Over the last few weeks we've had all kinds of good racing going on - some individual pre-season racing and some team stuff. Here's a quick rundown:
- Biathlon Junior Trials: Mirra qualified for Junior Worlds! The trials were a three-race series at Soldier Hollow - after a slow start on Day 1, she came back strong to finish as the second junior on Days 2 and 3. Not bad for a full-time college student with no access to shooting training in the fall. She'll be headed to Sweden in late February for the championships.
- Nordic Combined Junior Trials: Caleb might have qualified for Junior Worlds! He finished first and second in a pair of qualifying races at Lake Placid - whether he'll get the nod for Worlds is still up in the air (pun intended), but regardless this was a nice chance for him to keep in touch with combined and tune up for carnival season.
- Senior Nationals: Natalie and Emma competed at Senior Nationals in Anchorage against a huge field of the top college and junior skiers along with the post-college SuperTour crowd. Natalie got stronger race by race and capped off her week with a 50th place finish in the 20k classic. Emma qualified for heats in both sprints and finished 16th in the 10k skate and 18th in the 20k classic. Right now she's an alternate for U23 World Championships in Italy - we'll know soon if she'll get a spot. Thanks to Natalie's parents for hosting them both all week, and also to APU (Natalie) and Mansfield Nordic (Emma) for providing waxing support!
- Jackson Camp: Right after New Year's, most of our skiers met up in Jackson to for our first team practices of 2025. There was some beautiful skiing up on the Prospect Farm trails, and a nice little snowmaking loop down in town, and we made good use of both of them. We also had a great time trial with skiers from UNH, Colby, and Bates - perfect way to sharpen up for the races to come. Thanks for Jackson XC for accommodating our time trial and doing a lot of hard work to make skiing possible with minimal snow!
- Bates Carnival: Once again, the story of the weekend was low snow. Black Mountain had just enough snow to pull off a short race loop, thanks to a ton of work by the legendary Chisholm Ski Club. The opening skate sprint was pretty rough for our team, but we had a couple individual highlights - Natalie qualified 28th and ended the day in 29th, and Lars qualified 12th and finished 27th. First ever top 30 finish for Lars! That night, we regrouped with an amazing dinner hosted by the Shifrins, and we went to bed fired up for the 8.5k skate the next day. This race also doubled as the Chummy Cup, so there was a little extra at stake. The men got us started with a solid effort, led by Adam with a career-best 14th place finish, but we were still trailing Colby by a fair bit in the Chummy scoring heading into the women's race. Fortunately, the women found their form just in time and had an amazing race! Jori led the way in 7th, Gillian scored her first-ever top 30 in 17th, and Mirra set a new PR in 18th - good enough to sweep the Chummy podium and claim the cup for the first time since 2020! The whole women's team skied incredibly well - it was so much fun to see them show off their depth with strong races for everyone. We had several skiers claim All-State honors: Adam 2nd, Will 7th, and Sawyer 9th for men, and Jori 1st (her third straight state championship), Gillian 2nd, Mirra 3rd, and Kira 10th for women. It was a really special day, and a great confidence builder to start the season.
Quite a busy start to the year - all fun stuff and exactly what we train for. Can't wait to see what this team can do next. Next up is the St. Lawrence University Carnival in Lake Placid - 20k mass start tomorrow!
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