Coaching it up

Happy New Year, everyone! Darrell, Amber, Bryna and Steve coaching it up here on the last day of 2012.

Bluebird at the Loaf

After a powdery day at Sugarloaf racing resumed and we had another good day. Below is a picture of Sophie enjoying the gorgeous sunshine and one of Eliza and Audrey goofing around in between runs. They eventually were the 1st and 2nd U 18's. Have a great break everyone..

Powder skiing and Eastern Cups

Over the last two days Sugarloaf has received about 30 inches of snow. After making some great powder turns to get to the course the girls fought hard and Mardi wound up on the podium. Congrats to all the girls for fighting through the fluffy stuff

2012 Men's NA Speed, Copper Mtn

Jack Auty looks for speed in the men's NA DH.

Leanne Smith- 2nd Place Criterium Interview

Leanne Smith, a downhiller from North Conway, NH had her career best World Cup finish in second place at Val d'Isere yesterday.  The US women have certainly been making a name for themselves in speed this year, and it seems from this interview that they've got a pretty good thing going.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZK7MCHlNhQ

Enjoy!

GS day

Overdue FIS recap...

Nicole Anderson lands on the podium starting with bib 20.

Audrey O'Brien: Top U18 in both races at Sunday River.

It's hard to believe that the FIS program hasn't posted on the blog lately, especially given the reasonably solid start we've gotten off to...

First of all, training on the Training Hill is finally amazing. The weather didn't make it easy for the crew at the mountain, but we're really up and running now and today, we had a ridiculous surface up there. More impressive than the mountain's recovery has been the athlete's patience with the snow waiting for it to come around. It would have been easy to complain about the death cookies and the limited training, but the kids stayed hungry and were able to wring every bit of relevance out of the training we were able to provide. This patience, combined with hard work and focus on what's going to be important to their success, not just now, but throughout the season and their career has pushed the athletes to new heights. In the East, huge moves have been made by Chris McKenna, Aleck Sullivan, Nicole Anderson, Lisa Schroer and Audrey O'Brien already during this young season. Out West, the girls and guys racing in the Nor-Ams have acquitted themselves nicely, scored some Nor-Am points and even managed to improve their world rank a bit.

Which brings us to Jack Auty. Jack's result at Copper was spectacular. I've spoken with coaches that were on the hill and athletes that were in the lodge and at the finish. It was one of those rare days in ski racing when everyone takes a minute and remembers what we love about this sport. You may hear whispers of luck and track and weather, but let me tell you this: it takes a lot more than luck to win a men's ski race and to win a men's nor-am? Well, let's just say that there were plenty of very capable ski racers that ran around bib 89 and only Jack was able to take full advantage of the opportunity. Way to go Jack.

If you are looking for a piece that captures the emotion of such an unbelievable day, please check out Tucker Marshall's blog.

http://tuckermarshall.com/2012/12/10/the-race-of-dreams/

As the men's and women's FIS teams prepare for the FIS series at Sugarbush, Sunday River and Sugarloaf, we'll try to do a better job of keeping you all posted.

Hey everyone, it's WINTER!

Welcome to winter, everyone! We had some days of warm, rain, cool, rain, more rain, a little snow, some more snow... you know, early winter in New England. We're skiing top to bottom at Burke and conditions are pretty great. Here are a couple U14 boys on Tuesday afternoon and then some coaching action shots from Wednesday. We are lucky to have a couple groups skiing with Dr. Jim Taylor the next couple days, and here he is with a gaggle of U16 girls. Libby is cruising with Sophie and Ood, taking advantage of a morning of technique work. Enjoy the cold weather, everyone!

Ida, Simi and entourage at World Cup Sprints

The BMA Nordic Team spent the past couple of days spectating at the World Cup sprints held right in downtown Quebec City.  A huge portion of the crowd was from New England and New York nordic ski programs.  Kikkan Randall picked up World Cup victories 6 and 7, in part because Kate schlepped two of our spinning bikes up here for the USST athletes to use.

Jane ('12) labeling Kate with her country of origin.

Ida Sargent ('05) blasting off as the first racer of the day at 10:40am.  Unfortunately, she did not advance to the quarter-finals.  She's been busy, however, these past couple of weeks.  She picked up 9th in the team sprint on Friday with Holly Brooks. On 11/30/12 she picked up an individual 9th place in a sprint in Finland.  Six days ago (12/2/12) she picked up 18th in a 26km WC pursuit.

Friend of BMA, Simi Hamilton, getting ready to start his qualification sprint.

Finally, here's a video of Warren et al cheering for Ida.

Eastern Region Coaching staff at the Copper Nor AM and US Nationals.

Jen Stielo, Ryan Cornish, Silvan Kaufman, Libby Webster, Ben Sullivan, and Kraig Sourbeer. Also on staff was Lester Keller who was working hard with the race jury at the time.

Bretton Woods

The U16s are enjoying the very good snow at Bretton Woods for a morning while the FIS athletes hold down the fort at Burke. Here are some of the girls! Everyone is admiring the views of the Mount Washington hotel, and I hear there's a scheme afoot to move us all in! Plenty of space...

The Race Factory

Burkies up early, doing work.