Ok so I missed posting about a few weekends, and here we are back from Nationals. This year the Cornell team had 6 members skiing at Nationals, and they were: Andrew Courtney (Sr), Chris Mui (Fr), Owen Skinner (Fr), Patrick Nadeau (Fr), Beth Esponnette (So), and Bridget Hass (So). It was the first time at Nationals for all of them.

We would have had an experienced nationals competitor with Melinda Mcaleese but due to an extremely awfully timed concussion she was unable to make the trip. The Cornell team missed her experience and enthusiasm on the trip.

We rented a house near Bethel that turned out great, lots of space, enough beds so no one had to sleep on the floor, and a hot tub!

The first race of the week on Tuesday was the 1.4k classic sprint. The top 10 times from the qualifier would move on to the finals under the lights that evening. Unfortunately the Cornell team missed out on qualifying for the finals, Andrew was only a few seconds out of 10th place and also crashed during the qualifier. Owen Skinner had a great race finishing 17th. Chris Mui was not far back in 20th and Patrick Nadeau finished 32nd. On the women’s side Beth also just missed out finishing 11th and Bridget Hass skied well to finish 23rd. Though disappointed about not being in the finals, we were glad to get some rest instead of racing two more laps on the brutal sprint course.

The next morning was the 15k classic, and the weather made the competition really interesting. While racing hard sleet and snow rapidly fell, filling in the tracks and stinging our eyes. By the time the men’s race started there was only one track for most of the course, and this was a mass start with an extremely tight pack, the top twenty were all in a line packed with a few seconds for most of the first lap. Andrew finished in 14th place, Owen in 24th, Chris in 27th, and Patrick in 32nd. For the girls race Beth raced hard to finish in 10th place, the first All-Ameri can of the week! Bridget powered through the course to finish 20th - and this is just her first year skiing…

After the classic race the team had a break the next day, which they used to catch up on homework, go hot-tubbing, and travel down to Auburn to visit Beth’s family. On Friday the team drove back up to Black Mountain for the last individual event, the 8.5k skate race. In my opinion it was one of the hardest races I’ve skied in - high school hill (which is a brutal long and steep hill that follows a number of other climbs) had to be skied up twice. Andrew made All-American in his last chance ever finishing 10th just ahead of a number of other skiers. Chris and Owen finished close to each other in 25th and 26th place, and Patrick came in 32nd. Watching the finishers come in a number of them fell to the ground for awhile after the race, I for one could barely stand at all for several minutes. On the women’s side the racing was just as intense with Beth finishing 15th and Bridget in 23rd.

The 8.5k skate was the last of the individual races, and Andrew and Beth both achieved 10th place overall, making them both 2nd team All-Americans.

On Saturday morning there was one final race, the 3×5k relay. The first leg was classic with the other two skate. In the men’s race Chris Mui started the first leg with an awesome sprint to enter the woods in 3rd place. The other competitors eventually caught up with Chris though he skied hard to tag off Owen for the 2nd lap. Owen had a nice final race for his freshman year, picking up some time on the Paul Smith’s skier in front of him and tagged off to Andrew for the anchor leg. Andrew caught the Paul Smith’s skier to give the team a 5th place finish. The women’s team only had Beth and Bridget, so they teamed up with super-fast skier Clare Egan of Wellesley for their relay. They all skied hard to finish in 6th out of the total 10 relay teams.

Saturday evening was the banquet, and the nordic skiers represented by dressing way better than the piners and snowboarders (especially the boarders). After the banquet we continued the traditional nordic teams get-together “milk and cookies” party which was a great success.

Though I’m glad to get some rest from traveling and practices, as a graduating senior I know I’m really going to miss this team. This year has been an extremely enjoyable and rewarding season, and I believe my teammates are some of the best people to be around as well as some of the best student athletes at Cornell. Also many props go out to the other teams in our league as well as volunteers and coordinators like Amy Lane. As much as we like to compete with teams like Clarkson, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a more sportsmanlike and welcoming race environment than in our USCSA races. It truly is an excellent opportunity for xc skiers to continue racing in college without losing the sheer enjoyment of the sport.

Andrew

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