World Skimo Championships - Vertical Race

Another great day of racing in Pelvoux.  Today was the vertical race which is basically a bottom to top drag race with 610M of climbing.  Keeping the post short tonight as we have been having a continual debacle with broken down rental cars and due to that we need to drive 2 hours to Turin tomorrow to drop Tom, Dom, and Andy off at the airport and then drive back to Pelvoux for the Relay Race on Friday.  

The US is still in 9th place and Janelle is our points leader with 126 points.  Here are the current standings. Here are the US Points holders.

Here are some great photos

 

Scott Simmons climbing

Greg Ruckman 

Janelle coming into the finish for 13th

Stevie coming into the finish in 15th place

The 2013 US National Skimo Team

World Skimo Championships - Senior/Espoir Individual

Today was the showcase race of the World Championship series.  All of the top US racers were anxiously awaiting for this race.  For the US men we had John, Tom, Max, Marshall, and Matt racing.  For the women we had Janelle, Stevie, Nina, McKenna, and Meredith.  As always we had a race briefing last night to inform the racers of the course conditions, weather, gear requirements, and any section of course they need to be aware of. 

Our US Press member (Mark Smiley) was able to secure himself a seat on the media helicopter.  It was great to look up and see Mark hanging out the door of the heli while I was cheering at the top of the course.

Mark in heli

As usual, the race had a crazy fast start.  The race only had 3 climbs of 750M, 785M, and 150M for men.  The women's 2nd climb was only 470M.  The course was amazing.  The first climb was from the base of Pelvoux with a single booter.  The second climb had 2 booters (1 for the women) and climbed up a an amazing ridge line to well above the upper lift at Pelvoux.

 The racers were treated to a fantastic powder descent, then a final, short climb for another powder run followed by a mix of groomers and moguls to the base of the mountain.

Men's Race Start

 

Photos from the heli

Killian in the lead at the booter

John deep in the pain cave

Tom booting

Marshall

Max

Janelle

Nina

McKenna

Meredith on the transition

 

Meredith happy to be done

Most of Team North America: McKenna, Nina, Janelle, Meredith and Canadians Carla and Mel

The US is still in 9th place and Janelle is our points leader with 93 points!

 

Tomorrow is the vertical race.  The vertical race is basically a king of the hill race with racers going from the bottom to top as fast as possible.  There are no booters, it is just a pure uphill race as quickly as possible with racers going fully anaerobic the entire time.  

 

 

World Skimo Championships - Junior Individual

 

The US has their first ever Junior racer this year, Micah Thatcher. Micah raced the sprint on Monday and had the Junior Individual today. Due to avalanche danger the race course was modified and moved from Pelvoux to Puy St Vincent. The race would be 5 laps with 2 booters so in the 1,350M of climbing there would be 13 transitions. Micah is less than 2 weeks after turning 17, but since his birthday is in this calendar year, he is competing with the 18-20 year olds which is a huge challenge since many of these kids have 5+ years experience as opposed to Micah's 1.5 years.

The great news we have today is that the US is ranked #9 over all in the World Championships!!! Junior and Espoir racers are critical to getting points.  Here is a breakdown of the US Points.  You can check out some daily videos at the webffmetv YouTube channel.

Micah went out strong and was doing great. His downhill skills were allowing him to catch racers in front of him. After straight lining about 400M of his 3rd descent, his ski hit something and sent him flying. Luke, Meredith, and I were watching this from the checkpoint above. We knew something was wrong when he didn't take off right away so we descended to him as quickly as possible. We found that he had snapped his ski in half. We took his ski from him and he continued descending to the next checkpoint. Luke and I quickly started looking for a replacement ski for him and were lucky enough to find an Italian with the same sole length that was willing to lone him his skis for the final 2 descents. We went back up the lift and met Micah at the top of his next ascent. He had lost only 3-4 minutes from his mishap and was gaining ground back on the racer in front of him. We waited for him on his next ascent and it was taking longer than we expected. When we met him on his 5th climb, we learned that on his 4th descent he had broken a boot so he now had 1 boot that did not have a ski mode and that meant that he was basically skiing in a hiking boot. We met Micah at the finish line where he was exhausted, but had successfully completed a difficult race where he had very bad luck.

 

Micah at the start

Micah at the top of the first climb

Micah at the top of the 2nd climb

 

Transition 7 of 13

Great Finish with a broken ski and a broken boot!

Luke gave Micah his skis and skied Micah's single ski back down to the base where we headed down to lunch. It was a slow drive down as our rental van still had chains on it and the chains had some broken links so they didn't fit correctly. When we were just about to the bottom, we got a flat tire (remember our rental car also had a flat tire on the drive in from Turin). When we got the spare tire out, we found that the rim was bent and the tire was flat. Micah, Bryce, and Meredith got a ride with the Spanish Team into Pelvoux and Luke and I skinned the rest of the way into town. After a numerous calls to Avis we were finally able to get them to send a tow truck to get the van fixed. We are still working on getting them to replace the car tire. This continues to be a challenge in getting them to take care of their car and van.

Tomorrow's race is the Senior/Espoir Men and Women Individual Race. This will be an amazing course. After trying to deal with the car and van, Kim and I went up to the top of Pelvoux via the lifts, then skinned and booted the top portion of the course. This course is amazing! The top section skins, boots, and skins some more along a narrow ridge. It was great to get out on this section of the course and it also allowed us to ski some great powder. It almost seems wrong to ski 40cm of fresh snow on race skis!

Chad on the ridge of the Men's Individual Course

Looking up the ridge of the Men's Individual Course at La Blanche

 

World Skimo Championships - Sprint Race Recap

Correction from Sunday.  Andy and Tom were 20th and not 21st. Here is a great video of Sunday's Team Race.

Today set a new precedence, the US earned their first ever podium position at a World Championship race. Nina Silitch won Silver Medal in the Senior Women's Sprint Race.  The team is very excited and we are getting a lot of great feedback from other countries and the ISMF about the huge amount of progress the US has made in the last few years.

The Sprint is a fun, fast paced race.  It is ~100M of ascent including a few switchbacks and a booter, followed by a giant slalom downhill and an uphill skate finish.  The entire race takes 2.5-4 minutes. All of the racers get to race in time trial format (alone on the course) for a single qualification run, then the top racers compete 6 at a time for quarter finals, semi finals, and finals.

The US had 6 men (4 seniors, 1 espoir, and 1 junior)

  1. Andy D
  2. Tom G
  3. Luke N
  4. Max T
  5. Matt B (Espoir)
  6. Micah T (Junior)

We had 2 women

  1. Nina S
  2. Meredith E

The learning lesson for lots of us was that we need more sprint races in the US that match the format of the European races.

 

Sprint Course

Luke descending

In the booter transition

Nina accepting her Silver Medal and making the US Proud!

Tomorrow is the Junior/Cadet Individual Race.  Due to all the snow in the last 24 hours and the high avalanche danger they are running a modified course fully in bounds on Put St Vincent.

For a racer perspective visit Andy Dorais or Luke Nelsons blogs.

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