One final series of high-level, competitive ski racing…
The very end of March…after everything else has come to a close…
When the thought of more late nights waxing, early mornings testing, and stressful race days is weighing heavy…
Not in the warm spring sun but rather in rain, ice, sleet, and slush…
Doesn’t sound too motivating, does it? All of the above was the setting for Supertour Finals this past weekend in Lake Placid.
This race series rotates around the country, only happening in the East every couple of years. It’s not something we ever take a trip to if it involves a plane flight. But a ride across the lake on the ferry? That’s doable.
Even still, I put this out there not as an official trip but more of a “hey, who is interested and does anyone wanna go and split some of the effort and travel and logistics?”
Anders leading his sprint heat
I was in some ways a bit surprised, and in other ways not surprised at all, to primarily see a squad of U16 athletes take up theidea. We had some seasoned veterans like Anders taking part, and a few other athletes making the trip to watch the action and cheer siblings and teammates. But fresh off a big trip to Junior Nationals, I think the best-case-scenario happened for our U16s…this younger crew got even MORE excited about skiing than they already were. Going into a race series knowing you are tired, knowing the front of the field is literally comprised of some of the best skiers in the WORLD, and grinding out the hardest courses in the country is not usually a welcome adventure many would take up willingly.
Rather than this Supertour “Finals” being the closing of a book, I think this can be viewed as just the ending of one chapter as the page turns to the next. It wasn’t so much “this is the end, finally we’re done” but more like “this is a preview of what the future could look like in my skiing.”
Relay squad of James (CL), Astrid (CL), Jorgen (SK), Mia (SK). Plus #1 fan Bella! Photo by Laura McIntosh
One of the coolest races they include at Supertour Finals is the Club Relay. From the top pros to clubs like ours, everyone gets to toe the start line together. While the front of the field featured epic battles among World Cup stars, there was a whole separate pack [not that far behind] featuring New England teams like MNC, Ford Sayre, Craftsbury, SMS, and GMVS.
Throughout the trip we shared a wax cabin with Ford Sayre, and used radios to communicate across the parking lot to the GMVS trailer: all of our coaches were working together to test different waxes and help prepare skis. It was fun to continue a lot of the collaborations that have taken place over the past few years.
Mid-race carnage for James
We had three Juniors (Astrid, Mia, Anders) make the heats in Friday’s sprint race, as well as epic battles in the 15 kilometer mass start on Sunday.
That last race was something special. It was the longest race for everyone involved, especially the U16 squad who are all high school freshmen. After a year of me holding them back from workouts and races (no 5km project for this age group, shorter timetrials, different structure to intervals, etc) I let go of the reins for this last one of the season. It was epic!
Anders battled a crash that sent him off the course near the same spot where Virginia took a long tumble down through the fencing at JNs last year, while James skied in a pack throughout that featured many of his U16 teammates from Utah like Eli McEnany and Matthew Northcott. On the last 5km lap, he suddenly wasn’t appearing with them anymore…did he hit the wall, I wondered? Was this race too much? Nope, turns out he just had a ski break in half! Sometimes things happen that are just too crazy to be in your control…the good news is that we won’t be needing classic skis for about 8 months or so…
In the women’s race the announcer and Bullitt Timing were keeping track of not only the 40km open race but also the 15km Junior race featuring U20 collegiate athletes all the way through the U16s and even one U14 racer in the field. It was a runaway win for Ally Wheeler, one of the top Juniors in all of the US. Behind was 2024 JN champ and 2025 Eastern Cup overall champ Lea Perreard from Ford Sayre. Other names were rattled off as the splits came in every other kilometer or so…Beth McIntosh, Greta Kilburn, kids from out west, etc…
However as the race went on the loudspeakers started to crackle with the names “Mia Gorman” and “Astrid Longstreth” further and further up the list. These two were charging!
Pros, Olympians, NCAA skiers, you name them. I don’t think there were two skiers racing as aggressively, with as strong technique, or as much sharp energy, as these two skiers at the 15km mark. This clip is from the hill leading into the 10 kilometer mark…twice the distance these two usually raced this season. And they didn’t slow down for the next 5km, either!
With such strong skiing and great pacing, Mia and Astrid moved themselves into 3rd and 5th for the Juniors, a pretty astounding effort in a small but extremely competitive field. But it reminded me of a coffee mug shared in photos by former Norwegian Olympic champion Oystein Petterson. A white mug with small black wording:
I think the key takeaway here is not being super fast as a U16, but being able to race a bit amongst the next level up and know ok, I can do this, and this is what it will take. Not closing the book and accepting the success you already have written, but turning the page and getting a glimpse at how the next chapter might start, if you’re willing to keep reading and working. So that’s the cliffhanger ending to the ’24/’25 season I suppose…
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