Great Day at the Broomhall!

The Broomhall Cup is always a fun event - it's great to get all of the Maine teams together to compete for a championship. This Sunday was no exception - a great day for a classic race, and one of our best days ever as a team. After finishing 3rd for the first four years of this race's existence, we managed a 2nd place finish this year, beating Bates and giving Colby a run for the win. Great skiing all around - I couldn't be more proud of the team. Huge thanks to Cookie Monster Tom Cook, who generously donated his Sunday to serve as our 3rd wax tech, and old friend Shem Dixon, who jumped in to bail us out with some last minute waxing before the start of the men's race - the day wouldn't have gone nearly so well without their help. Much thanks also to the parents, who were out in force to cheer, take photos, and set up a wonderful post-race spread.

Results here (scroll down on the sidebar).

Here are some photos courtesy of Greg Askins and Dyk Eusden:

Where is Dan's bib? It was right in the pile, #72...

Oh, there it is. On Spencer. Bib #12 still sitting sad and lonely next to the wax table. Fortunately for us, the Broomhall is a friendly event, and opposing coaches declined the opportunity to disqualify him (thanks guys!)

Wilson quick off the start line.

A 40-person race makes for a nice clean mass start.

Spencer and Wilson were locked together for the whole race - they took turns leading and worked together for a fantastic 2-3 finish (Wilson won the sprint).


Emma and Maren working the downhill.


Photos like this make you realize that Riley is really quite tall. Another great race for him - he finished in good company, right in the midst of some very good skiers.

On Saturday, we worked on creating a positive mental atmosphere in order to stay relaxed while racing. Rainer did a great job of this on Sunday and skied super smoothly.

I tend to think of Scott as a slow-twitcher because he's a skinny runner type, but this is false - he sprints quite well (did you know that he used to play football?) He didn't win this battle against John Dixon of Colby, one of the best classic sprinters in the East, but it was way closer than one might have expected.

Maren took my advice about smiling while racing to heart. This was easily her best race ever as a Bowdoin skier.

Kaitlynn skied with the lead pack for several kilometers, ending up 4th behind 3 of EISA's top classic skiers.

Very gritty effort by James on his way to a 7th place finish.

Hannah ended up leading this train and gradually dropping them to finish 5th - great to see her finding her form after a slow start to the season.

Grace skiing smoothly as always - looking quite casual in shades and Hattonwear.

Erin's double pole is starting to come back after a fall spent on the bike.

Very good race for Emma, who's coming back from a nagging bronchitis-type thing.

Chris's striding looked about as good as I've seen it on Sunday.

Alec is also coming back from illness - he missed several weeks but is getting stronger every week.


Steph at the finish - so good to be done.

Happy girls.

Which one of these is not like the other? (Hint: Rainer has his tights on backward).

A fine day for the Bowdoin Nordic team.