With a club representation of 10 athletes, an East Coast venue, and a strong season behind us, this was sure to be a Junior Nationals for the record books. My bigger thoughts on JNs as a whole will follow in a separate post, but below I wanted to share some numbers, finishes, and stats that show just what we achieved as a club this season.
10 Athletes on the JN team
This is historic for the club, borderline unprecedented for New England clubs, and one of the most (if not the most) impressive things an MNC Junior group has ever achieved. Just making the NE team belies a certain skillset that, as subsequent bullet points here will show, is among the top in the nation. The fact that about 20% of the entire New England team was comprised of MNC athletes is actually a bit overwhelming, in the best way possible.
All groups represented
Not only did our club qualify 10 athletes, we had a rare distinction of representation in every gender and age group. Races are divided out as such for JN races, and that meant that every. single. race. every. day. had at least one MNC athlete competing.
U16F: Kate, Brooke
U16M: Jonah
U18F: Gillian, Elsa, Julia
U18M: Anders
U20F: Virginia, Greta
U20M: Nico
This speaks to incredible depth, but also breadth of programming. Brooke is an 8th grader, and Nico and Greta both attend UVM. Not only can our club support middle school athletes just beginning their journey, we have now developed an informal-but-competitive post-grad program for athletes in college to earn spots on NCAA teams.
The nature of an always-changing Junior landscape means this amazing championship of all groups represented might be a little bit of “lightning in a bottle” but it indicates that we can do it, and we can support and help all of these different athletes achieve their goals!
Greta is NATIONAL CHAMPION (x3!)
Greta had a heck of a week…I think there were a lot of skiers from other regions with visions of winning who did not expect this unheard-of skier from Burlington to throw down quite so much. Greta was 2nd in the freestyle race on day one, but then followed that up with convincing wins in the classic sprint and classic mass start, before helping her U20 team to a relay title.
Just a note on classic sprinting, which I’ve referenced before on this blog…our club has a definite affinity for this format. Classic sprints have been contested at Junior Nationals 5 times since 2014, and MNC has won a national titled in 4 of those 5 contests:
2014: Forrest Hamilton
2015: (Not a classic sprint, but Henry Harmeyer won the skate sprint title this season)
2017: N/A
2019: Aidan Burt
2022: Ava Thurston
2024: Greta Kilburn
Anders on podium in CL Sprint
If there was one race that a particular individual on our team had been thinking about more than any other, you had to say it was Anders with his eye on this classic sprint. By starting the day with a win in the U18 qualifier, the mark was established. With strong and confident performances all day, things could’ve ended in disaster with a collision around the last corner. It was a battle for 2nd place, as the eventual-winner Murphy Kimball (recently-anointed World Cup sprinter from earlier in the season, likely never in doubt for the overall win) cruised ahead. Anders and another skier went down, and while one athlete snuck by for 2nd place, Anders had already demonstrated enough speed to pull far enough ahead to still secure the final podium position!
Extra cool that on sprint day, a bunch of MNC athletes drove over to cheer!
8 All-American finishes
The MNC skiers took home 8 All-American honors total! This is a top-10 in individual races, or a top-5 finish for a relay team. All-American skiers include:
Greta Kilburn (2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st)
Anders Linseisen (3rd)
Virginia Cobb (8th)
Nico Hochanadel (9th)
Brooke Greenberg (4th relay)
There were so many other close calls as well, with 11th- and 12th-place finishes for Kate, Gillian, and Jonah, respectively.
22 individual top-30 finishes/7th club score
The top-30 is a mark in much of skiing. It’s often where the “points” start, and a sign that you’ve not just participated but actually ‘arrived’ in a sense, at a given level. I’m super proud that all of our MNC athletes recorded top-30 finishes, and 22 in total!
These points also count toward the club score, where MNC finished an impressive 7th overall.
While there are a few clubs ahead of us that motivate me to keep working hard (and clubs I know we can ski faster than) it’s pretty darn cool to be ahead of some big names, some programs with significantly greater funding and resources, and more.
MNC at the front of the pack!
