David McCahill – Eastern Cup Sprint (12/20)
Both squads were in training camps during the third week in December and had the opportunity to start their race seasons.
From Alpine Coach Tim Mitchell: The Harvard alpine squad completed a highly productive 10-day training camp at Sugarloaf, Maine. Athletes and coaches alike braved the single digit temperatures and frequent wind to get some much needed gate training before the collegiate season gets underway in less than a month. Snow conditions were optimal every day; with firm consistent snow allowing for some challenging training course sets on a variety of the terrain at Sugarloaf. The snow in the courses held up great and the team was able to get in a lot of quality high-volume training. We were also able to train with the Colby College alpine team a number of days, which helped crank up the intensity of training and get a preview of the competition ahead. The training camp concluded with 4 FIS races, although the final race was cancelled due to high winds and drifting snow from the previous night’s storm. We enjoyed some good early season results given the limited amount of time on snow prior to this training camp. Caroline McHugh overcame poor start positions in both SL’s to finish 36th and 38th and was on her way to a fantastic GS result but crashed 2 gates from the finish (she was in 9th place at the first split-time check). Chris Kinner beat a number of top collegiate skiers in GS to place 12th in one race, while Kevin McNamara had a career-best result, moving from a start position of 51 to finish 16th on the day in GS, beating a number of top collegiate skiers in the process. Brad Alvarez and Alec Boardman also made big strides in qualifying for and competing in their first non-colegiate FIS races, this experience should prove valuable come collegiate races season! All in all it was a great camp and the athletes put forth tremendous effort over the course of the camp.
From Nordic Coach Chris City: The nordic team spent five days training and racing at Stowe from December 17-21. As at Thanksgiving camp, the white stuff arrived just before we did and made for some very nice skiing. The emphasis at Thanksgiving was on classic technique and so during this camp we worked on improving skate technique as well as sharpening fitness for racing. On Saturday and Sunday the team kicked off the race season at the NENSA Eastern Cup Opener, a two-day event at the Trapp Family Lodge. In classic sprint racing on Saturday, sophomore Cara Sprague took top honors for the team by advancing to the elimination heats with the 24th fastest time on the qualifying timed lap. In her quarterfinal heat, Cara had a slow start and was sitting last going into the final hill. She charged past three skiers in the last 350 meters, including skiers from Colby and UVM who had faster qualifying times, and narrowly missed advancing to the semi-finals. Cara finished 14th overall in the event. Junior Audrey Mangan missed qualifying for the heats by four seconds. On Sunday, senior captain David McCahill led all Harvard finishers with a 34th place finish in the men’s 10km Skate race in heavy snow, wind and cold temperatures. Cara was again the top Harvard skier in the women’s 5km Skate, and was closely followed by freshman Shannon Mulshine and captain Anna Schulz. Complete results can be found at www.nensa.net. The Eastern Cup series is the primary route for qualifying for the Junior National Championship and attracts top high school and college racers from across New England. The weekend’s racing included participants from our EISA competitors Dartmouth, Williams, UNH, UVM, Bates, Colby, St.Michael’s, Bowdoin and Middlebury. Many thanks to the Schulz family for hosting us in nearby Johnson, Vermont!
