Wednesday, March 7, 2018

USCSA Nationals 2018, Lake Placid, NY

USCSA Nationals are being held at Lake Placid, NY again this year. I drove up yesterday and will be here until Sunday. Whitney's race days are today, tomorrow, and Saturday. The drive up was fine, although as always it seems to take forever to go through NJ. UMF sent two snowboarders, a freeskier, and four nordies. Competitions started yesterday and the freeskier had a nasty crash on the cross course, was checked out at the hospital, and withdrew from the rest of his competitions.

Boardercross
Whitney's first race was boardercross. They started early this morning in the falling snow with the usual course inspections and practice. She did really well in time trials, which is usually her weak spot, and had the sixth fastest time. They set up the brackets and after lunch racing started. She was first in all her heats and made it to the big final. Same as last year it was her against three girls from Westminster. All I'll say was there seemed to be a bit of unsportsmanlike play from the whole Westminster team. She was pretty pissed when she finished in fourth but after a bit of cooling down she was still upset but on the bright side she beat a few girls she hadn't before. The top women's cross racers were all competing on the NorAm circuit so they're all really good riders, Whitney included. We went to the awards ceremony, which is always an interesting time then walked down to Starbucks. I had dinner with the snowboarders, the snowboard coach, the Nordic coach, the director of the Ski and Snowboard program, and the sports communication director. The rest of the Nordic team was off at a social gathering.

The snow that fell today is going to continue tonight and into tomorrow. Hopefully it won't be too much of an issue on course tomorrow when she's racing slalom. It should be a good day - it's her against the clock and she's looking to have fun since she's only raced slalom once this season.

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