If you are a results junkie who is stuck in the lower 48, away from this week’s junior racing action, you have certainly found the first round of results from Junior Nationals by now. After a couple of days of settling in, watching the snow melt and watching the volunteers shovel and shovel to keep the race alive, the racing is now underway in Anchorage. After possibly the longest day of Nordic sprinting ever hosted in the US (seriously; no one I’ve talked to can think of one that was longer), Monday wrapped with the OJ girls A Final at 5:30pm. Attached are a few photos and a few tidbits of information that may or may not have made its way around yet.

Yesterday’s Midwest team racing was exciting and awesome. The weather was a carbon copy of the previous day (Low of 31`- high of 45`), so the wax testing and ski choices from Sunday’s preparation were right on. After the morning individual time trial qualification races, a total of 18 Midwest athletes finished in the top 24 in their group and qualified to move up to the afternoon head-to-head heats with 6 athletes contending in each heat. In each of the 4 quarterfinal heats for each of the age groups, 3 athletes moved on to the semifinals, and then were guaranteed a spot in either the A final or B final. For the Midwest, a total of 6 athletes moved on to the semifinals and A & B Finals. Each of these 6 athletes placed in the top ten in their Age Group.

The wax was somewhere in the Universal Klister up to Toko Orange range. The course had to be changed from the planned route as the stadium area became unusable due to the warm weather here. Yesterday’s high in Anchorage was 45 degrees, which is only THREE degrees off the all time high for the day, so you can see that the snow is a little thin in places to say the least. But racing was great, the organizers did a fine job with what they had, and the course was fair and held up pretty well throughout the day.

Unofficial results from the classic sprint have been posted

Results from the classic sprint qualifier are becoming available. All categories are not up yet.

Arriving in Anchorage, the CXC Midwest JO Team had anticipated the poorer snow conditions that this area has experienced during this season, so the snow conditions were not a great shock to us. The snow is old and transformed many times over and the base is just hanging on each day. The race organization has been making a heroic effort in shoveling, hauling snow, and adjusting courses. The sprint course has been changed several times and at this point it looks like a 1.2km race that cannot use the main stadium due to the ice & water accumulation.

We got to Anchorage on Thursday, mostly en masse, with a few of the college guys trickling in after finishing out the week. Five minutes of seeing the mountains here are worth the whole uncomfortable plane ride up here. The team is pretty fired up, we’ve been hitting the trails in the mornings, and getting little tastes of Anchorage in our afternoons (for Kyle Dewey, these tastes have come mostly courtesy of Burger King). The snow is pretty thin. And pretty crusty. And pretty dirty. And that’s where there aren’t lakes of standing water. But thats ski racing, and no one knows how to ski the ghetto conditions like New Englanders.