UVM

If at first you don’t succeed…

paul.stone@uvm.edu — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:23:51 +0000

13 MAR 2010: Franz Bernstein (2) of the University of Vermont celebrates at the finish in the Men’s Cross Country Freestyle during the Division I Men’s and Women’s Skiing Championship held at Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, CO. Bernstein finished first to win the national title. Brett Wilhelm/NCAA Photos
© ©Brett Wilhelm/NCAA Photos

NCAA Champs Day 2, Franz second, team in 5th.

paul.stone@uvm.edu — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:05:23 +0000

After several days of sun the skies opened up the last 24 hours beginning with a squall during the 2nd run of the men’s GS and continuing through this mornings races up at Howelsen Hill. The snow made for tricky conditions but the athletes handled things well. A few of the highlights….

2 podiums (Franz 2nd today, and David Donaldson 3rd yesterday)

5 All-Americans(Meg Ryley, David, Colpitts, Patterson, Franz)

2nd place team finish in the Men’s GS.

Franz had a pretty good day placing 8th for teams and beating three schools with 3 athletes.

More to come with the night slalom tomorrow.

Catamounts ski at Lake Catamount in Steamboat.

paul.stone@uvm.edu — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:24:26 +0000

After two days on the race trail we opted to branch out today and spent a couple hours skiing at the Lake CATAMOUNT Nordic Center. It was beautiful! The grooming is impeccable and the wide open gently sloping fields were the perfect change of pace for us today…

Skiing into the clouds…

Synchronized skiing…

Franz and Patrick in the distance.

Not a bad view for a long meandering downhill!

Birkie + Jürgen + Classic =

paul.stone@uvm.edu — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:35:13 +0000

This picture needs no caption. ‘09 alum Jürgen continues to dominate when it comes to classic ski races. Skiing alum Anders Osthus was sixth in the classic and Cycling alum Jake Hollenbach was 40th in the skate.

Dartmouth Cup returns home to Burlington…

paul.stone@uvm.edu — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:34:43 +0000

It was another interesting day at Breadloaf today. Yesterday’s unpredictability was replaced by sun, sun, and more sun. The women got things started off right with Jennie leading the way home in fourth. Caitlin and Ellery fought through some early misfortune to battle back inside the top 20 and senior Mary Stewart ended her collegiate career with a classy 23rd.

In the men’s race Franz got out clean and found out early that it was going to be his day. A combination of good skis and good form allowed him to ski away from the field early and hold a gap till the end. He had enough time to grab a Catamount flag and carry it across the line in style. The sun was high and the course warmed rapidly leaving the men to slog through slushy wet snow in places. Alex skied to 17th and Paul and Fritz battled to finish just outside the top 30 and help the Alpine men win the Dartmouth Cup which is awarded to the men’s team that scores the most points at the Eastern Championships.

Jesse had pretty much the opposite experience of Franz in his last collegiate race. A crash in the first 400m left him with one ski and a long way to go to catch up to the pack. He didn’t give up and slowly worked his way back to the pack and then through them to finish a respectable 35th.

Congrats to Franz for picking up both the classic and skate leader bibs for the season and Franz, Caitlin P, and Jennie for picking up All-East Honors.

EISA Champs Day One…

paul.stone@uvm.edu — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 03:49:38 +0000

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…

Radio silence…

paul.stone@uvm.edu — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 03:33:30 +0000

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!

Carnival Racing…

paul.stone@uvm.edu — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:10:56 +0000

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/

Photos from St. Lawrence and St. Michael’s Carnival…

The first five are from Lake Placid and courtesy of Judy Geer and Lolly Garrec, the rest are from St. Michael’s Carnival at Sleepy Hollow, Courtesy of Dennis Curran (http://www.curranphotography.com/)

Gettin’ some at the Mt. Washington Hotel

paul.stone@uvm.edu — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 02:15:12 +0000

Posted by Caitlin Curran-

This past weekend those of us who were around traveled to Jackson, NH for racing and of course some quality spa time. On Friday, after a picturesque ski at Bretton Woods we spent the afternoon at the Mount Washington Hotel Spa. Thanks to Coach Weave’s awesome connections we discovered that our Nordic trail passes gave us access to the Hotel Spa. Spending time in the spa was a refreshing and relaxing change from most ski trips. It also served as an educational experience for Fritz, as he added the word “concierge” to his vocabulary.

After a relaxing afternoon, we were ready to go fast on Saturday. The “Crit Race” was a mass start skate race around the 1.3 K sprint course at Jackson. Before the start, there is no set number of laps, the racers were just told that they will race for about 30 minutes total. The girls went first and skied four laps, and then were signaled that they would race for 3 more. The race started at a moderate pace, and sped up after the 3-lap countdown began. Ellery was the first UVM finisher in a close 7^th place. The rest of us (Caitlin, Janey, Mary, and Mae) were all close behind all finishing less than 2 minutes behind.

Guys, courtesy of Dennis Curran

The boy’s race was a similar format, they skied about 9 laps of the course. Alex, Fritz, and Pete were at the front of the race, and finished 1^st, 4^th and 6^th, all within 5 seconds of each other. Jesse, Paul, and Newt were not far behind, all finishing in the top 20.

Guys, courtesy of Dennis Curran

Sunday was another cold, but beautiful day in Jackson. The girls raced a 5k individual start classic, and the boy’s 10k. Fritz and Pete were close again finishing in 6^th and 7^th. Newt, Alex, Paul, and Jesse took 16^th, 18^th, 21^st, and 27^th.

Smithers, Photo courtesy of flyingpointroad.com

In the girl’s race Caitlin was 6^th place, 44 seconds behind Natalie Ruppertsburger from Bates. Janey, Mary, and Ellery took 11^th 15^th and 19^th, all within 90 seconds of the leader. The races were fun, and competitive with skiers from every school on the carnival circuit except for Middlebury and Dartmouth, as well as some U.S. Biathlon Team skiers.

As a reward for our hard work in the races, we went back to the Mt. Washington Hotel for some more spa time. This time around we enjoyed 2 hours of steam room, sauna, outdoor Jacuzzi, and lounge time before heading back to Vermont.

Val Cartier and QC to ring in the New Year!

paul.stone@uvm.edu — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:34:58 +0000

Posted by Mary Stewart

Salut! We brought in the New Year with a great trip up to Quebec for the Canadian NorAm races in Val Cartier. Our journey started off on the right track with the help of our new GPS friend “Tiff,” whose genius for navigating the highways and byways led us through Quebec City with ease.

We enjoyed five days of racing and exploring at the beautiful Myriam Bedard biathlon center. On our first day of racing, former Catamount and current U.S Biathlon Team member Katrina Howe and I had a blast in the 15 km continuous pursuit. The next day, Jesse, Fritz, Alex, Paul, Peter, Caitlin, Janey, and Kat tore up the trails in the skate sprint, followed by a 10/15 km classic race two days later.

One evening, Patrick planned an excursion into Quebec City. With the promise of crepes at Crepe Bretton, we eagerly made our way into the heart of the city (with a little help from Tiff, of course). Luckily, Patrick decided that we should make up for our missed recovery jog with a post-crepe stroll down by Le Chateau Frontenac. As we rounded the corner of the towering Frontenac, we were greeted by the twinkling lights of a toboggan ride. Interested, but fearing that we were walking into a tourist trap, we ventured into the small ticket office. We discovered that the ride cost only $2 and after watching a shrieking family zoom by, we decided to give it a go. With three toboggans in tow we all climbed to the top, squealing or gulping nervously in anticipation.

The three icy tracks allowed us to race side-by-side, which suited our competitive spirits. It was a close race complete with accusations of cheating by one sled, but more than who won or lost that race we’ll all remember the exhilarating screams, laughter, tearing eyes, and beautiful night views of the city.