Dartmouth Carnival 2014

Conditions couldn't have been better for the Dartmouth Carnival last weekend.  The races were held at Craftsbury as part of a SuperTour event - a storm earlier in the week had left the course in great shape, with plenty of fresh, cold snow.  Friday's skate was highlighted by a pair of 10th place finishes by Kaitlynn and James.  Hannah Miller was her usual consistent self, finishing 23rd, and Riley made it into the points as well (31st college finisher, but 29th for NCAA skiers).  Tess and Eva both continued to skate well with a pair of solid finishes.

Saturday was another great day, with Kaitlynn 5th and James 7th (6th NCAA).  These two just keep getting better.  None of us are surprised by top-10 finishes any more - this is kind of unfair, since it's such a remarkable accomplishment each time it happens, but also kind of cool that they've raised the bar so much that it seems commonplace.  Hannah Miller also scored NCAA points in 31st (28th NCAA), despite not having quite enough kick.  Olivia had a bit of a breakthrough - she was able to catch a ride from a Bates skier for several kilometers and ended up with a nice PR (37th NCAA finisher).  It's always exciting to see our skiers make a technical or tactical jump (in this case being able to take advantage of a drafting opportunity).  Overall, it was a solid weekend, despite lots of people feeling a bit flat or just tired, which is normal for this time of the season.  We usually seem to work thought it for the final couple carnivals - hopefully we're on track for a big finish to the regular season!

As usual, this was also the traditional Carnival Crush weekend.  I didn't watch the shenanigans too closely, but from what I can gather our team's efforts were clever and not particularly scandalous, which is all a coach can ask for.  Hopefully nothing will surface in the near future that proves me wrong...

This weekend also marked Tyler's last races with the team - he's headed to New Zealand to start his semester abroad.  It's been great seeing Tyler improve as a skier these past several months - he's worked hard and has made a ton of progress, especially in his classic skiing, and I'm excited to see what he can do next year.  Good luck abroad, Tyler!

One last note - we've been lucky to have Bowdoin Nordic alum Spencer Eusden '12 traveling with us these past couple weekends.  Spencer is racing for the Far West Farm team out in Truckee, and he came back east for the SuperTour and Eastern Cup races.  It's fun for all of us to see a former team member making his way in the world of elite ski racing - hopefully others will follow in his footsteps in the future!

Here are some photos from Deb Miller: