Great Day at the Nordic Races!

We had an awesome day watching the nordic races today.  Dimitri and Will worked together and both threw races into the top 20.  Freshman, Will had amazing race with and 11th place finish, 5th for the east.  There were super intense hills out there and the field was amazingly dense.  The weather was unbeatable.  It was bluebird sky with temperatures into the 50s.  The mass start is great to watch because its just head to head competition.  It was a fun day.  Congrats Will and Dimitri!

 Also as promised, I have a bunch of pictures to upload from the GS.

Setting the Scene

The start coaches had to hike up a steep pitch to get to the start corral.  Many of us carried multiple pairs of skis up there and everyone admitted/loudly vocalized how surprisingly challenging it was.  It must have been the altitude!  But everyone worked hard to get the start area just right for when the athletes arrived.

UNH coach Victor digs out a prime spot for their start bench

Laurel finishes boot packing her platform 

Victor thinks he did a great job 

Danny finishes the ascent with his Colby flag in hand

St. Lawrence coach, Graham sculpts some snow 

Then the athletes arrive and get ready to rip.

Geordie prepares:

Laurel gets ready to go:

After the race, alumnae Alex congratulates Geordie and Laurel 

Geordie and Kate make up 2 and 3 of the podium 

I got to hang out with Alex which was pretty fun

And he danced for us

Geordie congratulates race winner, Rebecca at the bottom

Teammates hanging out at the bottom 

NCAA Ladies GS top 8 podium.  Nice work in third, Geordie! 

 She shows off her new hardware

And on the way home we realize why we feel so at home here in Montana