It is a busy time of year for the juniors. As we head into the “championship season” we have a lot of different irons in multiple fires. On one hand, we want to be putting in some training time while we have a little while until events like Junior Nationals, Eastern HS Championships, and U16s. In the midst of this window is also the State Championships. So it is a balancing act, but on Wednesday everyone is aligned once again!
You can see a little recap video of the first day of States over at WCAX. You may see some familiar MNC names and skiers both racing and being interviewed! Tuesday is the classic edition down at Prospect…good luck everybody!
For those not racing in the high school league, we’ve gotten the training block underway with several longer days, including a really nice ski at Camel’s Hump Nordic! This is a really great under-the-radar ski area that has lots of trails, cool terrain (including some fun descents both groomed and backcountry) and grooming with a Pisten Bully…this great winter of snow allowed us to ski the whole place.
We’re in for a few days of warmer weather, but the skiing should remain great up there and it’s worth checking out.
Fresh snow. Fierce wind. Cold air. We’ve hit on a pattern this winter, and while we are relishing some of the best snow in years (maybe a decade?) there can be too much of a good thing, it turns out. Heavy snow, dangerous roads, and extremely violent winds big roles in our final Eastern Cup weekend, but we were 100% “go mode” until the very last second!
Things actually got going with races on Friday. By virtue of his competitive sprint points, Anders was granted start rights in the EISA Middlebury Carnival classic sprint, where he qualified for the heats and battled right to the line! A really cool way to start things off.
UNH, Middlebury, Laval, UNH, MNC, Dartmouth
On Saturday it was time for the whole team to lay down an individual start classic race. We’re pretty darn strong at classic skiing, and the U16/EHS Qualifier a week prior had given us a nice bit of “home field advantage” as the course was just a slightly longer version of that 3km event.
Like any year, JNs looms large over the last Eastern Cup. I’ll reiterate what I believe I said after the first weekend…In 2024 we qualified an astonishing 10 skiers to the Junior National Team. Soon after, we graduated 7 of skiers into collegiate programs, while another two skiers moved (literally!) to other states. With that background, I’m happy to admit my own mistake in underestimating our group of athletes this year. I told one parent of another club that it felt like a rebuilding year was on the cards, but right away from the first Eastern Cup I was proven wrong. That same parent sent me a note after those races: “I thought you said it was a rebuilding year? It doesn’t look like it to me.”
Throughout the year I was proven wrong about this re-building phase again and again…so I will henceforth refer to ’24/’25 as the keep-building phase, where we proved our ability to continue learning from our previous hard work, teammates, and former accomplishments and put those skills and lessons to work right away. Even with a younger and less experienced team of racers, the MNC Juniors didn’t miss a beat.
In the men’s 10km Pat, Niko, Lorenzo and Jonah all skied great on trails that required the smoothest classic skiing finesse you could imagine. Starting one bib apart, Jonah and Lorenzo skied basically the whole race together, while a few bibs up ahead Niko continued a very impressive string of distance races to solidify his spot on the JN team.
Back to 100% health after a busy stint in Europe competing in biathlon, Seven absolutely tore it up and proved that she would’ve been more than in with a shout at going to Soldier Hollow with a few more races: but how can you turn down the chance to race in Poland and Germany, and often as the top American competitor in her field to boot? This sport is always a game of tradeoffs…whether it be kick and glide, or one race trip or another. Charlotte held strong in another big classic race that should set her up really well for the upcoming State meet!
Seven continuing our club’s trend of “biathletes who are really strong classic skiers”
For the U16 racers it was a single lap of the 5km course, and starting bib 1 was James. It is almost inevitable that nearly every club will have someone “on the bubble” for JNs on the last weekend. James was sitting in a tie for the final spot on the U16 boys roster, meaning it could very well come down to this weekend. With all that pressure, AND the intimidating situation of starting bib 1 on a one-lap course (meaning James would just have to essentially grind out a solo timetrial with no competition but his own breath and muscles) it could be easy to crumble. But James did the opposite and stormed up every hill, carrying speed into the descents and across every part of the course like you wouldn’t believe. It was obvious watching him that it was his best day yet, and indeed he landed on the podium for the first time!
Atop the podium was Jorgen, aka “Mr Rikert” as I call him, because he is from just down the road and is always espousing how wonderous these trails are. Jorgen used true home course advantage to ski to a dominant win, and having his best race of the season and first top-20 was Gabe who also can claim home course advantage as another member of our “Addison County MNC Contingent.” With his health back under him, Isaiah completed the grouping of our really strong U16 boys.
Gabe up at the last climb before the long descent to the stadium
While it was fun to sweep the U16 girls podium in Waterville at Eastern Cup #3, the thing about sweeping spots 1-2-3 is…you need three people to do it! Astrid was out sick, having stayed home from school during the week overcoming a fever. It was tough to miss this one for Astrid because she loves to classic ski at Rikert, and sickness aside her current form would’ve put her in a strong position yet again. Nothing indicates you are a real racer at heart like wavering back-and-forth about racing when deep down it’s not for the best, and as a coach I’m really proud of Astrid’s resolve.
Everybody will be sick at some point, and miss critical races: it’s just a fact! We can do our best to control it, but there will always be the risk.
If a 1-2-3 wasn’t going to happen, Mia and Acadia were not going to rest and made sure at the very least a 1-2 happened, with Mia storming to her first Eastern Cup win. After leading the classic race in Waterville before her crash, and then putting together an insanely impressive classic race against older (and internationally-experienced) competition at the EHS qualifier a week prior, you just had the sense that all the pieces were coming together for Mia. She particularly stormed through the long third cloverleaf section of the course with intent, and captured the win by 30 seconds. Acadia joined Mia right on the next step, making it a 1-2 finish!
At the end of the day, it was hard not to feel both excitement and relief. Skiers on the bubble for JNs, like James, had put together some of their best races. Others had continued upward trends toward their goals and shown just how far they’ve come in a really competitive field.
The following day, we awoke to lots of new snow. Driving up the gap, the winds continued to get stronger and stronger…until we reached the venue where fences were blown sideways, tree debris littered the trails, and the race had been called off. It was a bit of a subdued end to the Eastern Cup season, but safety took precedence.
It also meant the end of the Junior Ranking List…MNC is sending 8 athletes to Junior Nationals! I believe in a quick count that we are (for the second year in a row) matched with Green Mountain Valley School as the club sending the most athletes as a part of team New England. Ford Sayre and Craftsbury are not far behind, meaning the depth and competitiveness within our immediate area is really the strongest in our region, if not the whole country. Junior Nationals is a big goal for so many of our skiers, and there will always be amazing skiers who do not get to experience this trip. However, it’s important to realize that those on the JN team certainly wouldn’t have gotten there without having their friends and teammates challenge them, push them, and help everyone grow together. Pugs all the way!
Pug Podiums…featuring our “campaign sign” of the season: LOCK IN, DON’T WALK IN
If you’d like to support the MNC athletes headed to JNs as they embark on this (absurdly-expensive) journey, you can do so at the fundraising page below! Thanks!
MNC had a team of 8 athletes qualify for this year’s Junior National Championships in Soldier Hollow, Utah! This is a very big trip, and an expensive one too.
Five of our athletes have teamed-up to create a fundraiser for these championships. If you’d like to take a look and donate, you can do so below!
Sunday was one of the bigger racing days for Vermont skiers: the Eastern High School/U16 Qualifier. This is a huge endeavor with all the teams in Vermont (public HS, club team, and ski academies) all converging on one venue for nonstop racing…a mens and women’s 3km classic, followed by a men’s and women’s 3km skate.
This year the races were held at Rikert, which had ample snow to begin with and then picked up a few extra inches Saturday night. It was beautiful!
The classic races got interesting because the sun came out and things warmed up quite a bit in a short timeframe. There was dry snow underneath as a base, with more moisture and loose snow on top that was starting to get packed and compressed. It was definitely more of a tricky day than many of us probably bargained for (or anticipated) but that’s the fun of our sport. And it was a great reminder of why we do stuff like classic rollerskiing on slippery astroturf and car wax.
Our crew skied well and handled a very tough 3km classic course well! As the preparation turned to skating, some light snow began to fall and the sun went away. The skate course was “easy” on paper with a long gradual uphill and long gradual downhill, but what that really means is “no recovery” and a full effort the whole way.
Always ready to bring the music to the people (whether they want it or not?) our boys finished their race and were immediately back out on the trails with their Soundboks speakers to cheer on the girls. Levi Peters captured this cool photo which says all you need to know about that!
At a ski race, you are competing directly against others. There’s no way around it: the timing system provides a pretty objective view of how fast each person skied the course.
It would be so simple if we could keep it at that one layer. How fast can you go? How fast did those other people go? Ok, cool!
The thing is, even the most consistent competitor who seems to always win and is never flustered or faltering is not a robot. Each ski race is a bit of a Venn diagram of competitors…some you race against nearly every event, others you come across from time to time at a larger regional race, and some you may have never seen on snow before.
As a racer, there are probable some skiers you have history with. Maybe you always used to beat them in the BKL days, but now they’re way ahead of you. Is it something in the water over in Craftsbury/Putney/Jackson/Bethel? Are they doing something different with their training? Did they actually start training after all this time? What’s harder to realize, and extremely hard to appreciate in the moment, is that in many cases as a racer you are that skier that might’ve never beaten a rival in the early days, and are now ahead of them with regularity. We tend to only see that relationship from one side, and it’s too often the negative side.
Charlotte on the charge in the skate race
Isaiah with his trademark orange hat and balanced technique
Each day this past weekend in Waterville, the final race was the U16 boys competition. In both a skate interval start and a classic mass start, the top spot came down to an absolute battle between Jorgen Pirrung (MNC) and Matthew Northcott (Caldwell Sport). These two guys know each other well, and have been at or near the top of most U16 races. Jorgen is about 6′ 3″ and skis with a powerful, glide-heavy style. Matthew is closer to 5′ 4″ and skis with an energetic, snappy and crisp style. They are living proof that skiing does not have a singularly advantageous build!
In Saturday’s individual start race, Matthew started 30 seconds behind Jorgen, meaning Sara and Kristen and I could easily take splits and know how they stacked-up against one another. Which one was the hero, and which was the villain? You might expect the answer to vary based on which one you were asking, but put a pin in that thought.
With two laps of a 2.5km course, and three coaches spread out across the loop, we could report that during at least 6 (and more if you could scoping through the trees) checkpoints Jorgen and Matthew were never separated by more than 5 seconds. Matthew would be ahead, then Jorgen, then Matthew. It didn’t seem to depend on whether they were on the hilly part of the course or the flat field section: they just went back and forth the whole time like a street racing scene from the Fast and the Furious:
In the end, Jorgen took the win and Matthew followed close behind. That of course set things up for an intense classic mass start day on Sunday. But the U16 boys race was the final event in a busy day of racing for everyone…
Things dawned cold and clear. It was a brisk -11F outside, and we arrived to a frozen trailer. We even had to bring the space heater and propane heater into the cab of the truck for a little bit to get it going, in order to then heat the inside of the trailer. The start was delayed, which was actually an un-welcome update given the lengthy travel home but…racing was wonderful with no wind, firm tracks, and great snow.
Charlotte held things down for MNC in the open women’s race. Seven was down-for-the-count with the sickness that has been rampaging through the skiers these days after a super successful (but super tiring) trip to Europe for IBU Junior Cup racing. Charlotte moved up almost 10 places from her starting seed though, and made the most of a classic mass start that was essentially a cold and snowy xc running race!
Niko charging up “Hero’s Hill”
In the open men’s race things got splintered quite early thanks to the impressive efforts of Ford Sayre skier and skyrunner extraordinaire James Underwood, who used a tried-and-true tactic of “make them all suffer right from the start” to spread out the field. But an MNC skier with a distinctive blue and white hat could be seen getting a little closer to the front every lap…in fact his time splits across each checkpoint in race went 28th->19th->11th->11th->7th. It was Niko Cuneo out there absolutely charging through the field with his best distance race yet for 12th overall. 10 places back was Lorenzo who used a similar smooth strategy and tactical skills working with the skiers around him to nab his best finish in 22nd, while Pat also continued to impress with his improved classic skiing. Anders and Nico had tougher days with bodies that just weren’t responding, but will bounce back no doubt.
There was plenty of excitement leading into the U16 girls mass start, because the day prior in the skate race something pretty special had happened. The MNC girls SWEPT! That’s right, a bona-fide 1-2-3 finish, making good on what Acadia, Astrid and Mia demonstrated at the last Eastern Cup in Lake Placid. As far as I know, this is the first time MNC has swept an EC podium of any kind!
Mia (on her first lap) and Acadia (on her second) charging together in sync during Saturday’s skate race
So it had to be on everyone’s mind…could they do it again? In a mass start near the front, you always know what place you’re in. Other skiers would surely work hard to claim a place on the podium, and there had to be some targets on the backs of the MNC girls. It was definitely a tense situation, but Mia, Astrid and Acadia wasted no time in getting right up to the front:
Charging at the front. But wait, there are only two here, not three..
Starting the descents from the high point of the course, it was MNC in the top three spots when Mia crashed! With both poles flung out of her grips, she had to scramble to a ditch to get them back on, and climb back up to the trail. At the end of the first lap of two, it was Acadia and Astrid charging up Hero’s Hill together. Antonia from SMS was starting to fade about 15 seconds back, out of sight around the turns. And then into view came Mia with her own 15 second gap to close on Antonia.
It was clear by watching them ski that Acadia and Astrid were going to make it a 1-2, barring any other crashes. But the sweep was now in jeopardy unless Mia could get closer to-
OH WAIT
-I barely had time to register the thought before out from around the field section emerged Mia, now well ahead of Antonia and closing back in on Acadia and Astrid. With an awesome display of composure from Mia in the second half of the race, the back-to-back podium sweep was complete! Acadia charged furiously up the final few short hills looking like she could head right out for a third lap, and for the second race in a row Astrid proved that she has the ability to dig so deep that I think I can see her soul starting to drift away from her body as she barely hangs onto conscious thought and the ability to move her legs.
“I feel like I physically aged three years after that race,” blurted an exhausted Mia at the finish.
“I think you aged three years emotionally after that race,” I replied.
Making some MNC history!
But even after the excitement of sweeping both days, there was still one more race to go on this coastal edge of the New England ski world: It was time for the rematch between Jorgen and Matthew.
With the MNC boys clearly visible on the start line thanks to their matching orange hunting hats (Isaiah Bowen style) it was easier than ever to glance through the woods and see how things were shaping up throughout the race. James and Isaiah started off in the back of the “peloton” but moved up and up throughout the race, finding their best finishes yet. Liam got a taste of the tougher side of the Quarry Road trails, but will be back for the BKL Fest in March with a level of experience he’s never had before.
At the front of the race, two skiers broke away and were locked in a back-and-forth battle much like the day prior. The only difference was, this was playing out in real time, and it was even tighter than 5 seconds at a pop. Often skiing in adjacent tracks, rather than one-behind-the-other, Matthew and Jorgen might as well have been engaged in a choreographed kung fu battle. Matthew would make a push over the top of a hill, and Jorgen would catch him on the corresponding downhill. Jorgen would push into the start of a climb, and Matthew would be forced to respond.
In the end, how else could it possibly end but with a sprint finish and a lunge for the line? You’ll have to watch yourself to see how it played-out:
Yup, it was win #2 in a row for Jorgen! But even though Kristen captured the footage above (which was further validated by the official Bullitt Timing finish camera) it was an unknown outcome for a little bit. In their heads, Jorgen and Matthew might’ve been hoping to come out on top, or hoping the other would end up behind.
But they instead looked around and wondered aloud, “can they just keep it as a tie?”
After two days, two races, and continuous trading of the lead, both would’ve been absolutely fine with a conclusion in which both rivals came out on top and shared the win. It turns out that you can have fierce competition without necessarily having a hero/villain narrative.
