Archive | Junior Blog

This year, NENSA implemented team scoring to Eastern Cup races. Much like high school running or skiing races, clubs were awarded points for strong finishes by all members, across all age groups in a given Eastern Cup weekend.

MNC came out strong and won the first Eastern Cup in Waterville. 

1. Mansfield Nordic Club
2. Craftsbury
3. EMXC

Next, the team travelled to Lake Placid. While senior team members from the Green Racing Project and SMS T2 scored a lot of points overall, the junior scoring had MNC on top again for EC #2.

1. Mansfield Nordic Club
2. EMXC
3. Ford Sayre

In Craftsbury, a Supertour field meant more pro skiers, but among the junior scoring it was once again MNC taking the top spot in EC #3.

1. Mansfield Nordic Club
2. EMXC
3. Craftsbury

With our club’s strongest racing of the year, possibly ever, the club took a commanding win in Dublin to solidify the full sweep of Eastern Cup weekends.

1. Mansfield Nordic Club
2. EMXC
3. Craftsbury

After a season of racing only within Vermont during the deep winter of the pandemic we knew our skiers were strong, but everyone longed to get back to racing against the rest of the region.

On social media and on the internet in general, I (Adam) have tried to refrain from overtly posting results and wins. Other teams cap off every weekend by highlighting the medals and awards won by their skiers, but there are plenty of great athletes competing for MNC that won’t necessarily win a medal or stand on a podium. The great thing about this team scoring format is that success doesn’t just depend on skiers at the very top: everyone contributes, and our group was motivated throughout the year to prove what they were capable of.

So yes, it’s time to share an announcement about a result and a rank because it was achieved by our whole crew of athletes…

In the 2021/2022 season MNC was the strongest junior team in New England.

Our club has the strength at the top, and the depth throughout the field in all age groups, to take on the best clubs and ski academies in our region and come out on top. But heavy is the head that wears the crown! For sure, our competitors will be training hard to beat us next year, just as we’ll be working hard to stay at the top…that’s what makes everyone stronger!

But for now, I want to congratulate all of the MNC athletes who took part in Eastern Cup races this year. This group of Pugs came out on top!

You can view the NENSA rankings over various events here. Note that Junior scoring occurs on the far right for the Lake Placid and Craftsbury weekends (which omits professional, adult racers).

If you are racing the Eastern HS/U16 Qualifier this Sunday, please see the link below for a virtual team meeting and information. See you on Sunday!

EHS/U16 Virtual Notes

The Pugs of EHS (also featuring Greg Burt who had a killer weekend). Psyched to see so much great racing from this hard-working group!

We’ve become quite fond of video content recently…with GoPro’s left and right these days, it is easier than ever to capture skiing in motion. In the past few weeks as racing has gotten intensely busy, others have stepped-up to capture all of the action. Below I’ll include some cool content from the past couple weeks.

First up is a vlog from our trip to Lake Placid for Eastern Cup #2. Kai produced a great vlog documenting the weekend from the “team trip” group and I think it captures a lot of the fun that happens beyond the racing itself. Although the racing is of course fast and epic!

Next, Craftsbury produced a series of quasi-documentary style videos for Eastern Cup #3 (also the UVM Carnival and Henchey Memorial Supertour). The first one features some MNC-specific content highlighting Ava’s awesome 3rd place, but you may spot other MNC racers throughout the videos. The first video from the sprint day is below, but it is a whole three-part series showcasing the top level of racing in New England…and maybe the country.