’s 10K events, the story of the day belong to Alaska. The Nanooks placed four skiers in the top 10 and five in the top 20, landing five of the...
It took a week, but winter has finally returned to Rumford, ME. In the last two days at the 2011 U.S. National Championships, the tropical climate that dogged organizers has departed, replaced by temperatures far below freezing. With distance skate races on tap for Thursday, the 2.7-kilometer loop at Black Mountain has been widened in spots, augmented by snowmaking and shoveling. The men and women will be doing 11 and seven laps, respectively, for a total...
Conditions matched what we expected when doing the wax tip. The only thing was that light snowfall fell sometimes, but didn’t affect conditions really and it didn’t accumulate at all. Being that there was so much sitting in a tuck on this course, ski speed played an even more central role. You had to have fast skis. Our glide wax tip was straight forward and held up well. For kick, it was more complicated as...
Going into the 15 k classic race in Rumford, APU’s Lars Flora had a total of four national championships to his name. But to say that he had endured a dry spell would be an understatement: it had been 1098 days since his last title, which came in Houghton, MI in 2008. After two tough seasons, and a demoralizing defeat in Sunday’s sprint, the 32-year-old Flora finally broke through on Thursday to collect his fifth...
In the women’s 10 k classic in Rumford on Wednesday, it was an athlete in the familiar blue, white and black of Alaska Pacific University to climb to the top step of the podium. It just wasn’t the one you’d expect. After Holly Brooks’s win in Sunday’s classic sprint, she was a clear favorite coming into the first distance race of the 2011 U.S. National Championships. But instead of Brooks coming out on top, it...
Rossignol’s Team Athlete Torin Koos Win CL Sprints at 2011 U.S. XC Ski Championships
Inge ScheveJanuary 5, 2011
Rossignol’s Nordic Team Athlete, Torin Koos, started the New Year off strong winning the CL Sprints at the 2011 U.S. XC Ski Championships in Rumford, Maine.
Classic distance races are on tap for the U.S. National Championships in Rumford, ME on Wednesday, after two days of rest to allow for optimal course preparation. Volunteers, coaches, and even U.S. Ski Team member Liz Stephen worked with heavy equipment and shovels throughout Tuesday, leaving a 2.5-kilometer loop available for racing at Rumford’s Black Mountain. Under clear skies and with temperatures cooler—in the 20’s—the action gets started with the women’s 10 k at 10...
Tuesday Video Updates from Rumford
FasterSkierJanuary 4, 2011
Thirty hours of snowmaking has left varying levels of cover on the trails in Rumford, the site of the 2011 U.S. National Championships. On Tuesday morning, athletes trained and coaches tested on a 900-meter loop, while organizers and volunteers were using shovels, dump trucks, groomers, and even chainsaws to prepare a course for Wednesday’s classic distance races. Their efforts were focused primarily on a one-kilometer extension to the 1.4-k sprint course used for Sunday’s classic...
Swix – A perfect wax for each snow condition, even dirt. The USSA National Championship classic sprint race in Rumford, Maine lived up to expectations as an exciting and challenging event. The organizing committee did an amazing job given the prevailing weather conditions over the past week and Sunday’s race was fair for all the racers competing. The weather forecasts were as predicted for Sunday with warm air temperatures and wet corn snow crystals. Track...
Chief of Comp: “A Very Productive Day” in Rumford
Nathaniel HerzJanuary 3, 2011
Organizers and volunteers were working tirelessly on Monday to replenish the snow on Rumford’s depleted trails, as competitors at the 2011 U.S. National Championships fanned out north and west in search of skiing. Snowmaking at Black Mountain began at midnight on Monday morning, and by early that evening, Chief of Competition Carlie Casey said that Rumford’s Chisholm Ski Club was poised to pull off successful classic distance races on Wednesday. “We had a very productive...
In her unlikely path from APU coach to elite ski racer, Holly Brooks’s career has taken her to some amazing places, namely the 2010 Olympics. But for all her success over the past two years, there was one spot she still hadn’t set foot until this weekend: the top step of the podium at the U.S. National Championships. In Sunday’s classic sprint in Rumford, Brooks checked another achievement off her list with an emphatic display...
After seeing Lars Flora (APU) dominate his first two heats in Sunday’s national championships classic sprint in Rumford, ME, Torin Koos (Methow ODT) was prepared for a showdown in the finals. Both wily veterans at ages 30 and 32, respectively, Koos and Flora were stacked up against a much younger crew, which was liable to run out of steam late in the day: two juniors in Erik Bjornsen (Methow ODP) and Skyler Davis (Stratton); Dartmouth...