A Full Weekend of Rollerski Races in Upstate New York

Excerpts by excerpts Peter Minde (Fasterskier article)

and NYSEF Snowsports, Danielle LaCavalla

Photos: Kelle Rose and NYSEF Snowsports

The Adirondack rollerski mini-tour ramped up this past weekend outside Lake Placid, New York. As part of the drive to draw more skiers to the rollerski series, Saturday included a two race format known as a doubleday event: event 1 consisted of a 3-kilometer skate prologue followed by a 1.5-k cross-country cross (XCX) featuring several agility segments. Athletes earned a reward for performances in each event. Both events were individual start and their aggregate times were used to form a pursuit start for the first wave of the Climb to the Castle (C2C) on Sunday.

This tour was coordinated by the New England Nordic Skiing Association (NENSA) and the New York Ski Educational Foundation (NYSEF) in partnership with the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA).

Saturday’s Doubleday: Both races were located at the Olympic Jumping Complex while between races, NENSA’s Justin Beckwith and NYSEF’s Shane McDowell assembled the undulating ramps that constituted the agility segments for the sprint prologue. At each agility segment, if an athlete couldn’t ski the obstacle, there was a safe alternate route that penalized skiers- not unlike a penalty loop in biathlon.

3K Prologue NYSEF Finishers:  Junior Boys, Van Ledger (Lake Placid) placed 6th, Joseph Wilson (Keene) placed 13th, Tate Frantz (Lake Placid) placed 17th.

Senior Women, Nina Armstrong (Lake Placid) placed 2nd and Lucy Hochscartner (Lake Placid) placed 5th.

Full 1.5K CXC NYSEF Finishers: Junior Boys, Van Ledger placed 11th, Joseph Wilson placed 15th and Tate Frantz placed 16th

Senior Women, Nina Armstrong placed 3rd and Lucy Hochscartner placed 5th.

Sunday’s Climb to the Castle: The race ascended up the Whiteface Mountain toll road for five miles at an average grade of eight percent. At 4867 feet, Whiteface is the fifth highest peak in the Adirondack Mountains. Skiers who competed in Saturday’s doubleday races went out first, starting in a pursuit format based on their aggregate times. Doubleday finishers started at 8 AM. Open athletes started in a mass start wave at 8:06, with masters following at 8:08.

Lucy Hochschartner has raced C2C multiple times. “It was really fun! I’ve done this race a lot of times and it’s always really hard,” she said. “But it was great to have nice weather and lots of good people to race against. I didn’t do so great [in the doubleday] so I got to move up a little bit. And not dying at the very end was fun. The wind definitely made for a slow finish.”

Nina Armstrong had the weekend’s races written into her training plan. “I haven’t done [C2C] in quite a few years,” she said. “It was fun. My plan was to work into it and hopefully not die before the finish line. It was really fun having people all around you.”

Climb to the Castle NYSEF Finishers: Junior Boys, Van Ledger placed 9th, Joseph Wilson placed 10th, Tate Frantz placed 20th, James Flanigan (Lake Placid) placed 22nd and Max Flanigan (Lake Placid) placed 29th

Senior Ladies, Lucy Hochscartner placed 4th and Nina Armstrong placed 5th