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Women's Sprint Podium
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Last races of 2009-10 for GRP
30.Mar.2010 Busy weekend for the Green Racing Project as they ended their season with a bang at the SuperTour Finals in Aroostook County Maine. Following a day off on Thursday, the GRP faced three races over the next three days: a 7/10k classic mass start on Friday, classic sprints on Saturday, and a hill climb on Sunday. In addition to the individual race honors, the cumulative times would be kept as well for overall honors for the weekend's tour.
While a "spring" series, temperatures were quite unseasonably cold all weekend. The temps combined with the heavily transformed, rain soaked snow (now ice), and some fresh snow made for some challenging conditions.
Friday: Mass Start - 7/10k classic
The men mass start got things underway with a win for the US Ski Team's (and Vermont's) Andy Newell. Tim Reynolds led the way for Craftsbury racers in 34th with a time of 28:01.8 - only seven seconds and several places ahead of Juergen Uhl at 28:08.6 for 37th place. Matt Briggs arrived around a minute later for 58th, followed by Ollie Burruss in 71st and Tucker Murphy 76th. The excitement of the day came when Canadian Ivan Babikov, leading the field by a healthy margin, turned into the lap lane instead of the finish lane, and had to backtrack, ending up 5th and frustrated.
The women started their 7k race two hours later. Ida Sargent was the first Craftsbury racer to cross the line after USST's Kikkan Randall. Ida had a gap of several seconds over the rest of the pack for her second place after Kikkan who had gapped the field in pursuit of a first lap sprint prime and held the margin to the line. In contrast with much of the rest of the pack, Ida had hung back through the intermediate sprints and her steady pacing was rewarded in the end. After Ida, Hannah Dreissigacker came through for 13th in 22:31.5 - an incredible race. Lauren Jacobs and Kaitlynn Miller came through within eight seconds of each other for 37th and 39th overall. Kaitlynn was the 4th Junior in the standings. Fasterskier coverage of Men's and Women's Mass Start
Results
Saturday: Classic Sprints
Qualification boded well for Saturday's sprints, as three of the ten Craftsbury skiers qualified for the sprint rounds. Ida, Hannah and Kaitlynn advanced into the heats with second, eighth and 31st placings. While Kaitlynn just missed the final senior qualifying place (just hundredths of a second out of the heats), she was the first junior qualifier for their separate heats. Of the other athletes' qualifiers, Juergen and Tim finished within a second of each other at 42nd and 43rd, Matt was 57th, Tucker 86th and Ollie 90th. Lauren was 39th and Chelsea 41st on the women's side.
Ida won her quarter and semi to make the A final, and true to her bib, finished second on the day behind Kikkan Randall. While Ida finished three seconds behind Randall, there was an additional five second gap back to third place, so the top two were clearly pushing each other. Saturday's result was an improvement of one place and two seconds for Ida from the pair's earlier meeting this season at Nationals.
Hannah finished third in her quarterfinal, but advanced as a lucky loser given the speed of that heat. In the semis, Hannah met Randall, APU athlete Holly Brooks, and one of the skiers on a great day, J2 Heather Mooney of Stratton, to finish fourth. She went to the B final where she sealed a top 10 on the day with a fourth place.
With their smaller numbers, the juniors had a semi final and then straight to finals. Kaitlynn made the A final with a third place in the semi, before earning a fifth place in the A final sprint.
Fasterskier coverage of Men's and Women's Mass Start (check out the quotes by Kikkan about Ida in this one)
Qualifier results
Heat results
Sunday: Hill Climb
The hill climb used what is becoming a tradition for tour-style events, the Gunderson pursuit start. In this type of event, the skiers are seeded according to combined times from the classic and sprint races, along with any time bonuses they may have won, and started in a pursuit format, so that the first person to the finish was the overall winner of the weekend.
The 6k course's climb came in the form of one kiometer straight up an alpine trail at the Lonesome Pines Ski Area. A freestyle event, there were reports of every type of skating being employed, even the rarely seen single stick coach's skate, as skiers employed any possible method to crest the hill. (The coaches and spectators it should be noted had full use of the t-bar to get up the course to cheer on the athletes - cool!)
Craftsbury was left to wonder what might have been for the weekend's overall in the women's race, as Ida was unable to start Sunday's hill climb, needing to leave for a Dartmouth term abroad program in France. As she had a solid second place in the overall, it would have been interesting where she could've ended up after the hill climb. The weekend was nonetheless a nice way for Ida to bounce back from the NCAA Championships where her finishes were not what she or anyone else would have expected.
The rest of the crew (less Juergen) geared up and headed to the hill. In the men’s race, Tim had the 31st-fastest time, putting him in 35th overall. Matt had the 45th-fastest time, followed by Ollie in 59th and Tucker in 73rd; the trio ended up 51st, 67th and 72nd overall. Juergen did not contest the hill climb so he had no ranking. Hannah had the 13th-fastest time, moving her into 10th overall – clearly a breakthrough weekend at a National caliber race for her. Kaitlynn and Lauren had the 37th- and 43rd-fastest times, ending up 35th and 39th on the weekend, solid results they can both be proud of. Chelsea was 56th in the climb, but since she didn’t finish Friday’s race, she too had no overall ranking. Fasterskier coverage of Men's and Women's Hill Climb
Hill Climb results
Overall results
What a way to cap a season! You can see photos, video and more at the event website. Chelsea has also posted a blog in the GRP blog - hopefully others will as well.
Congratulations and happy offseason to the GRP!
Photos
Video
Event Website
GRP blog
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