Skier of the Week Crested Butte NRL

Will in the Semifinals of the sprint

It is difficult to be the first skier of the week both because no one has been chosen yet and because it can be a lot of pressure for the season.

These difficulties simply do not apply to our first skier of the week, he was the unquestionable choice and we only expect him to become stronger as the season progresses.

After a good summer of training, in which he was forced to run more than rollerski, and a solid fall of training, Will seems to have taken a step up. It started in the fall when he began to beat his running records. While there was some early concern that maybe he was a Thanksgiving Turkey, meaning he was peaking too early and would ski his fastest at Thanksgiving, no one could see any reason for this type of response to training.

He crushed the first time-trial and was excited to hit the first race of the year at Crested Butte, despite it being his two least favorite events, a sprint and a 5km classic. He need not have worried, the races were fantastic!

The first day his hope was to make the rounds of the skate sprint against a strong collegiate and junior field. He accomplished this with flying colors qualifying 12th, less than 1 second from the top ten.

Will then skied strong and smart to qualify for the Semi Finals but just missed making the A final. He did qualify for the B final and skied very well to place 10th in the final results. This was by far his best sprint points in his career so it was a great way to start the season!

The next day dawned cold and snowy and it would be an interesting race with a 5km mass start. Will’s USSA points from last season were not great, since we had only done one USSA race in the previous season, so his start position was not ideal, he started in 18th place. As the men started the snow started pounding and it was clear that it was going to be interesting. Will didn’t let it phase him, he slowly worked his way up through the field until he was within the top 10! Some hard fighting over the last part of the race put him into 8th, out sprinting the second University of New Mexico skier. Not only was it an amazing place race Will’s USSA points for the day blew away his previous best with 139.44!

Over the past two years Will has gone from a dedicated and motivated freshman to a poised and powerful leader on this team.

Will Timmons you ROCK OUR WORLD!