With two races down at the 2010 Junior National Championship in Presque Isle, ME, New England has come out strong.  With a total of 946 points the New England team is clearly the team to beat.  The Alaskan team showed strength in the FOJ class during the sprints and in both boys and girls J1 classes during the classic distance race.  They lurk in second with a total of 584 points, while the Intermountain Division is holding on to third with 385 points.

Complete Alaska Cup Points.

I am not sure how we did it but we had another amazing day. All the way down the line the team seems to be skiing well above anybodies expectations. We won two races with back-to-back champs Corey Stock and Katlyn Miller leading that charge. The performances of the day had to be Sam Tarling and David Sinclair taking seconds, by mere seconds to respective Alaska standouts David Norris and Scott Paterson in the OJ and J1 boy’s races. After that we had a bunch podiums and top ten’s. Typically on the distance day we hold our ground or even lose some points to the other strong regions. This year we won the day and actually increased out lead in Alaska Cup.  Justin Beckwith was putting the skis out the door pretty much dialed from a kick perspective, which definitely helped keep things running smooth. The touch up guys were getting bored up in the stadium.

The big topic the night before was reframing the kids minds for the sudden change from a Mass start to an Interval Start. Our team was totally psyched for the head to head match ups. They have been skiing that course for several years now and were ready. As a team Mass starts, sprints and relays are generally New England’s strengths, but they bucked that trend in a big way on Wed. The coaching staff took it as an opportunity to teach them and ourselves how to deal with changes. In the future we will all face some sort of delays, course changes etc. The JO Race Crew deserves a big hand as well. They did an amazing job with the changes and we ended up with a great day of racing in perfect conditions.

In regards to the format change, it just seemed like the system failed in this case. Not the system of safety, nobody wants to see injuries. That system worked very well. What appeared to fail was the multi year system to get the courses approved. How come any course issues were not addressed during the approval process is anybody’s best guess. We have seen how hard the MWSC and Nordic Heritage Center crews can work. Given the time in the off-season I am sure they would have taken some machines down there and completely restructured any questionable sections. Or this week spent a few hours with a chainsaw and moving some snow around. Again safety has to be the primary concern, but the trend looks to be more and more fitness based courses, which require less skiing skill.

Wow, what else can you say after a day like that? I don’t have records but what our New England skiers did in sprints have to be or really close to a single day record. 13 out of 18 medals, 5 national champs and sweeping 3 age groups. You don’t see to many days like that when everything clicks. Everything from the waxing, the shuttling of skis and athletes, touch ups, good tactics, and of course good luck. A few examples: They used the lucky loser rule to get two more New England skiers into semi’s, and one skier broke two different poles in the A finals and still got 2nd. Our team was just on and just got faster throughout the day. You can see that when you look at the prelims, versus the heats.

The waxing was spot on all day as well. I saw times when the other teams had a little too much or were a little slippy. I am not sure how the wax guys did it and I don’t know what they were exactly on. I saw 5 or 6 klisters they were going back and forth with. There were a few different structure tools out as well. With the weather going from cool to warm, back to cool there was plenty of tweaking going on. Glide Wax Coach and Presque Isle local Will Sweetser said it best when asked about our wax. “It really helps to have really good skiers skiing on it”

Despite all the excitement of having a great day we told the team not to let their “guard” down and be extra diligent about their recovery. Skiing all those heats and staying up at the venue all day can be tough on the athletes. We need to make sure they are ready for the distances races later in the week. Going forward we are confident but realize anything can happen and there are plenty of other skiers here ready to perform and fight for top finishes.

TRUCKEE, CA—The 2009 Junior Olympics officially kicked off today with the skate sprint competition at Auburn Ski Club.

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