France Camp - Day 1

The blog is back live, this time from Les Deux Alpes, France!  This place is absolutely beautiful.  Hopefully the pictures will do it some justice!  We are traveling with a group of 20 MMSC athletes and coaches.  Lorant and Pat are here with 13 athletes from the men's program and attending the camp for the women's program this year are Elly, Ingrid, Neza, and Sandra.  I am sure they will all tell you...put this camp on your schedule for next summer!  We departed Montreal, CAN for Lyon, France at about 8:45pm on Monday night, flew through the night to arrive in France on the morning of the 30th, which, coincidentally is Ingrid's and my birthday, so happy birthday to us!  We finally arrived at the hotel around 2:00pm and ate lunch, unpacked, went for a walked around town to get some fresh air, had dinner at 7:00pm and then to bed!

Here are a few photos from traveling, our arrival, and the birthday cake!

Montreal

France

The view from our hotel

Clearly, she is pumped!

We just completed our first full day of camp and it was a great success.  It was the first day for the girls on the new 30 meter radius GS skis.  The skis are also significantly longer than their GS skis last season so they will take some getting used to before they are comfortable.  The camp will give them a great opportunity to get on the new skis and simply work on technique, without the pressure of upcoming races.  We free skied all morning with limited direction except to make turns of different sizes, rather than trying to make "cookie cutter" GS turns.  The amount of terrain open here is shocking so we were able to get many runs on different terrain.  I was very impressed with their ability to adapt to their new skis and they all looked like they were feel comfortable by the end of the morning.  The skiing was incredible.  The snow was very firm to start of the day and as the sun warmed the surface, it softened a bit but it was still very firm throughout the morning.  It was only on our last run that it seemed to get a bit soft.  That is simply not the case at Mt. Hood.  Not to mention they have a subway that runs to the midpoint of the mountain...yes, a subway (see below).  I took a ride t-bar ride with an Italian coach who told me this is the best he has seen the snow here in 20 years!  Lucky us...

Step 1 - walk to the lift

Step 2 - after riding said lift, get on the tram

Step 3 & 4 - after riding the tram, fight your way into the gondola, then put on your boots

A few of some of the training lanes from the first t-bar

This random group of athletes got in the way of my picture...still nice though!

A view of the upper part of the mountain

A helpful warning sign to not fall head first into a crevasse

Another helpful sign...

The subway...inside the mountain

Conditions are amazing

After skiing, we made the entertaining and challenging trip back to town.  I will let the girls describe that experience when they write the blog...

This afternoon, we went for a hike to a lookout point that I can't quite put into words...good thing I had my camera!

The view of town early in the hike

The hike required a small bit of rock climbing

The view of town from the lookout point

View of L'Alpe de Venosc

Tomorrow, we will continue working with the new GS ski and figuring out how to ski on them.  We are getting on the lift at 7:00am, giving us an early start to the day!  For now...it is nearing bedtime after a long first day.  The weather is looking good for the rest of the week, we will try our best to enjoy ourselves...ha!

Championship Series!

Things were pretty crazy for the past week and a half with championship series going on for our athletes.  U18 Nationals continued at Mammoth, Eastern Junior FIS Finals were at Stowe, and U16 Eastern Championships were at Sugarloaf.  We had some fantastic results at each championship as the girls represented MMSC/MMWA very well!

At the U18 Nationals, Kelsey and Alita wrapped up their series racing in the GS, DH, and SG.  All reports from the GS were that it was on a painfully flat hill with extremely soft conditions.  Kelsey and Alita had some issues with their day with Kelsey finishing 26th and Alita DNF'd second run.  In the DH, Kelsey missed out on the Gold by just 3 tenths of a second but earning the Silver Medal.  Alita, who admits DH is not her thing, toughed out the nerves and finished 37th.  In the final event of the championships, the SG, Kelsey had a very respectable 11th place finish, moving up from a start number of 20.  Congrats on a great series!

Kelsey on the DH Podium

At the Eastern Junior FIS Finals, we had some very exciting results and one very exciting crash.  On day 1, Elly came ripping into the Horsebarn Pitch jump and ended up crashing through 2 layers of B-Net and ended up under the Sensation lift!  All things considered, she was ok!  She ended up with a pretty good concussion, a ride to Fletcher Allen, and a chipped tooth or two.  Quite possibly the most difficult part of her crash was the fact that she had to spend the afternoon with me!  We are very thankful that she is ok and she returned to snow today!  Sophie Leiter was not phased and raced the SG the next day, moving from start number 40 to finished 17th!  The rest of the girls competed in the GS and SL over the weekend...

Eastern Junior FIS Finals at Stowe, March 9th

Courtney Hayden - 6th

Denali Balser - 11th

Emma Sahn - 27th

Sophie Leiter - 41st

Linley Shaw - 44th

Caroline Armbruster - 47th

For the SL, we saw some challenging sets and a couple of our girls stepped up in a big way!  Check out the bib number for our girls and the places they finished.  That is some serious moving up!

Eastern Junior FIS Finals at Stowe, March 10th

Linley Shaw bib 35- 3rd, 2nd for U18's and she WON the second run!

Lucy Merriam bib 45 - 8th

Neza Stefanic bib 66 - 12th

Linley on the SL Overall Podium

Sandra competed at the U16 Eastern Championships and had a very successful series.  She placed in the top 10 in all events.  Her results were as follows: SG1 - 4th, SG2 - 10th, GS - 5th,  SL - 3rd.  Due to her outstanding results, she was one of 10 Eastern U16's to qualify for the U16 National Project in Park City, taking place in early April.  Way to represent, Sandra!

Vermont Cup Finals took place this past weekend and a group of girls went to Killington to compete in the SL Finals...

VT Cup Finals SL at Killington, March 17th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 1st

Lucy Merriam - 14th

Neza Stefanic - 18th

Sarah Reilly - 19th

Ingrid Klinkenberg - 30th

Molly Danzig - 33rd

Sarah Rowse - 40th

Kelsey wins...again.

We are entering the final push with only a handful of races to go.  Kelsey left for Squaw Valley, CA today to compete in US Nationals.  She will race in the SG, GS, and SL, good luck Kelsey!  Alita, Emma, Court and Denali will be racing Thursday/Friday in the Eastern Cup Finals GS's at Sugarbush.  Alita will continue on to race in the Eastern Cup Finals SL's at Waterville over the weekend.  The rest of the U18/U21 girls will be heading to Whiteface this weekend for two FIS Devo SL's.  Sandra will headed to Sugarloaf for the U16 AM/CAN over the weekend.  Good luck to all!

I leave you with one final picture from training on Monday.  We had a bluebird day, no wind, and a spectacular surface...

Denali Balser is the World's Best Skier!

Yes, it is true!  As many of you probably saw on Sports Center, Denali Balser is the 2013 World's Best Skier!  She had an amazing come from behind victory after finishing 3rd on on the 1st run.  Emma Sahn was poised to take the title but had an unfortunate DNF 2nd run.

World's Best Skier at Bromley, March 2nd

Denali Balser - 1st

Lucy Merriam - 4th

Elly Bengtsson - 7th

Sophie Leiter - 8th

Neza Stefanic - 17th

Molly Danzig - 19th

Sarah Rowse - 22nd

Caroline Armbruster - 24th

Linley Shaw - 27th

World's Best Skier

While Denail was being crowned World's Best Skier, Sandra was at Sugarbush racing in the final weekend of U16 VT State Championships.  She finished 3rd in both GS races over the weekend and ended up finished 2nd in the Overall State Championships with scoring taking place over the course of 2 SL's and 2 GS's.  She is off to Sugarloaf for the U16 Eastern Championships, racing SG/GS/SL from March 7th - 11th.

State Championship GS podium

VT State Championship Overall Podium

This week has consisted of more drills and free skiing.  The coaching staff has been trying to prep the trail for the upcoming Eastern Junior Finals as well as making sure we have a quality surface for the remainder of the season.  They were on the hill until 2am both Sunday and Monday nights watering the hill with snow making hoses.  It is not nearly as glorious as it sounds, trust me.  On Monday, we watered from about 5pm until 2am!  Needless to say, it has been a long week but now we get to showcase our athletes and program as we host the Easter Junior Finals starting March 7th and running through March 11th.

Alita and Kelsey are currently at Mammoth competing in the U18 National Championships.  After a major schedule change due to weather, they raced SL on March 5th.  Alita had a solid performance finishing 6th in a very competitive field.  All reports are that Kelsey was having a ripping 2nd run before taking a tumble a couple of gates from the finish.

Nice jackets, goooooo Bumble Bees!

The girls are involved in a championship series of some sort for the next 5+ days so please send them your good vibes!

Rabbit, Rabbit...

It is hard to believe that we are finishing up February and entering the final full month of the season.  With March comes "March Madness."  Not just the NCAA Basketball Championships, but the madness that is ski racing in March.  Athletes will be traveling all over New England with hopes of finishing the season with some solid results.  Over the course of the last week and a half, we have been continuing with a couple of different progressions.  In SL, we pushed the girls hard in short section training courses.  Each course was unique in vertical distance, rhythm  length, and terrain.  In most of the sections, the girls were to go as hard as they could to continue getting comfortable going fast and many of them made great changes in their skiing over the 4 day block.  In GS, we have continued to push the technical free skiing with drills and training on moderate terrain.  We were also able to get in two very productive days of SG training before the snow came in mid-day Wednesday.

The girls headed to Proctor Academy to race two FIS Open SL's on February 21st (night race) and 22nd.  Many of the girls had some of their fastest FIS moments, posting great individual runs!  Some saw success over the 4 individual runs and the overall.  The coaching staff was very pleased with the way the girls performed in a high level racing environment.

FIS Open Night SL at Proctor, February 21st

Kelsey Chenoweth - 1st

Alita Rogers - 3rd, 2nd for U18's

Elly Bengtsson - 21st

Emma Sahn - 25th

Denali Balser - 28th

Linley Shaw - 29th

Sophie Leiter - 45th

Sarah Rowse - 54th

Overall Podium - Kelsey 1st, Alita 2nd

FIS Open SL at Proctor, February 22nd

Alita Rogers - 1st

Emma Sahn - 14th

Linley Shaw - 17th (5th second run!)

Elly Bengtsson - 30th

Sophie Leiter - 32nd

Caroline Armbruster - 41st

Molly Danzig - 43rd

Denali Balser - 46th

Sarah Rowse - 47th

Overall Podium - Alita 1st

Sandra Schoepke traveled to Killington for the first weekend of U16 State Championships, competing in 2SL's.  They raced the girls on the challenging trail, Highline.  With soft conditions, it made for two difficult days of racing.  Sandra skied well on day 1 but had some issues and had to hike.  On the 2nd day, she executed her plan well and finished 2nd overall.  She races this weekend at Sugarbush in the final weekend of U16 State Championships with 2GS's.

For dryland Thursday, we were invited to go sledding on Inspiration and off the side of it.  There is quite the natural jump and we all got in a nice core workout from all of the laughing!  We finished off the night with two races down Inspiration.  In race one, it was a "sled"away victory for Kelsey, followed by Denali and Lucy in 2nd, and Sarah rounding out the podium in 3rd.  In race two, Sarah teamed up with Neza for the victory, and we had a tie for 2nd between Kelsey and the team of Harrison, Katharine, and Topher (YES!)  The prize giving ceremony has not yet taken place so photos are not available.

This weekend, majority of the girls will be headed to Bromley for a VARA Open SL to see if they can be crowned the 2013 "World's Best Skier."

Kelsey and Alita will be headed to Mammoth on Sunday for the 2013 U18 National Championships where they will compete in DH, SG, GS, SL, and Parallel SL from March 4th through the 12th.  GOOD LUCK GIRLS!

Below are some pictures from free skiing this week...

Court deep in thought...contemplating her next run.

Cruising through February

February 19th...just about 6 weeks remaining for the season.  We are entering the final push and craziness that is ski racing in March!  We finished up the last of the qualifiers for U18 Nationals and Eastern Junior FIS Finals this past week at Sunapee.  As our loyal bloggers know, the girls have been putting quite a bit of time into free skiing and training GS, trying to be productive with the difficult weather we have faced.  The girls all had moments during the two day GS series that they can take away as positive moments.  They all received a great compliment from one of the other coaches on the hill.  As the first run went on, this coach told me, "As girls would come down and I would think, 'yes, this girl is getting it, that is good skiing!' and I would look down at my start list and nearly every time I would see MMSC next to her name.  Your girls are doing great things!"  What a fantastic compliment for all of our girls to receive, especially at an event we have been working hard to change.  While it is still a work in progress...progress is certainly being made, way to go!

FIS Devo GS at Sunapee, February 14th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 7th

Courtney Hayden - 20th (won the 2nd run!)

Emma Sahn - 38th

Sophie Leiter 46th

Elly Bengtsson - 54th

Linley Shaw - 60th

Neza Stefanic - 72nd

Caroline Armbruster - 75th

Molly Danzig - 80th

Sarah Rowse - 88th

Denali Balser - 90th

FIS Devo GS at Sunapee, February 15th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 9th

Alita Rogers - 27th

Emma Sahn - 33rd

Sophie Leiter - 39th

Elly Bengtsson - 41st

Linley Shaw - 49th

Caroline Armbruster - 68th

Neza Stefanic - 75th

Molly Danzig - 77th

Sarah Rowse - 78th

After completion of the second GS, USSA East announced the Women's U18 Regional Team for U18 National's, naming the top 15 girls in the rankings to the team.  Kelsey ended up the 2nd ranked U18 in the Eastern Region and Alita was named as the first alternate for her ranking of 16th.  Qualifying from MMSC on the boys side are Griffin Brown and Ryan Collopy.  They will all represent the Eastern Region and MMSC/MMWA at Mammoth Mountain, CA next month.

U18 Eastern Regional Team

We have had an entertaining last few days of training SL on Main Street.  The snow has been absolutely perfect and we have been training a variety of shorter courses with different distances, different terrain, and different lengths.  The girls have done a fantastic job getting comfortable stepping on the gas in SL and going fast whilebeing very productive in some brutally cold temps and high winds!  They will be racing two FIS Open SL's this coming Thursday and Friday with a night SL followed by a day SL.  Sandra will be heading to Killington this weekend to race in the first of two weekends of U16 State Championships.  Good luck to all!

Lucy trying to stay warm...

I will end this blog with something for your viewing pleasure.  A few of the girls took sometime on one of our free skiing days to be a bit creative with their skiing and I must say I am quite impressed with the outcome!  I was going to embed the video but I think they would appreciate the increased views if I just post the link...enjoy!  Just a heads up, there is some VERY mild bad language in the song.

MMWA Ladies Music Video

More powder - less training!

Well, the weather has certainly been causing some training issues but it has been creating ample opportunities to free ski on some great snow!  This past week we were able to get in 3 days of GS progression starting with free skiing/drills on Tuesday, training on Exhibition Hill on Wednesday, training on SL Hill Thursday, followed by some great powder skiing Friday/Saturday, and finished the week with a full day of GS training on Main Street.  The girls are heading to Sunapee for two FIS Devo GS on February 14th and 15th...yes, a Valentine's Day race!  That means two things, 1) They will have to be each others Valentine's and 2) Some seriously discounted candy at stores on the way home!

While we were skiing powder, Kelsey and Elly were up at Sugarloaf for Speed Week.  The girls raced in 2SG's and 2DH's and both had some great results.  Kelsey dropped the hammer on the women's field winning both DH's by nearly 1 second each and Elly got her feet wet racing in her first ever DH's!  One of Kelsey's DH wins was in the long time running Rand Stowell DH.  She joined many big names on the trophy, one of those big names being Lucy's mom Eva!

FIS Eastern Cup SG at Sugarloaf, February 4th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 11th

Elly Bengtsson - 18th

FIS Eastern Cup SG at Sugarloaf, February 5th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 9th

Elly Bengtsson - 21st

FIS Eastern Cup DH at Sugarloaf, February 7th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 1st

Elly Bengtsson - 15th

FIS Eastern Cup DH at Sugarloaf, February 7th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 1st

Elly Bengtsson - 9th

On Sunday, we sent a group of girls to race in an Eastern Cup SL at Middlebury with a stacked, collegiate field.  The penalty for the race was 13, that is a serious field!  They all had some great moments although we had a couple of DNF's for Lucy Merriam and Denali Balser.

FIS Eastern Cup SL at Middlebury, February 10th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 22nd, 1st for U18's

Alita Rogers - 26th, 3rd for U18's

Courtney Hayden - 42nd

Kelsey and Alita on the U18 Podium at Middlebury

Sandra Schoepke raced SL at Sugarbush on Sunday in her final NVC race of the season.  She had a solid performance with a 3rd place second run and finished 4th overall.  She also finished as the 4th ranked girl in the NVC this season!

Lastly, we had another exciting gym competition.  This week we set up a circuit which consisted of sit-ups, body weight squats, hurdles, jump rope, more hurdles, and push-ups.  The girls were split up into 4 teams of 3, and they treated the circuit as a relay and a two run race.  The combined time results are...

1st - C4's (Chubby Cheesy Chunky Chispa's) Molly, Lucy, Linley - 5 minutes 15.9 seconds

2nd - FAATT (Fun Activities All The Time) Neza, Denali, Sandra - 5 minutes 25.1 seconds

3rd - Ba Na Na Naa - Alita, Courtney, Sophie - 5 minutes 27 seconds

4th - Brunette Betches - Emma, Sarah, Caroline - 5 minutes 58.7 second

Circuit Podium...classic Denali.

Good luck to the girls at Sunapee this week and we will have a handful of girls heading to Waterville to race two USSA SL's on February 16th and 17th.  Til next time...

Training? No thanks, we're all set.

We had a bit of a tough week as far as training goes...we had temps in the 40's and 50's, rain, wind, pretty much everything that makes training not possible and not safe.  We managed to stay productive with some sessions in the gym, extra study time for midterms, as well as a chance to get some extra rest before heading into the final two months of the season.  We were able to get on snow Tuesday for a free skiing morning and then we were not on snow again until Friday for some SL training in preparation for two VT Cup SL's at Bromley and Pico.  We took a group of 12 girls down to battle it out with the Southern VT teams and we came away with some great results.  Overall, each girl had some positive moments to take away from the weekend...even if it was grabbing the bullet in a delay in SL!

USSA VT Cup SL at Bromley, February 2nd

Alita Rogers - 1st

Denali Balser - 2nd

Emma Sahn - 4th, 3rd for U18's

Linley Shaw - 7th

Lucy Merriam - 10th

Neza Stefanic - 12th

Molly Danzig - 18th

Sarah Reilly - 19th

Caroline Armbruster - 24th

Sarah Rowse - 28th

Courtney Hayden - 33rd, sweetest tuck in a SL

Alita and Emma on the U18 Podium

Alita and Denali on the Overall Podium

Bromley is a tiring hill...

USSA VT Cup SL at Pico, February 3rd

Alita Rogers - 1st

Lucy Merriam - 5th, 1st for U21's

Sophie Leiter - 12th

Sarah Reilly - 13th

Caroline Armbruster - 18th

Sarah Rowse - 19th

Denali Balser - 22nd, 3rd for U21's

Courtney Hayden - 27th

Molly Danzig - 37th

Alita on the U18 Podium

Lucy and Denali on the U21 Podium

Also on Sunday, Sandra and Katelyn had their 3rd NVC race of the season with a GS at Stowe.  Unfortunately, Katelyn took quite the digger in the first run and sustained a couple of different injuries but it has not yet been confirmed what they are, we are hoping for the best and a speedy recovery!  Sandra was a solid 4th on the first run and then was a DNF second run.

Kelsey and Elly made the trek up to Sugarloaf for FIS Eastern Cup Speed Week where they will be competing in two SG's and 2 DH's.  For the rest of the athletes we will be attempting to get in a solid block of GS over the next week in preparation for the FIS Devo GS series at Sunapee February 14th and 15th.  We will be heading in a few different directions this weekend however as some athletes will be headed to the VT State Championship SL at Pico on Saturday and an Eastern Cup SL at Middlebury on Sunday.

Beautiful day for free skiing and you can see Main Street lit up in the background!

One final note, congratulations to Lucy Merriam for earning the honor of Salutatorian at People Academy!  Way to go Lucy!