What a week in our sport. Thin snow, bitter cold, and making the front page for the worst reasons:
First off: sign up for more racing on skireg. You can race for free at crandall park. This happens every Thursday Night while there is snow 6-6:30 start.
This weekend there is a 10K classic (Saturday), a 10K Skate (Sunday)- and in honor of the old Empire state winter games, the events will be scored together for those who decide to ski both. There is a virtual option for those so inclined.
There will be prizes: Overall winners and some random bib # draws with a pole repair kit from US ski poles, some hats, and toko water packs. Due to the raffle nature of the prizes there will be no issues with amateur status for athletes. Conditions are good, and an extra 3″ this week should mean blue hardwax conditions, and smooth skating on Sunday. The whole trail system should be in play for 5K m loops.
On Sunday racing is also on at Gore:– and JNQ’s are in Rochester this weekend.
Then sign up for the Tourathon or the Garnet Hill fest the following weekend.
Racing this past weekend was very competitive. On the Biathlon Side Van Ledger continued his streak on top of the Podium- over a seasoned crowd of Biathletes {youth 1- Experience 0}. On Saturday Winona forest hosted their try it races. Results for the Tour Try it: Classic & Free– are up on Webscorer. First the Classical (where 2018 Tourathon 50K champ Matt Tornianan took the top spot. However that was just his warm up. Matt Flipped the script from NYSSRA champs back in 2019 and slid his boot out ahead of 2019 NYSSRA Champion Eric Schreiner. For those keeping score that is Experience 2 Youth 1.
In the Women’s freestyle Race Katrin Schreiner took the top spot ahead of Olympian Deb Nordyke. So the Youth verses experience races ended in a tie.
On a sad note Our sport was front page news again. Unlike when Jessie Diggins won Tour De Ski gold, this was negative. One of the worlds best sprinters tried his hand at a Rugby tackle. Sportsmanship was nowhere to be found as the bottom podium spots were decided in the Mens 4x 7.5K relay. After Norway won gold, Finland took aggressive lines making it a challenge to pass. When it became clear that Silver was off the table for team Russia 1’s Bolshunov, he hit his opponent first with a pole, and then with a full body tackle. Don’t try this at home kids. This resulted in disqualification, a broken ski binding (bad marketing for those new style IFP skis & bindings), and a stern warning from coaches including USA’s Matt Whitcomb that this conduct would typically result in ejection from the team- not just the race.
To end this sad tale on a positive note, have a look at how this story should have ended. 18 years ago titans of the sport treated each other with courtesy before sprinting to glory.
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