Williams Carnival 2020

Another great weekend to be a Polar Bear!  Podiums were the theme of the Williams Carnival - 3rd for Gabby in the classic race, 3rd for the men in the relay, and 3rd for the team in the nordic scoring.  The trip didn't start out quite so auspiciously, though - the carnival had been relocated to Lake Placid, and the usual 6 hour drive got even longer with light snow and a very unwelcome detour when we discovered that Middlebury Gap had been blocked by a stuck school bus.  Eventually, we all made it, with the last van arriving about a half hour before midnight - ugh.  The combined strain of travel and schoolwork was definitely showing on a lot of faces, and I wasn't sure what to expect the next day, but everyone shook off the fatigue and brought their best to the races.  Friday was super cold - kick was easy to find, but with a fairly flat course we had to decide how much of it we actually wanted.  Most of our skiers gambled on thin to win, with just enough to kick DP the graduals and run up the short climbs.  This paid off pretty nicely - Christian equaled his PR in 6th, with Elliot in 9th and Peter with a PR of his own in 16th.  As we've seen so often this season, the other half of the team stepped it up even more.  Gabby went out cautiously and then closed with a ridiculously fast final lap to lock up her first ever podium in 3rd - our first women's podium since Kaitlynn Miller '14 finished 2nd in the 2014 Williams Carnival classic race.  Renae did pretty much the opposite - she went out super hot and then hung on to finish 7th, just a few seconds behind Gabby.  Lily closed out the scoring with a solid 25th.  Overall, the men were 2nd on the day and the women were 3rd (despite outscoring the boys by one point).  That night we were once again lucky to be treated to a fine dinner courtesy of a big group of team parents.  Big thanks to the parents for their support, and particularly to Jim Ahearne for helping with waxing!

Next day was relay day - always a team favorite!  After an absolutely frigid night, the sun came up blazing and took the edge off the cold - perfect conditions for racing or watching.  The men's relay got off to a hot start - Peter was skiing in a lead group of four when he caught a ski and took a hard fall.  This was a tough setback, but he skied hard to keep our top team within striking distance of the podium in 10th.  Christian chipped away and moved us up to 8th on the second leg.  Then Elliot took over and blew up the last leg to bring us all the way back to 3rd, just 5 seconds back of 2nd - our best ever men's relay finish!  In the women's race, Gabby scrambled and settled in with an unusually large lead pack of 8 or 9 - I could tell she was ready to gun it, but there was nowhere to go.  Just before the tag she was able to break away with a couple other skiers and tag off near the front of the pack.  Lily hung in there as the pack began to splinter, and Renae brought it home to wrap up a solid 8th place - not as exciting as a podium, but still one of our better relay finishes.  We also got strong performances from our second teams - 14th for men and 19th for women.  Russell and Fiona both skied strong final legs to move each team up several places.  For the overall carnival, we were the 3rd place nordic team once again - pretty excited to see this becoming the norm.  We were closer than ever to 2nd this weekend - close enough to give us a clear goal for our final carnival!

(photos courtesy of Michael Ketchel)

 After the relays the skiers enjoyed some Carni Crush shenanigans to put smiles on their faces for the long drive home.  Another great carnival in the books - looking forward to defending the Chummy Cup at Rumford next weekend!