Last Updated: 29.Jan.2019

Last weekend was a busy one for Craftsbury juniors, putting bibs on all over the globe! Most of the U16 and U18 crew headed to Lake Placid for the combined Eastern Cup and SuperTour event, while some of the youngsters tested out Paintball Biathlon at Mountain Top, and Abbee Streinz raced in Estonia. Also, one intrepid racer participated in the Silver Fox Trot the previous weekend. 

The Lake Placid races were a combined SuperTour and Eastern Cup, so they drew a large and competitive field. None of our juniors raced in Friday’s SuperTour event, but they hit the ground running on Saturday for the freestyle sprints. In the women’s qualifier, Quincy Massey-Bierman qualified for the open heats in 25th and the 1st U16. Adrienne Remick was 36th (6th U18), Camille Bolduc was 52nd (8th U16), and May Lamb was 92nd (21st U16). On the men’s side, Griffin Wright led the way in qualifying with a blistering pace good for 22nd (2nd U18). Greyson Davis was 43rd (9th U20), Jack Young was 45th (11th U18), and Aiden Casey was 62nd (6th U16). Cormac Leahy was 76th (7th U16), Linden Stelma-Leonard was 95th (13th U16), Makail Tipton was 109th (42nd U18), and Tzevi Schwartz was 111th (23rd U16). Heat results were not available when this article was written.

Sunday brought more exciting racing, with classic mass starts of varying distances for all. The men raced 15k, again led by Griffin with a tie for 25th place, (1st U18) followed by Jack in 62nd (19th U18). Makail was 68th (23rd U18) and Greyson was 69th (25th U18). The U16 boys raced 5k, where Tzevi was 8th, Cormac 10th, and Linden 29th. Adrienne was the sole CNSC junior in the women’s 10k, where she finished 31st (7th U18). In the girls 5k, Quincy crossed the line first, followed by Camille in 8th. May Lamb was 12th and Maggie McGee was 25th. 

A few BKL’ers headed to Mountain Top in Chittenden, VT for the annual Paintball Biathlon race. In this race, competitors ski and try to hit targets with a paintball gun. Unlike a traditional biathlon race, time is subtracted for each hit, rather than added for each miss! It was a “gnarly, snowy, windy” day, which makes biathlon much more difficult. In the 1st and 2nd grade boys race, Charlie Sterner was 3rd, with 2 hits. In the 3rd and 4th grade boys race, Henry Sterner was 2nd with 2 hits, while Thomas Kehler was 4th with either 0 or 2 hits (it depends who you ask!). In the 5th and 6th grade boys race, Sam Dunn was 4th with 8 hits. 

Across the pond, Abbee Streinz joined 11 other U18 athletes for a ten day long training and race U18 Scandinavian Cup trip in Otepaa, Estonia. The trip kicked off with a 1.3k classic sprint. Here Abbee qualified in 27th, where there were four American ladies within 0.4 seconds of each other! After the heats, she finished the day in 27th. The following day, the women raced a 5k skate, where Abbee finished 12th and the 2nd American. The series wrapped up with a relay, where Abbee teamed up with two other Americans for 5th place, only one second from 4th. 

Last weekend, Soren Stelma-Leonard travelled to Ripton, VT for Ford Sayre’s annual Silver Fox Trot. He finished 14th in the 5th/6th grade boys race.

Also of note, Anna Schulz was part of the service team that prepared skis for a very successful World Juniors and U23 Championships, which saw the first gold medal performance from at American relay team at this level!

It’s exciting that we have some many juniors racing in so many different places! Racing continues this weekend with the Craftsbury Marathon.

See results from Lake Placid, Otepaa, and the Silver Fox Trot.