The season officially begins in Rumford, ME with a skate sprint hosted by Bates at Black Mountain. The course was closed on Thursday due to high winds and official training was cancelled. Teams adapted by either skiing on their home course before leaving or stopping at other venues on the way. Nothing can stop a skier from their pre-race.
Today featured blustery conditions and cold temperatures that warmed throughout the day. When asked about the race, Ben the Broncos fan, who also skis for UNH commented, “it should be interesting.” It’s impressive that Black Mountain was able to pull this off given the conditions. Thank you to the volunteers who worked hard to clean up the course before the race.
Today’s course had variable snow conditions with some sugary sections and some icy. After a short uphill at the start, skiers descended a long rolling hill to the low point of the course. After a short punchy climb that most skiers cruised up with their speed from the down hill, the race is almost over, but not quite. All that lies between the skier and the finish is a long gradual hill that was described as a “brutal finish” by many skiers today.
Men
The men raced first this morning with the qualifier starting at 11:00am. John Steel Hagenbuch of Dartmouth won the qualifier with a speedy time of 02:32.94. Harvard’s first-year Elias Soule made his carnival debut and came in 2nd, less than one second behind Johnny. The heats kicked off at 1:00pm, with five minutes between each. Dartmouth skier Luke Allan took the win today with an impressive showing winning both the quarter and semifinals. When asked about his day, Allan commented, “My qualifier felt good, in the heats I was aiming to be around 2nd or 3rd on the downhill section and tried to move my way through the pack in the longer working section and into the finish. It ended up being an awesome team day with four of our guys making the semis, and three of our girls!” Coming in second, by less than 0.5 seconds, was UVM first-year Finn Bailey. 3rd place was claimed by the qualifier winner, John Steel Hagenbuch. Benon Brattebo (UVM) and Keelan Durham (Williams) came in 4th and 5th respectively. Last, but not least, was Elias Soule. When asked about his race, Elias commented “the quali was awesome, I had some good tactics that I wanted to implement and I got em done.” For the heats, he had “different strategies for each one.” He also gave a shout out to coaches Cate Brams, Devin Wong, and Meg Yoder saying, “we had insanely fast skis today, definitely some of the fastest skis I’ve ever had.” Unfortunately Elias broke his pole in the final, but was still “stoked” about his day.
Skiers from several teams captured in action (photos courtesy flyingpointroad.com)
Women
Taking the dub today was Middlebury’s Quincy Massey-Bierman. She spent last year recovering from injury and when asked about her comeback, she replied “I spent the whole year getting hungry, so it was time to eat. Roll Pants.” She deployed a strategy similar to many, talking about “starting fast because whoever was in the top had a significant advantage, which she wanted.” Following Day 1 of the Bates Carnival, Quincy is “excited to be back on the number one vibes circuit and to see her friends,” a sentiment shared by everyone today. Runner-up in today’s sprint was UVM first-year Kristin Multun Helland. When asked about her strategy for the heats, she stated that she “didn’t want to be first going into the downhill because she noticed people being caught.” Kristin also mentioned that “the finishing stretch was pretty narrow so it was hard to pass there.” Rounding off the podium today was Dartmouth junior Ava Thurston. Her teammate Evie Walton took 4th and said “that was such a fun day, a crazy little course, but it was fun skiing out there with everybody!” After qualifying 19th, Middlebury skier Mica Bodkins moved up to 5th and earned her first carnival top five. 6th place was taken by UVM junior Marielle Ackermann.
Men’s and women’s podium (photos courtesy flyingpointroad.com)
Come back tomorrow for Day 2 of the Bates Carnival!
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