What a way to kick off the season. Sixteen NWVT members made the journey to compete in the Craftsbury opener on Sunday. This is a record turnout for the club! We even surprised ourselves with the attendance and have certainly made an early impression of what’s to come this season for the rest of the New England Clubs.

The conditions at Craftsbury were excellent as promised. They did a great job grooming trails for the 150 skier field. The 10K course took skiers over the challenging Race Loop trails twice. The double dose of the long climbs had racers legs and lungs burning as they made their way to the finish. The conditions were a little tricky as some of the course was softened by the large field, and other sections had cold windblown snow that could stop a skier in their tracks. But overall it was a great day to be out with temps in the mid teens and a bright sky.

NWVT had skiers peppered though out the field with the final results showing some good match-ups. Leading things for the club were Jake Hollenbach and Eric Tremble. These two also represented the team on Saturday at the Lake Placic Opener. They skied with among the leaders and took 1st and 2nd in their category. Next came the Bolduc/Magnan assault. These two will be gunning for the Alumni Race coming up with the friendly rivalry. Lary Martell and Brendan Barden battled their way close behind with some serious competition from Jackson, Craftsbury and Ford Sayre. Then a near 4-way tie came from 3 NWVT skiers in a battle with our favorite opponent Bill Farrell. Leigh Mallory, Andre’ Bolduc, and Tim Cowan were all in good company and have a great competitor to set their sights on in Bill. It was news to us the Leigh had signed on, but we will take him. Tim who is new to the club and getting back into racing had and outstanding result with 4th in the super competitive M5 Class. The next pairing came from Josh Dillon and Perry Bland. Both posting great results for the first race. It would be interesting to see what would have happened between these two had this been a mass start race. Bringing it in for the men was another new racer Sherm Wilson who held strong in 7th position for the M5’s.

The women had an outstanding day as well with a near perfect score! NWVT took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the S2 division. Ilke Van Genechten had a top 10 among some of the top collegiate athletes. This after taking 5th in the Atomic Sprints the day before. Allaire Diamond and Hannah Wilson finished out the divisional sweep keeping each other in their sights for the entire 10K. Jessica Bolduc started the season out well with a 3rd in the M1 division and finishing among some of her stiffest competition from last year on their home course. A special thanks to Jen Norton for watching Camille Bolduc. It allowed for both Jessica and Damian to race, and they were some of the loudest NWVT fans supporting us on the course.

I hope that everyone was very encouraged with there performance on Sunday. It was great to see so many out there enjoying the great early season conditions. If all are signed up with NENSA, and the results are accurate we collected close to 120 points for this effort. What a great way to start the season. I hope the team continues to build and we see and get to know more of the new members. Hats off to the Muffin Baker! See the full results at www.nensa.net.