Sixteen-year-old twins from Lillehammer, Norway, Tiril and Lotta Weng went 1-2 in Monday’s opening race of the 2013 Junior Nationals. Tiril completed the 5 k freestyle race in 14:19.2 and Lotta was 17.9 seconds back in second.

The two J1s beat the fastest OJ, Stephanie Kirk (AK/Alaska Winter Stars) by 1:01.4 minutes and 43.5 seconds, respectively. Alayna Sonnesyn (MW/Sisu) was the third J1 and fourth overall, just 0 .2 seconds behind Kirk.

Sarah Freistone (AK/University of Alaska-Anchorage) was the second OJ in eighth (+1:23.4), and Hannah Boyer (AK/NSCF-FXC) was the third OJ in 10th overall (+1:29.5).

In the J2 girls 5 k, Katharine Ogden (NE/SMS) won in 15:35.7, just 1.6 seconds ahead of New England teammate Julia Kern (Cambridge Sports Union) in second. Another CSU skier, Leah Brams was third (+9.1).

J1 top five

1. Tiril Weng (Norway) 14:19.2*

2. Lotta Weng (Norway) +17.9

3. Alayna Sonnesyn (MW/Sisu) +1:01.6

4. Lisa Kvamme (Norway) +1:06.1

5. Annika Miller (IM/Payatte Lakes) +1:08.4

OJ top five

1. Stephanie Kirk (AK/Alaska Winter Stars) 1:01.4

2. Sarah Freistone (AK/University of Alaska-Anchorage) +1:23.4

3. Hannah Boyer (AK/NSCF-FXC) +1:29.5

4. Cambria McDermott (NE/MSU) +1:37.05

5. Bree Mucha (AK/Alaska Nordic Racing) +1:44.1

*J1/OJ winner

J2 top five

1.Katharine Ogden (NE/SMS) 15:35.7,

2. Julia Kern (NE/CSU) +1.6

3. Leah Brams (NE/CSU) +9.1.

4. Lydia Blanchet (AK/APU) +13.7

5. Leah Lange (IM/UOP) +34.7

Results

On the first day of racing at the 2013 Junior Nationals in Fairbanks, Alaska, Norwegian Mattis Stenshagen led three NTG Lillehammer teammates in the top five of the boys 10 k freestyle race at Birch Hill, winning in 26:34.2.

A 16-year-old J1, Stenshagen topped Alaska Pacific University’s Logan Hanneman, the first OJ, by just 3.2 seconds. Martin Thon of Norway was third overall (second J1), 24.9 seconds back. Ben Saxton of F.A.S.T. Performance Training was the second OJ, fourth overall (+25.3). The third Norwegian, Sjur Slettom was the third J1 and fifth overall (+30.0).

In the J2 boys 5 k, Max Donaldson (AK/NSCF-FXC) won by 17.0 seconds in 13:30.0. Koby Gordon (NE/SMS) was second and Jake Bassett (AK/AWS) placed third (+27.5).

J1 top five

1. Mattis Stenshagen (Norway) 26:34.2*

2. Martin Thon (Norway) +24.9

3. Sjur Slettom (Norway) +30.0

4. Ian Torchia (MW/Rochester) +40.8

5. Tyler Foulkes (NE/SMS) +55.3

OJ top five

1. Logan Hanneman (AK/APU) +3.2

2. Ben Saxton (MW/FAST) +25.3

3. Eli Hoenig (NE/CSU) +38.7

4. Jack Hegman (NE/UVM) +38.9

5. Patrick McElravey (FW/Auburn) +44.5

*Overall J1/OJ winner

J2 top five

1. Max Donaldson (AK/NSCF-FXC) 13:30.0

2. Koby Gordon (NE/SMS) +17.0

3. Jake Bassett (AK/AWS) +27.5

4. Tristan Sayre (MW/FAST) +37.5

5. Bill Harmeyer (NE/Mansfield) +43.1

Complete results

The ASAA/First National Bank Alaska 2013 Nordic Skiing State Championships were contested February 21-23 at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska.  Hosted by the Alaska School Activities Association (ASAA), A.J. Dimond High School, and the Nordic Skiing Association of Anchorage (NSAA), the three-day event provided plenty of action at the well-known and competitive trails of Kincaid Park.

The total time of the first two day’s of racing would crown the state skimeister for both boys and girls.  Day one featured interval start races: 7.5 k for boys and 5 k for girls.  At the conclusion of the boy’s races, the boys winner was Eric Backstrum of South Anchorage followed by Jake Bassett of Robert Service and Thomas O’Harra of East Anchorage.  Just off the podium was Max Donaldson of West Valley High School in Fairbanks.  The top four were separated by 4/10^th’s of a second!  The girl’s 5 k champion was Lydia Blanchet of West Anchorage.  She was followed by Marion Woods of South Anchorage.  Rounding off the podium was Morgan Flynn of East Anchorage.  While not quite the drama of the boys race, the girls result would dictate how fast the pace would be pushed during the mass start event on Friday.

Fresh snow greeted the Chief of Competition, Matt Pauli, for day two.  In addition, a vehicle (jeep to be exact), managed to plow thru a snow berm and access approximately .5 k of race trail.  Still four hours away from post time at 1100, the race trail was quickly and expertly regroomed creating even a better racing surface.  As a side note, the jeep became stuck well off the race course where the culprits were found, the police were summoned, the officers got to ride a Pisten Bully to the culprits, the culprits were apprehended and lead away in hand cuffs; trail damage and equipment use to be invoiced by NSAA later.  The PB 100 towed the jeep out while the PB 600 went about fixing the damaged trail.

So much for that drama.  Racing action ensued with the girls mass start 7.5 k. Chevron start positions were determined by Thursday result. After Thursday’s racing, Blanchet, wearing bib #1, was 20 seconds clear of Woods.  Woods definitely knew this as she lead from the gun and pushed the pace.  While the result order was reversed from the previous day, it was not enough to take over the overall skimeister position as Blanchet finished only four seconds behind in the mass start.  To round out the podium, Teagan Yutrzenka of South Anchorage put in a strong performance, finishing 20 seconds after Blanchet.

What was assumed to be a strategic race for the boys 10 k (2X5 k loops) became a lesson taught by Donaldson of West Valley.  Tanner Ramey, hoping to make up a 14 second deficit after the first day of competition, opened up with a strong first lap, trailed closely by Donaldson.  Racers began each lap with Elliot’s Climb at approximately the 700 m mark of each lap.  It was here that Donaldson put the hammer down and created the exclamation point that would make him the first state skimeister from West Valley since 1982.  O’Harra of East would move up a spot to second, just holding off Jacob Volz of West.

Racing concluded with the mixed technique relays.  The South girls handled the 3 k loops easily, besting Service by 2.5 minutes.  Wearing trucker caps furnished by their coach, Christina Turman, the West Valley boys ski’d the 5 k loops easily and etched their school’s name on the state championship trophy for the first time since 1993.

By Matthew Pauli

2013 HS Nordic Skiing State Championships from Smith Services Alaska on Vimeo.

New Gloucester, ME, February 25, 2013 –The New England Nordic Ski Association (NENSA) is pleased to announce the athletes who will represent our region in the USSA Junior National Cross Country Ski Championships, to be held March 9-16th. 51 of the top juniors in New England will be heading to Fairbanks, Alaska. There they will compete for individual National titles as well as defending the overall championship team title known as the Alaska Cup. The Alaska Cup has held residence in New England for the past 4 years.

These women and men will take to the challenging trails at Birch Hill where they will compete in four races during the week against nine other regions. Formats include a sprint race with heats, a classic and skate race and a team relay:

• Monday, March 11-Freestyle individual start
• Tuesday, March 12-Classic relay
• Thursday, Match 14-Freestyle sprint
• Saturday, March 16-Classic Mass start

Twelve of New England’s top coaches will lead the team in Alaska. Returning as Head Coach is Matt Boobar, Nordic Coach at Stratton Mountain School, with Nick Kline, Head Coach at Gould Academy, assisting as Team Leader this year. Joining them will be Head Wax Technician and glide wax specialist Justin Beckwith, Green Mountain Valley School. Nick Mahood, Woodstock Nordic, heads up the kick waxing side. Justin and Nick have led the wax staff to much success in previous years. The coaching staff this year is well rounded and brings a high level of hands-on experience to the team. Each coach is familiar with the athletes on the team and has had success coaching at National level events.

The New England Team is selected through a series of Junior National Qualifying races hosted with the TD Bank Eastern Cups. This is a points based series with a broad spectrum of race formats. Athletes can also qualify through designated out of region races.

The New England Junior National Team is recognized as part of our Community Olympic Development Program (CODP). The CODP is a National organization that operates under the guidance of the United States Olympic Committee with a focus on developing Olympians.

For more information about the USSA Junior Nationals, links to live timing and results go to http://jo2013fairbanks.us/. You can also follow the New England team via photo’s, stories and updates on www.nensa.net!

New England Coaching Staff

·      Matt Boobar, Stratton Mountain School

·      Katherine Barton, Burke Mountain Academy

·      Cam MacKluger, Frost Mountain Nordic

·      Poppet Boswell, Stratton Mountain  School

·      Evan Dethier, Green Mountain Valley School

·      Tracey Cote, Colby College

·      Seth Hubbard, Maine Winter Sports Center

·      Kathy Maddock, Cambridge Sports Union

·      Tim Weston, Mansfield Nordic

2013 New England Junior National Team Roster

Source: NENSA

Paddy Caldwell (USA) placed 9th in the 20km freestyle at the Norwegian Junior National Championships.

Caldwell finished 1:51.1 behind winner Magne Haga (NOR). Haga won the event by 54 seconds over Håvard Solås Taugbøl (NOR).

Jack Novak was 19th for the U.S., Forrest Mahlen was 41st and Ben Saxton  45th.

Lars Hannah was 89 in the 10k.

In the women’s 15k, Lucy Newman was 45th and Jesse Knori 49th.

Cara Piske was 28th in the women’s 10k and Madison Keefe 34th.

Results

By Steven McCarthy  

When racers pulled into the Quarry Road Trails parking lot Sunday morning in advance of the second day of Maine Eastern Cup competition, they noticed everything was different.

The mid-30’s temperatures of Saturday were now low-20’s (with wind). The moist snow base had solidified, cushioned only by an inch or so of drifting powder. And day one winners Welly Ramsey and Heidi Halvorsen weren’t suited up to defend their titles.

To ensure no similarity to Saturday’s classic mass start, both the men’s 10k and women’s 5k interval start skate races panned out to three new faces on the podium.

Cate Brams (Cambridge Sports Union) took the top spot, 15 seconds ahead of Maddy Pfeifer (Green Mountain Valley School), who was one second faster than Brams’ younger sister, Leah, a 14 year-old J2. Bret Bedard (Unattached) fended off Maine Winter Sports Center biathlete Raleigh Goessling on the men’s side, followed by Jack Schrupp (Gunstock Nordic).

Brams was the second-ranked J1 (behind automatic qualifier Halvorsen) entering the final qualifying weekend for the New England Junior National Team. The team naming committee will be sifting through results and finalizing the roster in the coming days.

“I just wasn’t really super-stressed going into the race,” Brams said. “It worked out well.”

CSU made it a team effort, placing five in the top seven. Brams chased down her coach, Alexandra Jospe (4^th place), who started 15 seconds ahead of her, and kept teammate Julia Kern (5^th, started 15 seconds behind Brams) at bay.

“Because it was an interval start, I think I tried to go out really hard and work all the uphills really well because I knew I would recover on the downhills,” Brams said.

Bedard improved on a fifth place finish Saturday and benefitted from a Goessling fall.

“I’m usually a better skater than classic, so I figured if I was in there for the classic, I’d be close for the skate,” Bedard said.

After learning he was four seconds up through two kilometers, Bedard said he was unaware of where he stood the rest of the way. Goessling navigated through the field, starting 265^th of 275.

“I’m working full-time, so this is just kind of fun for me,” Bedard said.

On-line results were not available at the time of posting. They will be available here.

By Steven McCarthy

Welly Ramsey made a bold move to the head of the field right from the gun of Saturday’s Eastern Cup 15-kilometer mass start classic race on the Quarry Road Trails in Waterville, Maine. Midway through the first of three 5k loops he received specific instruction from Maine Winter Sports Center coach Will Sweetser: Either open up a gap or settle back into the pack.

Ramsey took off.

One lap later, his advantage over Alex Schulz (Dartmouth Outing Club) and Justin Freeman (Holderness Nordic) was 20 seconds. Cruising through the lap lane on his way out for the bell lap, the margin had doubled. When it was all over, Ramsey caught his breath in the finishing pen a convincing 41 seconds before second-place Schulz arrived. Freeman crossed 16 seconds later.

“I was just trying to race the best I could,” Ramsey said. “I wasn’t sure if someone was going to come up from behind, because I was feeling pretty crappy on that last lap.”

Asked if he entered the weekend expecting to win, given that most of the top collegiate talent in the region is at the Middlebury Carnival: “Honestly, no,” answered Ramsey. “I was just looking to get in the top five.”

The final Eastern Cup weekend (also the New England Junior National Team naming weekend) was shifted 20 minutes north to Waterville due to severe melting over the past week at Bond Brook in Augusta, the originally scheduled site. Racers were greeted by ample snow at the new venue, but a moist snow pack freshened up by steady snowfall throughout the morning and above-freezing temperatures created the always-interesting zero conditions.

Ramsey said his kick diminished in the glazed-over tracks, but doesn’t regret his weapon of choice: hard wax skis, roughened up by 120-grit sandpaper powered by a rotary sander.

“I decided that if I could get them to work well I would run them,” Ramsey said.

In the women’s 10k, Heidi Halvorsen (Green Mountain Valley School) inched away from a tight lead group of six to pick up the win after being hindered by the flu recently.

“I didn’t even know if I would race when I woke up this morning,” Halvorsen said. “My coach just told me to have fun.”

Halvorsen chased Emily Larson (University of New Hampshire) up the final steep climb before powering over the top and gaining momentum into the stadium. Hannah Benson (Mt. Washington) and Cate Brams (Cambridge Sports Union) also overtook Larson to get on the podium.

Opposed by a weaker field than she is accustomed to, “It was still a lot of fun,” Halvorsen said. “There were definitely a couple of us that skied together the whole race. I tried to break off at the end and then they started to catch up.”

Halvorsen said she tested her zeroes against klister prior to the race but was confident in her ski selection.

“I’d actually never used these zeroes before,” Halvorsen said. “I really liked them and I definitely think it was the best bet.”

The race weekend concludes Sunday with interval-start distance skate competition.

Results

On the final day of racing at the Junior World Championships in Liberec, Czech Republic, the men’s and women’s relays didn’t disappoint – with plenty of excitement on Sunday in the women’s 4 x 3.3 k and a definitive victory in the men’s 4 x 5 k.

Sweden’s women won the former, with Julia Svan, Sofia Henriksson, Jonna Sundling and Stina Nilsson, rising from second to first on the last leg and edging Russia by 2.2 seconds to win in 35:41.1. Just 0.4 seconds back at the final exchange, Nilsson outsprinted Russia’s Nadezhda Shuniaeva to the finish. Shuniaeva and her teammates, Alisa Zhambalova, Natalia Nepryaeva and Anastasia Sedova, took silver and Germany (Laura Gimmler, Katharina Hennig, Julia Belger, Victoria Carl) was third (+50.3) after holding that position throughout the race.

In the men’s relay, Russia’s Alexey Chervotkin, Artem Maltsev, Roman Tarasov and Dmitry Rostovtsev rebounded from slipping to fourth after the second leg to finishing first, 18.7 seconds ahead of Norway (Bjørn Vidar Suhr, Simen Hegstad Krueger, Magne Haga, Haavard Solaas Taugboel). Rostovtsev sealed the victory in 45:35.5 and Sweden (Oskar Svensson, Marcus Ruus, Oscar Ivars, Rasmus Hornfeldt) was 52.2 seconds back in third.

The Americans finished 10^th in the women’s relay with Heather Mooney, Mary O’Connell, Emily Hannah and Corey Stock. They were 2:43.9 back from the winners and largely skied in the 10^th position throughout.

The Canadian women (Maya MacIsaac-Jones, Anne-Marie Comeau, Cendrine Browne, Frederique Vezina) were 13^th (+4:36.4) after rising from 15^th following the first leg.

The U.S. men placed 12^th with Logan Hanneman, Ben Saxton, Kyle Bratrud and Sawyer Kesselheim. They rose as high as ninth after the second leg and finished 2:14.6 behind the winners. Canada’s Alexis Turgeon, Zeke Williams, David Palmer and Raphael Couturier were 15^th (+3:20.3) of 19 teams.

Women’s results

Men’s results

After winning their respective 10- and 15-kilometer freestyle races on Thursday, Norway’s Ragnhild Haga and Russian Sergey Ustiugov continued to dominate the field and claimed their second U23 World Championships titles in Saturday’s skiathlons in Liberec, Czech Republic.

In the women’s 15 k skiathlon, Haga outsprinted Italy’s Deborah Agreiter to the line, winning by 1.1 second in 40:16.9. Sixth after the classic portion behind leader Elena Soboleva of Russia, who ultimately placed sixth (+37.4). Haga clocked the second-fastest skate leg to ski to first, and Norwegian teammate Kari Oeyre Slind was quickest in the skate to rise to third (+2.3).

In the men’s 30 k, Ustiugov pulled out a 2.5-second victory in 1:11.37.1 over Russian compatriot Evgeniy Belov. Ustiugov led at the transition and cruised through the skate leg to finish on top, and Belov hung in second for most of the race. Kazakhstan’s Martin Starostin was third (+32.4).

Leading the North Americans in 16th, Erik Bjornsen (Alaska Pacific University/U.S. Ski Team) was 16th through the transition and held his own to finish 2:03.8 behind Ustiugov. Caitlin Patterson (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) was 19th for the U.S., 1:45.8 behind Haga.

Other Americans: 28. Sophie Caldwell (SMST2), 29. Annie Pokorny (Middlebury), 31. Annie Hart (Dartmouth), 40. Eric Packer (SMST2)

Canadians: 32. Annika Hicks (AWCA), 39. Heidi Widmer (AWCA), 43. Marlis Kromm (AWCA), 46. Andrea Lee (NDC-Thunder Bay), 47. Patrick Stewart-Jones (AWCA)

Women’s results

Men’s results