By Peter Minde
MOUNT VAN HOEVENBERG, Lake Placid — With a stacked team, Stratton Mountain School (SMS) took the national relay championship Saturday morning at Mount van Hoevenberg, in Lake Placid. SMS fielded Rémi Drolet scrambling, Julia Kern in the second leg, Ben Ogden in third, and Jessie Diggins anchoring. Their time was 48:49.6.
The University of Utah finished in second place in 50:07. Utah had Brian Bushey scrambling, followed by Erica Lavén, Joe Davies, and Selma Nevin. Alberta World Cup Academy was third, starting Xavier McKeever, Katya Semeniuk, Max Hollmann, and anchoring with Amelia Wells. Their time was 50:18.7.
all photos: Peter Minde
If you don’t like the weather in the Adirondacks, wait 30 minutes. Snow fell overnight, followed by sleet. Your correspondent broke a scraper trying to clear his windshield. He arrived at the venue late for the start, or so he thought.
However, the start had been postponed from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. for safety reasons. Jury member Amie Smith characterized the early-morning track surface as “candy apple ice,” and Mount van Hoevenberg’s groomers set about regrooming it. Fifteen minutes before the start, the surface was icy and covered with a thin layer of new snow. At the start, the temperature was 25 degrees, with overcast skies.
Originally, each relay leg was to be two laps of van Ho’s 2.5-kilometer loop. But with 40 relay teams on course, organizers changed to one lap of the five-kilometer loop to provide more space.
From the start, a tight pack surged up the first hill. At the 2.5km checkpoint, Xavier McKeever of Alberta World Cup Academy was in first by just 0.8 seconds over Rémi Drolet of SMS. A fraction of a second back, Zak Ketterson scrambled for Team Birkie, followed closely by Zanden McMullen of Alaska Pacific University (APU).
At the first exchange, Drolet tagged Julia Kern just a fraction of a second ahead of Katya Semeniuk of AWCA. APU 1’s Anabel Needham took the tag from McMullen 12 seconds back, with Erica Lavén skiing the second leg for Utah in fourth. APU 2 was in fifth place, just 0.2 seconds behind Utah.
For the classic skiers on legs one and two, the hills weren’t easy. Some kicked right up the final climb, and some had to herringbone over the top.
Despite the colder temperatures, the usual places on the course turned into sugar. Between skiers, Mount van Ho workers raked the apex of the fishhook turn, smoothing it out, going into the final climb.
At the 6.25 km checkpoint, Lavén skied her way into second place, 1.2 seconds behind Kern, with Semeniuk right on her tails. APU 1’s Needham was 12 seconds in back of Semeniuk, with Erin Bianco of Bridger Ski Foundation (BSF) in fifth. By the 7.5 km mark, Kern had opened a five second gap over Lavén. Semeniuk led the rest of the pack, 14 seconds behind Lavén.
Kern continued to turn up the heat, tagging Ben Ogden with a 17-second advantage over Joe Davies of Utah. Unable to keep pace with Kern and Lavén, Semeniuk tagged off to Max Hollmann 1:04 behind Lavén.
Ogden gradually skied away from Davies, and Davies gapped Team Birkie’s Christopher Kalev, who was now solidly in third place. APU 1’s Gus Schumacher and AWCA’s Max Hollman were right on Kalev’s tails. At this point, the race was for third place.
When Ogden tagged Jessie Diggins, she had a 24-second advantage over Selma Nevin of Utah. Leaving nothing to chance, Diggins left the stadium and charged full gas up the A-climb. Almost too fast for your correspondent to get a decent photo. She continued to extend her lead into the finish. Selma Nevin claimed second place for UU, 1:18 back.
At the 16.25km checkpoint, APU 1’s Renae Anderson had a slim lead over Utah’s Amelia Wells. Over the next kilometer, Wells took firm control of third place as Renae Anderson fell back. Team Birkie, anchored by Luci Anderson, was one second back in fourth. APU 1 would finish fifth, 19 seconds back of Team Birkie.
Thoughts on the day:
From Craftsbury Green Racing Project GRP, Nordic Insights caught up with Luke Brown, Margie Freed, and Michaela Keller-Miller of the first team, and Jackie Garso and Joe Lynch of the second team.
“We were proud of our relay performance,” team members said. “It was fun to do a relay with this team.”
On kick wax for challenging conditions: “[We had] really good skis. That’s up to Nick Brown the wax tech, but they do a great job. We’re not willing to give up the secret sauce. Not until after tomorrow.”
On race strategy: “Start strong, finish stronger, and have fun. We don’t get to do too many team relays.”
Xavier McKeever of AWCA opined, “It was really fun today. Relays are always fun. You get to work with your teammates towards a common objective. We have a lot of friends out there skiing for different teams and clubs, so it was really fun to battle it out with them.”
On his race strategy, McKeever said, “I’ve never been the guy to attack in a relay, but today I thought, Why not go for it. It worked well, and I dragged my countryman Rémi [Drolet of SMS] along with me, with a good battle at the end.
“I was starting in the second row, so I was gonna see how the start went, and stay out of trouble. Everyone skied clean off the start, so it was pretty chill. We started climbing, and the pace increased a little bit. The feelings were good enough today that I decided to go for it. And it worked out.”
We caught up with junior skiers James Langan and Jurgen Pirrung of Mansfield Nordic, and their coach, Adam Terko. Asked about kick wax, Terko said, “I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you. No, some Rex Gold and Start Wide.”
For race strategy, one of the Mansfield juniors (sorry, I can’t remember who said what. Can’t remember what I cooked for dinner tonight) said, “Stay with people as long as I could before I got lapped.” From his teammate: “I didn’t really have a plan. I just wanted to go and ski.”
Freedom Trail Nordic is a club in the Boston metropolitan area. The club attracts kids from the Boston suburbs who train at the Weston Ski Track, a beloved venue whose main hill is not exactly a homologated climb. We caught up with Rachael Strock and Alex Huesgen of Freedom Trail.
Huesgen: “It was a lot of fun. It was a little intimidating going out against the field that we had today, but the snow conditions were amazing. It was a lot of fun out there.”
Strock: “I was really happy to see that we got some fresh snow, especially after these past few days that have been super slushy and pretty warm. It was nice to kind of have it feel like winter again.”
Huesgen: “Honestly, it was kind of good to go out there and have fun. And this is like a final race and a good cap to our season. So I’m focusing on having fun, but if we’re looking at a strategic point, I looked at the course, and I was like, Oh, there’s a lot of hills in the beginning. So I really wanted to attack the hills leading up to the reservoir up at the top and kind of coast for the rest of the race and then attack the hills and leading into the tag zone.”
Strock: “I’d say, from a standpoint of organizing the legs of our relay team, we had another girl who preferred to skate, so she did skate as well as coach Rob. [With only three athletes here, Freedom Trail coach Rob Bradlee jumped in to skate the third leg.] And we were the classic legs. I think for both of us, classic technique has come on strong at the end of the season. So that also made sense to continue to build on that.”
Racing continued Sunday with the 40-kilometer classic mass start to close out the season. Juniors like Strock and Huesgen skied 15km.
Trivia fact of the day: Mount van Hoevenberg’s new World Cup five kilometer loop incorporates significant sections of the Ladies 5 km loop from the 1980 Winter Olympics.
Some photos:
Scramble leg skiers leave the stadium:
Quincy Massey-Bierman, Middlebury:
Jessie Diggins:
Results: official teams (all four skiers hailing from one club) | unofficial teams (athletes from a range of clubs)
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