March 12, 2008
Intermountain Girls, Alaska Boys Post Sweeps
By Dean Woodbeck
The Intermountain team was the big winner in the girls freestyle competition at the 2008 Junior Olympic cross country ski championships in Anchorage. On the boys side, the host Alaskans posted a clean sweep in the boys J1 race.
Intermountain skiers went 1-2-3 in the OJ girls race, led by Mali Noyes from the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation in Idaho. Two Bridger Ski Foundation skiers – Ase Carlson and Erika Flowers, finished second and third.
Noyes graduated from high school last year and, after a training year working with coach Rick Kapala, will attend Middlebury in the fall. “I thought it was sort of slow, but I tried to focus on skiing where other people had skied it in.”
Intermountain girls captured second place podium spots in the other two races, as well, with Kate Dolan taking second in the J1 and Katie Gill in J2. Jessie Diggins, the Minnesota state champ, won the J1 category, while New England’s Tara Geraghty-Moats won the J2 race.
Alaskans took all three podium slots in the boys J1 race: Max Treinen, Eric Packer and Cole Talbot (in that order) – all skiing for the Alaska Winter Starts based in Anchorage. Another Winter Star, Scott Patterson, won the J2 race by a whopping 1:16. Noah Hoffman, from the Intermountain team, won the OJ boys contest.
The freestyle race, originally scheduled for Friday, switched places with the classic race, which is a mass start. Organizers hope the forecast for cooler nights comes true, allowing for additional work on a stadium area that was an ice rink on Monday.
“We pumped water out of the stadium until last night,” said Mike Miller, chief of course. “It got cold enough last night so the tiller could take care of it.” Miller said Kincaid Park’s new Pisten Bully 600 has uplift on the tiller, which allows cutting up to about two inches of hard surface.
Today’s race benefited from a little less two inches of snow that fell overnight. Organizers moved back into the stadium, although they needed to make course adjustments to avoid hilly sheets of ice and a few bare spots that continue to linger.
“We were grooming while it was snowing last night,” said Miller. “Then we went back at 8:00 this morning and re-groomed the north half, but left the south half, which gets more sun, alone.
The girls had the advantage of going first today, with a temperature of 28 degrees at start time.
By the time the last group started – the J1 and OJ boys, groups that did two laps – the temperature had risen above freezing and skiers had turned the course uphills into mashed potatoes.
Thursday is a training day at the JOs, the mass start classic race is Friday, and the event concludes Saturday with team sprints. |
