It was another great day of racing at Junior Nationals out in Soldier Hollow Utah today for the freestyle distance mass start races. The U20 men raced 15k first, with a hard fast course, followed by the U18 men who raced 10k under really good conditions. The temps were rising and the course was a lot softer for the U20 women and U18 women 10k races, which followed next. By the time our U16 boys and U16 girls raced their 5k races in early afternoon, the snow was the consistency of mashed potatoes, and it was tough racing out there.

Our Team New England had some nice stand out results today, most notable, U16 Will Koch, SMS, who had his third WIN and third National title in the past 4 days!! U18 Ben Ogden, SMS, also had a stellar race, finishing second, and making this his third podium in the last 4 days too! Congrats to both Will and Ben on some really great racing out here in Soldier Hollow Utah! We had 12 of our athletes finish in the top 10, earning them all an All American award today.

Our thanks go out to Paul Beirman, for sharing these links for PHOTOS from the first three days of racing here at JN’s:

http://www.uvm.edu/~pbierman/JN_2018/Tuesday

http://www.uvm.edu/~pbierman/JN_2018/Wednesday

http://www.uvm.edu/~pbierman/JN_2018/Friday

Click HERE for full results for today Mass Start Freestyle Races.

Click HERE for the most up-to-date Alaska Cup Point standings after three days of racing….New England is still in the lead, but it is a very close race this year! Tomorrow’s relays will be the deciding factor for which team brings home the cup! Racing starts at 9am MT. Catch all the live action at: https://www.xcjuniornationals2018.com/results.html