Even if you were 100% burnt out on Nordic skiing, you couldn’t overlook Cochran’s Nordic Cross this weekend. This is an incredible event that puts most of the strongest and fastest skiers in the entire country together, and then has them crash and fall spectacularly while wearing ridiculous outfits and costumes.
World Cup and Olympic skiers? Check
NCAA Champion(s)? Check
Junior National Champions? Check
BKL Festival Champions? Check
Regular everyday hardworking skiers? Check
Skiers on waxless fishscales? Check
Skiers on alpine boards? Check
Skiers in race suits? Check
Skiers in inflatable unicorn suits? Check
Nothing is spared at this event…Jimmy Cochran and co put the groomer to work literally carving massive jumps, berms, and banked slopes out of the last remaining snow of the season, and fire up the T-bar for a bunch of Nordies to ride. In heats of 5 these racers start at the top of the mountain and traverse the whole mountain itself. Drops, corners, gates, jumps, climbs, flats, step-downs, hay bales, pond jumps, steeps…there wasn’t a type of terrain that you didn’t see out there.
Ben Ogden, Johnny Hagenbuch, and co. Just a couple Olympic and World Cup skiers (and NCAA Champions) fighting over a hay bale
Now, it’s important to note that as a coach, I find this event extremely important for skiing as a whole. It brings out the fun and the craziness to celebrate the end of the season. But it also promotes skill development, and rewards more than just the old school, Sisyphean training philosophy of “go uphill, rest, go ski long distances, rest, repeat ad-nauseam.”
As I’ve alluded to in previous posts, I’m pretty proud of this club’s ability to handle tricky terrain and transformed conditions. After all, we skied most of our season on artificial ice chunks. Out of necessity we scraped and skidded around most every downhill corner we came across this season, and no amount of Chola binder could keep around all the klister adhered to our bases. After day one, the courses were altered at U16 Championships because the transformed, icy downhills were claiming too much skin…but that hadn’t been a problem for our MNC crew. When they salted the courses at JNs, it was the MNC skiers who stayed on their feet and cruised right around pileups and jumped over broken skis and poles in their way.
Many, many layers of staggered corners and berms, all being negotiated at the same time!
While a goal this coming season is to increase our uphill capacity and ability to push hard when the conditions are slow and tough, it’s nice to end the season playing to our strengths…sketchy snow, technical prowess, and elements that bring out the fear-factor in some (but not us!).
This was likely the most MNC representation ever at Nordic Cross, and of course there were falls and general chaos. But the crew skied great! There were strong performances and even some big wins in all categories, from Oliver Tremble and Fiona Repp taking the titles in the kids race, to Julie Longstreth winning her masters division, to Greta Kilburn winning the whole women’s race (both the whole first round, and the subsequent head-to-head “top 8 final”) ahead of at least two NCAA Champions, 5 World Cup skiers, and a whole host of the top Junior and Collegiate skiers in the country.
Your CHAMP Greta Kilburn, ahead of another MNC name in 2nd place, Ava Thurston!
Oliver Tremble is not known for taking any prisoners out there
Some (like Justin Beckwith here) wore costumes so all-encompassing you’d have no idea who the skier was…
…and some (like Jonah) wore as little as possible: he paid the price by falling and getting the first “road rash” of the season, well before rollerskiing has even begun
There are a couple events like this around the country, but I don’t think anybody does it as well as Cochran’s does. The ski community owes a big thanks to Pennie Rand, Jimmy Cochran, Eli Enman, and all the other facilitators who came up with this concept, made it into a reality, and keep expanding it year-after-year. Over 200 skiers were competing on Sunday! And I doubt anybody had less than a great time.
Event founder Pennie Rand in her element!
Nordic Cross Results (Bullitt Timing)
