Craftsbury, VT - The Nordic team had a good first day of racing Friday at the UVM Carnival at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center in northern Vermont. The format for the classic sprint was a little different than normal. 50 skiers, rather than 30, qualified for the head-to-head rounds where they would ski in heats of 10, rather than the typical heat size of 6. The Mules were ready for the change and qualified a total of 14 athletes into the rounds, 5 women and 9 men.
Lola Villafranco led the women's team skiing powerfully all the way into the final finishing in a career best 9th,
Jodie Maguire made it into the semifinals finishing in a career best 14th,
Natalie O'Brien finished in 25th,
Nyla Scott finished 38th, and
Lydia Kraker finished the day in 46th. It was really awesome to have two career best finishes for the women on the same day!
The men also had a really good day, qualifying nine into the quarter finals.
Ben Lewis led the team with scrappy skiing as the 10-person rounds made for really close quarters, and despite getting stepped on numerous times and narrowly missing a crash, he still made his way all the way into the final, finishing in 9th.
James Underwood found his way into the semifinals finishing in 16th,
Matous Matousek finished in 22nd just narrowly missing advancing to the semis by only 2 hundredths of a second.
Andrew Defor finished 25th,
Finn Christiansen finished in 27th,
Simon Goldstein with his best ever result finishing 30th,
Tyler Watt in 31st,
Clint Macy in 32nd, and
Ellis Slover in 48th.
As a team the men finished 5th and the women finished 7th on the day. The second day of racing will feature a 10 kilometer individual start skate race for Saturday.
Women's results
Men's results
