Nordic skiers do great at Ishpeming
Podiums, gold medals for Sun Valley
For 15 Sun Valley Junior Nordic ski team racers, it was a
memorable week of great striving and frequent successes at the 2001 Junior
Olympics Cross-Country Championships on the shores of Lake Superior.
Two gold medals and several podium efforts encouraged Sun
Valley head coach Rick Kapala and assistant Chris Hall and Ali Deines
along the trails at Suntrac Nordic Ski Center in Ishpeming, Mich.
Kaelin Kiesel, 15, daughter of former U.S. Nordic champ
Alison Owen, was a big story for Sun Valley.
Highlight was the first-place finish of Kiesel in Friday’s
J2 5-kilometer classical race. Competing in her third JOs, Kiesel
(16:29.5) won the 55-skier class by 41 seconds—biggest winning margin of
all the diagonal races that day. Last March Kaelin was fifth.
Indeed, Kiesel’s classical finish bettered all 72 of the
older J1 girls and was the fourth-fastest of all 168 female competitors at
Ishpeming.
"Kaelin just destroyed the field," said Kapala.
"She was sick when we first got to Junior Olympics
and didn’t take part in the sprints. And she wasn’t sure until five
minutes before Wednesday’s skate race that she was going to do it, then
ended up fourth.
"We figured if fourth was her result when she wasn’t
feeling super great, how would she do in classic, which is her event?
Well, she is very determined and composed and doesn’t panic, and
obviously she was on her game."
Kiesel was so dominant that the coaches put their heads
together and took a chance that she could move up from J2 and take part in
the showcase J1 Junior Olympic relay.
They entered Kiesel in the older class and she played a
big role in another gold medal for the Intermountain Division. That was
Saturday’s 3x5k J1 female relay.
Once again Kiesel posted the top classical time, 17:07.
Sara Studebaker of Boise followed with a super 17:26 classical leg and
Kristina Trygstad-Saari, 16, of Bozeman finished 16:31 in freestyle giving
Intermountain a 35-second victory at 51:05.
Both Studebaker and Trygstad are first-year J1s while
Kiesel is a second-year J2. Kiesel and Trygstad were teammates on last
year’s gold medal J2 girls’ relay team, and Trygstad won Wednesday’s
J1 10k skate race, just one year after taking the J2 skate championship at
JNs.
Other local highlights included the J2 boys’ class,
which Sun Valley dominated behind Mike Sinnott (2nd freestyle, 4th
classical) and Robert Slough (3rd freestyle).
"The J2 boys were just on fire," said Kapala.
In relays, Slough (11:59) skated classical and Sinnott
(9:44) freestyle on the gold medal 3x3k J2 boys’ squad with Casey Simons
of Park City. "Casey pounded the opening leg and Robert just buried
the second," said Kapala. They won by 34 seconds.
Andrew Slough was on the second-place J1 boys’ relay
squad, posting the third-best opening leg, and also finished eighth in
classical racing;
Jess Kiesel ended up ninth in OJ classical; while Ashley
McQueen was sixth in freestyle for the J1 girls and logged the
second-fastest skate leg in the J1 girls’ relay.
In the team standings, Intermountain (940 points) even
with negligible points in the OJ category was fourth of nine teams behind
untouchable Alaska (1560), New England (1072) and Midwest (965).
Higher placings in the March 5 sprints might have boosted
Intermountain into second place. But Kapala said it was a tough weather
day for the sprints, with low visibility, pounding snow and gusting winds
off Lake Superior.
Next for Sun Valley is the team banquet Sunday, March 18
at 6 p.m. at Elkhorn Resort.
In all, there were 333 racers in the OJ through J2
classes. OJ and J1 boys ran 15k freestyle and 10k classic; OJ and J1 girls
competed in 10k freestyle and 5k classic; while J2 boys and girls skied 5k
freestyle and 5k classic.
Abbreviations are sprints (SP), freestyle (FR), classical
(CL) and relays (RE). Placings by race follow:
· OJ boys: Dartmouth’s Matt Stevenson
7-SP, 25-FR, 6-CL, 5-RE; and Jess Kiesel 21-SP, 16-FR, 9-CL, 7-RE (52
racers).
· OJ girls: Josie Bradford 36-SP, 29-FR,
29-CL, 15-RE (36 racers).
· J1 boys: Andrew Slough 17-SP, 21-FR, 8-CL,
2-RE; Matt DeCarufel 35-SP, 46-FR, 16-CL, 7-RE in OJ; Bryce Turzian 41-SP,
23-FR, 30-CL, 9-RE; and Eric Hamlin 54-SP, 42-FR, 28-CL, 9-RE (68 racers).
· J1 girls: Ashley McQueen 10-SP, 6-FR,
28-CL, 7-RE; Ashley Wells 47-SP, 47-FR, 32-CL, 13-RE; and Kelley Sinnott
53-SP, 63-FR, 45-CL, 15-RE (72 racers).
· J2 boys: Mike Sinnott 3-SP, 2-FR, 4-CL,
1-RE; Robert Slough 2-SP, 3-FR, 6-CL, 1-RE; and Jackson Harris 32-SP,
15-FR, 24-CL (50 racers).
· J2 girls: Kaelin Kiesel 4-FR, 1-CL, 1-RE
in J1; Erin Magee 16-SP, 19-FR, 38-CL, 7-RE; and Alissa Praggastis 25-SP,
21-FR, 23-CL, 15-RE in OJ (55 racers).
