This makes the decision for this week wonderfully difficult!
We could have chosen Elise, who had the best ever finish for team USA with a 23rd in the Classic race.
We could have chosen Sindre or Britta who both took over 250 points off their first FIS classic race.
We could have chosen Will who truly competed in his first ever 30km race after being sick for 3 days.
While each of these accomplishments are fantastic and deserve acknowledgement the skiers of the week are...
Drum roll please...
Sierra Jech & Sam Wiswell
Sierra is our team President and her performance both on and off the trails at the games reminded everyone what makes her so special.
Sierra competed in both the shortest and the longest events and completed 4 of the 5 total events at the games: sprint, team sprint, classic and skate races.
When she completed the first sprint race she was only 9 seconds from making the rounds and put in one of the best finishes to date. She took almost 100 points off her first sprint race of the season and was the top USA woman in the race. She followed that fantastic race with a team sprint with Nathan. The two of them were a thing of beauty, working together to a fantastic finish.
She skied beautifully in the 5km classic, finishing with points that were comparable to her phenomenal finish two weeks before at the University of Utah invitational. She sailed up the hill where Christi was standing looking like one of the top women in the race.
She finished her week with the 15km freestyle, which was not her best race of the week but the conditions were extremely tough and caused even the best to struggle. She stuck it out and finished with a solid place.
To say that Sierra is an great skier doesn't begin to cover the sexiness of her mind. The entire week she was not only raging around the ski trails but leading the class with her incredibly thoughtful, thorough and high level participation. Her blog posts focused on not only racing but the environmental aspects of the games as well as the importance of her teammates, epitomizing an inspirational leader.
Around the edges of all of these activities, Sierra was spending evenings taking snow samples on the ski trails for the research project she and Ben are doing to measure the accumulation of fluorinated wax from the races.
Sierra has grown into an incredible leader in all aspects of her life and we are honored to have been part of her journey.
We chose Sam for his amazing focus and durability. He also raced both the shortest (1.6km) and the longest (30km) races of the games and competed in all three of the individual races. While he spent time getting to know the area and visited the town he also dedicated himself to racing to the best of his ability, basically spending the optimal amount of time between his skis and his bed.
Sam performed well in the sprint, just a few points short of being his best of the season, and despite feeling a little rough in the classic, he had solid points. His real victory was the 30km where he not only skied a tough, tactical race but finished the last 1/2km like it was a 10km! He inspired his teammates and his coaches with his fight and resilience.
In addition to this amazing racing, Sam also was putting a great deal of thought and effort into the class with thoughtful and well written blog posts while thinking about how to measure the carbon footprint of our team. He even came up with an idea to find out what fueled the Universiade Flame and how much fuel it used for the entire games.
Sam was chosen as skier of the week for being an inspiration on the trails and in the class!
For their leadership both on and off the trails, we have chosen Sierra and Sam as skiers of the week!
YOU ROCK OUR WORLD!!!!
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