NENSA News

Press release from Craftsbury Outdoor Center January 29, 2017:

We had over 500 skiers toe the line for the 36th annual Craftsbury Marathon, presented by Fairpoint Communications. True to the spirit of the event, we had competitors who were putting on a bib for the first time to 4-time Olympians: the Marathon is a celebration of skiing in New England, a celebration of winter!
Racers completed 1, 2 or 4 laps of the challenging 12.5k course, with prizes for overall and age/gender groups.

In the BKL 1 Lap, Orion Cenkl and Miley Bletzer led the group home. 2 lap BKLers were paced by Charlie Purcell of GMVS and Ava Thurston and Quincy Massey-Bierman had a battle as they tied after 25k! Vermont High Schoolers completed 1 lap, with U32’s Stephen Looke taking the win on the boys’ side, and his teammate Emma Curchin winning for the Raiders on the girls’ side.

1 Lap men were all bested by Leo Paul Grandbois, of Biathlon Estrie. Notable too was the finish of Dan Cnossen, 2014 Paralympian. The sit-skier was second to Grandbois, on a course that features way more climbing and descending than any over course Cnossen would face in international competition. The 1 lap women’s event was won by GRP skier Kaitlynn Miller.

Recently crowned 30k classic National Champ Ben Lustgarten took the men’s 25k event handily, while Canadian Sheila Kealey took the win for the women.

4-time Olympian and New Hampshire native Kris Freeman took the win by 6 minutes over his Ski and Snowboard Club of Vail teammate, Tad Elliott. It’s Freeman’s 3rd win at the marathon, and the granite stater accomplished this victory double-poling, on skate skis. Mansfield’s Nordic’s Emily Stitt’s women’s 50k win made up in dominance whatever it may have lacked in finish drama. The former Middlebury College skier lead the women home in 3:08.

Thanks to everyone who joined us, and thanks to our generous sponsors:
Fairpoint Communications
Concept2
Outdoor Gear Exchange
Boulder Nordic Sport
Cross-Country Skier

Click here for RESULTS

FIND PICTURES HERE ON FACEBOOK

Seed lists are now posted on the VTCM EC#3 page for both the Saturday sprint qualifiers, and the Sunday distance races.

Over 150 women gathered at the Bethel Village Trails in Bethel, Maine for clinics for all abilities, lunch, an inspirational speaker, a wax clinic, raffle, and a chance to connect to the community of fabulous women in New England this past Sunday. This was the 16^th Annual New England Women’s XC Ski day, which is held at a different venue in New England each year. This day is organized by NENSA and made possible by L.L. Bean and Swix.

The day is also made possible by 20 volunteer instructors, many of whom are former high-level racers, and some who are former Olympians. These women volunteer to teach clinics from beginner to racer, and have come back to Women’s XC Ski Day year after year as instructors. There were also 12 additional volunteers from the Bethel area, who came to help with registration, and lead tours around the trails for those interested.

During lunch, Kristina Sabasteanski, 2 time Olympian in Biathlon, and Director of the Veterans Adaptive Sports and Training, spoke about her trials and tribulations on her path to the Olympics. Her personal story of ups and downs was inspirational, as was as hearing about her important work with VAST. Another highlight at lunch was a few videos from the women of the USST, sending a shout out to all those who were at Women’s XC Ski Day!

This year the benefit organization, Sexual Assault Prevention and Responses Services, received a portion of participants entry fee. They also keep the entire proceeds from the raffle of the one-night stay for two donated by The Bethel Inn Resort raffled off as the grande prize.

Many thanks to our wonderful instructors, The Bethel Inn Resort as the host hotel, The Bethel Village Trails and their staff, L.L.Bean for donating the instructor jackets, Swix for the official Women’s Day hats, all our ski vendors, and of course the volunteers! Thank you to Midge Eliassen for the beautiful photos of the day.

Greetings NENSA EC racers, coaches, and parents –

The scored race results from USSA are up on NENSA.net (RESULTS tab) for the Quarry Road EC#2 weekend.

Due a problem with the timing, the preliminary results for the sprint qualifiers, put out Saturday morning were incorrect, so the overall (top 30) and the U18/U20 afternoon heats had to be invalidated.  Those preliminary qualifier results from Saturday morning, used to populate the open women and open men, and the U18/U20 women and men’s sprint heat brackets for the afternoon races, were incorrectly populated, thus, those afternoon heats results were not valid, and we cannot use the open heats or U18/U20 heats results for JNQ ranking.

Therefore, for JN ranking, we are using the corrected qualifier results for the U18/U20 class.

The U16 heats were correct.

For the seven U16 girls who made the top 30 open heats, they are being scored off their order of finish in the morning qualifier. The remaining U16s girls who made the U16 heats will be scored using their heat results.

The U16 boys will also use their heat results.

The silver lining is, we were able to work with the timer to salvage the correct sprint qualifier results, so they are now valid and correct, and have been scored by USSA for NRL ranking, and by NENSA for JNQ ranking for our U16, U18, U20 racers looking to make the NE JN Team this March.

We apologize for the timing issues at Quarry Road Eastern Cup, and I want you to know that NENSA doing all we can to work with the timers and race organizers, to be sure this does not happen again.

It is our sincere hope, and plan, to have a clean sprint qualifier this coming weekend at Rikert, and valid open, U16 and U18/U20 heats in the afternoon, that we can use for JN qualifying ranking.

It was a great day of racing in Jackson NH this past Saturday January 21^st, for the NENSA One Day Club Championship.  The morning started with low clouds, above freezing, and it almost felt like rain as I left the Eagle Mountain House.  But by race time, the sun was out, and klister was on everyone’s skis!  The course was in great shape – lots of cover and good tracks.

This was my second year participating in the WMC.  I was not sure I was even going to race at the beginning of the week – as work and travel had me worn out.  I decided to just embrace the day, and the chance to get out and actually ski, with my CSU club teammates.  I made the big mistake of grabbing a pair of my daughter’s skis to race on – ones I had never skied on before.  They were sweet skis, but I underestimated the (lack of) depth of the wax pocket, and over klistered my skis.  I had BOMBER kick, and NO glide.  I flew up Yodel and The Wave, but suffered immensely on the flats and downhills.  But I was happy to be out skiing, enjoying the day, and cheering on my teammates as we crisscrossed trails throughout the course.

Jackson does a great job with this annual race.  After, we were all treated to a fantastic lunch provided by all the local business, and served up with smiles by the youth in the Jackson ski program.

The competition for the One Day Club Championship was fierce.  In the end, the Women’s and even the Men’s categories were SO close!

For the Women – there was a tie for first place with NWVE and CSU, with 3 points each, so a tie breaker was invoked, and NWVE earned the title of Club Champion (their next highest racer earned a second place, and CSU a third place); CSU was the second overall; and Stowe Nordic was third, with 4 points

For the Men – NWVE earned the title to Club Champion with 6 points total, CSU was second with 7 points, and Craftsbury was third with 11 points.

CONGRATULATIONS to all the racers and clubs who participated ~ see you all next year!