The circuit moved down south this week for the penultimate carnival of the season, hosted by the honorable Williams College at Jiminy Peak. Don’t let the lowered latitude fool you—Jiminy brought on a nice single digit chill with plenty of wind to boot. Although the gusts were aggressive for athletes in the start, Jiminy’s merciful summit lodge kept most of the league toasty warm and filled with cinnamon buns.
All that cold and wind provided the course with a wicked firm surface, and for the most part the track held steady for both the women’s and men’s runs (though it bore a bit of a groove towards the back of the pack). Today was a hero day for giant slalom skiers, and Dartmouth, UVM, Middlebury, and UNH athletes came packing some serious heat. In the women’s field, Freshman Gwen Wattenmaker repeated last week’s third-place GS finish with a fifth place first run and eleventh place second run. Lisa Olsson, a Stockholm native and sophomore at UNH, slid ahead of Wattenmaker with a fourth place first run and twelfth place second run, grabbing second place. It was Dartmouth junior Claire Thomas, however, who showed the EISA what was up. Much like an incomplete drawer of cutlery, Thomas’ first and second runs were all knives. Both runs were well over a full second ahead of the competition, and she finished the race a full 2.97 seconds ahead of Olsson.
The gentlemen of the EISA also kept things exciting—UVM freshman Jagge Lindstoel, who can’t keep himself off the podium, grabbed a comparatively weak 10th place first run only to turn around with the field’s fastest second run. He finished in third place, a mere 0.04 seconds behind the winning time. Two of Middlebury’s star skiers, sophomore Tim Gavett and junior Erik Arvidsson, couldn’t quite arc each other out of first place and ended up splitting the win with a perfect tie at 1:42.92. Gavett grabbed the fifth fastest first run and second fastest second run, while Arivdsson grabbed the second fastest first run and third fastest second run.