Nationals Sprint! What a race!

Wow! I don't know how to start this blog. What an amazing evening. We arrived at the base of the Winter Park alpine hill and didn't see any sign of a nordic sprint course anywhere. Slowly, as we watched the course came together. Flagging, fences, snow cats, shovels, etc appeared and began to shape an amazing sprint course. With one killer uphill, one screaming downhill and some great twists and turns. The unfortunate thing was that it took a little too long to setup the course and by the time it was finished it was time for the race to start. No one had a chance to ski the course and they had to ski the first loop completely blind. That was the bad news the good news is that everyone was in the same boat! The course was amazing to watch, you could see the entire thing from one place, it was well lit and very challenging. The perfect world cup style sprint.

The women started the prelim at 6:15pm in the waning light of the sunset. Kari was the first woman out of the gate and she successfully navigated the course and looked comfortable doing it. Gwynn followed in good speed, Gracey, Marie, Shannon and Gina. They all looked good, although Shannon took a hellatious fall on the downhill that impressed the Maine coach.

The men started immediately after the women, as a matter of fact the first men had to contend with the slowest women. Everything looked good for the start until Zhenya's pole broke right out to the start. Thanks to Rachel and Adam he got a pole in about 10 seconds and then skied like a god to try to make up the time but 10 seconds in a 1.4km sprint is a huge amount of time and we weren't sure he would make the finals. The rest of the men looked great! Dan, Eliah, John, Kinner, Fitz, Jacob and Adam all skied amazing and cranked around the course.

The top 10 athletes from the prelims go on to head to head finals. We waited on pins and needles to see who had qualified for the finals. The women were announced first and 4 of our women qualified, Kari, Gwynn, Gracey and Marie! Wow! 4 of the top 10 were UW! They were divided into 2 heats for the semifinals and unfortunately 3 of our girls ended up in one heat, Gracey, Gwynn and Kari with Marie in the other heat.

We still didn't know the results of the men when the women's heats started. But Marie was in the first heat and skied amazing. She just chewed people up on the uphills but lost a little ground on the downhill. She finished 5th in her heat, not far out of qualifying for the next round.

The 2nd heat went off with the final three UW women. Kari and Gracey got a decent start but Gwynn got tripped up on the uphill and the race was just too short to get back to the group. Kari and Gracey started in 4th and 5th spots and fought their way up until they were in 2nd and 3rd. That put Kari into the A final and Gracey into the B final.

Meanwhile we were still waiting to find the finalist for the Men's final. They were finally announced and we had put 4 men into the finals! Dan, Eliah, John and Zhenya, despite his broken pole!

Woo Hoo!

We got luckier with the men that the women with them split 2 in each heat. The first heat went out with Dan and Eliah. They got a good start but were following Tom from Western State. They were starting to make ground on him and were about to pass him when Tom crashed, leaving Dan and Eliah free and clear in the front. The first 2 from each heat automatically qualify for the A final so Dan and Eliah were able to ski half of the second lap a little slower to conserve energy for the final round.

John and Zhenya were in the next semi and it was a great one. John was trying to take the lead on the killer uphill when he got tangled with an Whiman skier and got his ski caught in the fence. He didn't give up but got up and went after the rest of the field. Zhenya skied like a man possesed, trying to prove himself after the breaking of the pole earlier. He followed a Clarkson skier for about half a lap and then blew by him and destroyed the heat. Easily winning and moving onto the A final. John made an amazing comeback and almost managed to get himself into the B final.

The finals were also amazing! The women's B had Gracey and these women were fight for places 5-8 in the race. Gracey skied smart and tough and pulled herself into 6th place with some great tactics on the back stretch.

The men's B was the only final that didn't have a UW skier, this was because of the 4 people who qualified for the A final 3 of them wore a bucking horse on their legs!

The women's final featured Kari in her worst event. She got tripped twice on the first hill and came out in 4th. She fought like a tiger and took 3rd and just missed 2nd by 1 second! This was her best ever finish in a sprint at Nationals in her 4 years of college!

The men's final was the show of the night, with 3 UW men and one Whitman. The men took off fast Dan leading, Zhenya hot on his heals and Eliah hanging on. The easy lap Dan had when in the Semi's showed up now because he lead from start to finish with never a challenge. Zhenya followed Dan around but couldn't quite catch him, Dan became UW's first Nationals Champion for the week and we hope not the last. He finished in a comfortable 2nd place. Eliah spent the race fighting with the Whitman racer. Around 75% of the course he lead but the Whitman racer was waiting for his chance and with the straitaway to go he made his move. Eliah tried to fight him off but just lost at the finish, despite an amazing lung Eliah just missed the 3rd place. What an amazing finish for UW though, 1,2, 4!

There were probably 200 people lining the finish stretch and the roar was amazing!

The men finish the night well in the lead of this national championship event with only 7 points. The women were 2nd, just edged out by Whitman by 3 points. They are motivated to go after them tomorrow!

The final thought for the day is the amazing support showed by the entire team, those who raced, those who didn't and those who raced and immediately asked what they could do to help the rest of the team do well. Without Adam Zhenya wouldn't have gotten a pole in time and wouldn't have made it to the finals and wouldn't have gotten 2nd. Without Liz and Catherine on the hill we wouldn't have been able to tell our athletes to go wide on the top corner so they wouldn't slip on the ice. Without any one person out there I don't believe if the result would have been the same. This team wins because of every person, racing or not, counting or not. They are all part of the magic and we are proud of them all.

We are now waxing skis like maniacs, preparing for tomorrow morning at 9am when they race the 8.5km classic race.

More updates then!