J2 Championships

CSU Juniors had some pretty good results at the New England J2 Festival last weekend. The races were held at Jackson and the team stayed at the Eagle Mt. House right across the street from where the races were held. Pretty sweet accomodations and no driving! We did have to schlepp all the wax boxes, benches, tent and so on down the hill to the field, but I wasn't complaining.

The weekend started off on Friday afternoon with a 5km skate in very nice weather. Nadja Kern had the top CSU result, finishing 9th, with Hannah Smith in 27th. Chris Burnham was the top CSU boy, coming in a very solid 12th, followed closely by Michael Goldenberg in 15th.

On Saturday I awoke at 6, worried about the forecast of rain all day. But luckily Jackson was in a weather window, with a sleet storm heading off the to the east and the rain way off to the west. So, we settled in for a day of klister waxing, finally settling on Toko Orange with Toko silver mixed in for some added kick. The wax worked for both the morning 5km race and the afternoon classic sprint. Nadja again had the top CSU result with an impressive 3rd place in the girls race and duking it out the entire race with a Vermont girl who just beat her out in the finish straight. Chris Burnham was again the top CSU boy in 37th and followed closely by Neil Garrison in 40th. For the sprint, the boys just squeeked in their race before the rain finally began to fall on the girls. Chris Burnham was the top CSU sprinter while Michael Goldenberg was 49th, Neil Garrison 52nd, Nick Serbedzija 77th and Christian Ladd 82nd. On the girls side Nadja was 8th, Hannah 42nd, Heather Fisher 74th and Kelsey Colpitts 77th.

The last event was the mixed gender relay where the first 2 skiers do classic and the next two skate. Boys scramble and the top Mass team led out the race until the hill and then fell back to 9th and eventually finished in 10th. Once again, after all the rain of the night before, waxing was a bit of a challenge and we finally settled on Toko Multiviola klister with a couple layers of Rode Multigrade hardwax corked in over it. In the final tally Maine overtook Vermont in the relay to take top honors. Vermont was second, NH third and Mass 4th. An excellent weekend of racing!!!