There’s nothing like a good team race weekend adventure!
Bright sun, cool nights, and warm days made for one of the most spectacular Climb to the Castle weekends ever over in Lake Placid. Juniors, Masters, and Pro Team athletes all represented MNC across two events: a skate sprint at the rollerski track on Saturday, and a hillclimb up the Whiteface toll road on Sunday.
The club had almost 20 competitors, taking the non-existent title of “most participants” at the races. You know what hurts? That there weren’t more teams taking advantage of this great series of events. I said it last time we were here, and I’ll say it again now (but a bit more up front).
Where was the UVM and St Mikes teams, just a ferry ride across the lake?
Where was the Middlebury team, one short drive over the Crown Point bridge away?
What about the Clarkson and SLU teams, who call this location “home” for their races in the winter?
It was pretty disappointing to not see competitive, motivated teams from nearby showing up. A great opportunity to bring our sport and athletes together was missed, in my view. But enough negativity! I just had to get that out of the way first…
Our sprint morning got underway with a qualifying round that saw everyone giving it their all, even though everyone would get to race the heats. In the top heats were Colin Freed (racing against folks like Ben Ogden and Remi Drolet) and Mia Gorman (racing against folks like Jessie Diggins and Julia Kern). Silvester and Molly, MNC skiers getting acquainted with New England by way of Utah and Idaho, were also stacked against older, tough competition in the 2nd men’s and women’s heats.
New MNC skier Elsa Futch on the chase!
Our U16 boys ended up having many battles between them, with newly-minted U18 skier James Langan looking the best he ever has in a sprint race. Most everyone skied UP or stayed steady during the race, rather than getting knocked down. In these races, winning your heat moved you “up” a bracket, finishing in the middle kept you in the same lane, and finishing at the back meant a drop down. No matter what, everyone was racing in 3 heats.
Pro Team skier Conner Roberts pushing hard
A post-race congrats from Jessie Diggins
Colin skied his way to 3rd overall, and in the women’s race Mia fought against Jessie Diggins, Julia Kern, and Shilo Rosseau (a Canadian World Cup biathlete) to hang just behind them in each heat en route to 4th overall and 1st Junior.
After the races were over, the day was still young! It was only just after lunchtime and the sun was shining, so we headed into town to be tourists for a bit. Crepes and ice cream were consumed, bobsleds were tested out, and everyone got to relax a little. We also coordinated with some other club friends to plan for the busy day ahead…
With a large yard at one of the AirBnB houses, a fire pit, and a lot of frozen pizzas we managed to get together the Juniors, the Pro Team athletes who were competing over the weekend, and some friends-of-MNC all in one place for some dinner and stories.
It wasn’t long before the alarms were set for 5:30AM though, because the next morning would involve skiing up a mountain!
The race up the Whiteface toll road, is often cold. It’s frequently cloudy or foggy. It’s occasionally snowy or at least frosty. It’s most certainly always windy…but not 2025!
It was a second glorious day in a row for the climb, and even biking down from the top to capture the race on film (as Perry and I did) didn’t result in frozen fingers or toes.
We didn’t capture many photos, but you can check out some videos here:
The Pugs took the top spot in all the Junior categories! Isaiah, Jorgen and Gabe went 1-2-3 in the men’s short course, while Mia took the win in the women’s category. For the Juniors it was Silvester on top in 4th overall, with Henry in 3rd. Elsa matched that 4th overall in the women’s race behind Jessie, Julia and Shilo, and was the top Junior followed closely by Astrid in 2nd! Without any photos from the race (too much filming) these podium shots will have to suffice!
Every skier got some good experiences out of the weekend. Sophia (from Illinois) was amazed at what ridiculous things New England skiers will put themselves through, Reese took charge of the camera to capture many of the cool photos from the sprint race. MNC masters like Owen, Michael, Ace, and Ford Sayre/MNC/All-Around Masters motivator Rose took on the climb like total champs!
Next up in Lake Placid will be the US National Championships, followed by the World Cup! You can get your tickets at the link here!
U16 men
Junior men
Junior women
U16 women
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