Ole Einar Bjørndalen retires- sadly not an April fools Joke

I am sad to announce the retirement of Ole Einar Bjorndalen.

Ole Einar Bjørndalen retires after six Olympics, 13 medals

NY Olympic Athletes: Lowell Bailey and Tim Burke retired after tying for Gold at the national championships.

http://fasterskier.com/fsarticle/us-biathlon-nationals-rundown-season-ends-soho/

As fans of the sport NYSSRA members will surely miss watching these fine athletes compete. Their achievements (winning just about every biathlon and xc race for nearly 3 decades, and world championship Gold and Silver respectively) were truly inspiring.

Sadly this report is no April fools Joke. This season was just a bit too unusual to attempt to make a strange joke about a ski area becoming a golf course (or short sleeved skinsuits). Reality this season was too peculiar to beat with fiction. All of the unbelievable highlights from the 2017-18 season are true:

We began the season with scarce snow, then were absolutely buried in it but it was too cold to safely host races. By mid January it was nearly all rained away and racers were training on whatever man made snow they could find. Attendance dropped this year over last due to the season’s rough start, and due to low snow issues at ESWG’s and Champs {where Dave P-K beat Brian Halligan and took NYSSRA gold!- oh and GHN- ADK Vauhti pulled off an upset and won the points series!}.- And as of this posting the NYSSRA nordic blog scooped Faster skier with the Bjorndahlen retirement announcement!

Those who stuck with NYSSRA during this weird season were rewarded:

Organizers pulled out all the stops and groomed nice courses dealing with either far too little or too much snow at Osceola, Winona, Glenville, Saratoga, Bristol, Gore, and Lake Placid.

After temps in the 60s with rain in February we enjoyed a lovely post season, with excellent Jr races, fun biathlon races and the first Easter race in years.

As we enjoy an off season filled with endless KM’s of roller skiing, I hope NYSSRA’s die hard racers are looking forward to making the best of next winter. We can’t have races without competitors. We may get a snowy winter, and rainy winter, or something in between like this one. Making the effort and coming out in spite of the less than ideal weather will be the key to making the most of next season.

I hope you will be a part of it.

-Eric Seyse,

Outgoing President NYSSRA Nordic