What a day yesterday was ~ classic New England weather here in Lake Placid NY! The day dawned with a mix of tissue paper snow, then rain, with low hanging thick clouds – a dreary day – cold and damp. Our amazing wax crew was at the NE wax trailer at 5:30am testing skis and planning wax combos for the day. By 9am, no joke, the sky cleared, the sun came out, and it was a beautiful bluebird day, and temps rose to 42 degrees midday. But by 3pm, thick grey clouds rolled in over the top of the jump site, the wind picked up, and the heats that started in warm sun, suddenly changed to a windy blizzard – it was crazy! But our New England wax techs and athletes are used to this, and stepped up to this challenging weather and racing conditions and came out on top again yesterday, for the classic sprints!

We qualified 35 of our 49 athletes into the afternoon heats, and of those, 29 made the top 20 overall (top 5 of each age group in the top 20 score for AK Cup team points).

By 5pm, we had eight NE athletes on the podiums – including two new National Champions, four sliver medals, and 2 bronze, and every single age group and gender represented on each podium! Way to go New England!

For the U20 women, Julia Kern, SMS Elite, got her second National Title of the week! Alex Lawson, Craftsbury was 10th; Ingrid Thyr of Williams College was 15th; and Annika Landis, Middlebury College was 19th overall.

The U20 men had a podium sweep(!) – with Kamran Husain, SMS, taking the sprint National Title; Finn O’Connell, UVM earning the silver medal; and Daniel Streinz, Mountain Endurance, with the bronze. Koby Gordon, Dartmouth College, was 9th; and Lance McKinney, Mountain Endurance, was 13th overall.

For the U18 women, Rena Schwartz, Craftsbury Nordic, was on the podium for the silver medal! Callie Young, Craftsbury, was also in the A finals, and was 6th; and Phoebe Sweet, Craftsbury, was 20th overall.

For the U18 men, Adam Glueck, Ford Sayre, was on the podium for the bronze medal! James Kitch, CSU was 7th; Elliot Ketchel, GMVS, was 8th; and Connor Munns, SMS, was 9th; Adam Witowski, SMS, was 13th; Walker Bean, GMVS, was 16th; and Russell Boswell, SMS, was 20th overall.

For the U16 girls, Anna Lehmann, SMS, was on the podium for the silver medal! Charlotte Ogden, SMS, was 9th; Olivia Cuneo, GMVS, was 11th; Laura Appleby, CSU, was 18th; and Abigail Streinz, OSI, was 20th overall.

For the U16 boys, Will Koch, SMS, was on the podium for the silver medal! Josh Valentine, Gunstock Nordic, was 7th; Matt Moreau, CSU, was 10th; Tim Cobb, Mansfield Nordic, was 16th; and Griffin Wright, Craftsbury, was 17th overall.

Last night, our athletes enjoyed the mid-week awards ceremony, where medals are awarded to the top 10 athletes in each race so far. That was followed by an ice cream social and ice skating on the 1932 rink.

Tomorrow’s mass start classic races have been changed to interval start races (15k men, 10k women, and 5k for U16’s) due to the venue change last week. Our athletes are previewing the course today as the wax techs continue to nail down the wax for tomorrow.

Team New England continues to lead the points for the AK Cup, but we have tough competition here, and are only half way through the week, so we can not rest on our laurels, and will continue the fight for the AK Cup for the next two races coming up!