Radio Silence was in the cue yesterday but didn’t make it up for some reason so two in one day!!!

Today we saw a little bit of everything with temps hovering around 0 Celsius and rapid changes between sunshine and blizzard like conditions.  With the weather changing so rapidly we were really rolling the dice with wax.  The men started in a snow squall and finished in sunshine.  The women started under a mix of sun and clouds and finished in a blizzard.

Most people opted for zero’s with 5 of our 6 scorers ending up without wax.  Kudos to Mary leading the women home with an 8th place finish, a career best for her!  Franz continues to dominate the classical events cruising home to a 40 second win despite slippery skis in the last 5k.

Photos from today thanks to Caitlin Patterson who is a little under the weather…

Fred under the umbrella doing his thing…

Mary was moving so fast this was the only shot we could get…

Ellery had great skis till the storm rolled in…

Jennie in the heart of the storm…

Senior Jesse Kosiba heading to the finish…

Franz en route to the win…

I blame it on racing, travel, and most importantly the Olympics, but like Patrick always says, there are no excuses, just reasons.  Hopefully you’ve been able to follow along with Lincoln’s updates on http://eisaskiing.org/index.html

Alex and Newt at UVM in the mass start.  Photo courtesy of Dennis Curran

Caitlin, Jennie, and Caitlin en route to a second place team finish.  Photo courtesy of Dennis Curran

We’ve all been inspired the last two weeks by the great racing at the Olympics, including former Catamounts Kris Freeman, Lowell Bailey, and the Nystad twins who are working with the Swiss and Norwegian National teams.  Alpine Assistant Johnny Davidson took a 24 hour trip to Vancouver to watch the Men’s GS and ran into Trond and Knut at a bar celebrating Claudia Nystad’s Gold medal in the Team Sprint.

The last few weeks have been a blur with great performances from the Catamounts including numerous wins by Caitlin P and Franz, top tens from Jo, Jennie, Caitlin C, and Alex, and near misses from Janey, Fritz, and Ellery.  In the near miss category I would also include two tight finishes at the UVM and Williams carnivals where we lost by 8 and 2 points respectively.  We are getting closer and after a one day delay we are headed to Breadloaf to get the  Green monkey off our back and win one before we leave for NCAA’s!

Hope to see you out there!

What is it about Sprint racing that brings out the grimace? Photos Courtesy of Dennis Curran

After months of preparation the carnival season has finally begun.  Starting in Lake Placid and continuing with a “home” carnival hosted by St. Mike’s at Sleepy Hollow a week ago the season has brought a mixture of highs and lows.  We had some solid individual performances in Lake Placid but the weekend left most of us hungry for better results.  St. Michael’s carnival saw a return to form for many people including a breakthrough performance from Sophomore Alex Howe who came within 11 seconds of the win.  While the results were better our best days are still in front of us.  This past weekend we did a Time Trial with St. Mike’s and Middlebury to test out the classic course at Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe.  The conditions are good and we are excited to be a part of hosting the EISA and NENSA Eastern Cup races this Saturday and Sunday!

As always you can find pictures and sometimes live results at http://www.eisaskiing.org/

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