The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“They were feeling pretty good going into Nationals”
Crested Butte Nordic Team J2 skiers Prawit Durgan and Forrest Smith closed their regular season with top finishes in Durango and were reaching their peaks as they headed to the US Junior National Cross-Country Ski Championships March 5-10 in Soldier Hollow, Utah.
Durgan won the five-kilometer skate race and Smith had his best result of the season in Durango. The two skiers finished the season ranked third and fourth, respectively, in the Rocky Mountain Nordic (RMN) division, punching their tickets to Soldier Hollow.
“They were really close all year,” says coach Duncan Callahan. “They were feeling pretty good going into Nationals.”
This would be the second trip for Smith and the first one for Durgan to the Mecca of Nordic skiing in the country and the same venue as the 2002 Winter Olympics.
The week opened Monday, March 5 with the one-kilometer classic sprint races. The classic sprint competition is a day full of sprinting for the young Nordic athletes, opening in the morning with a time trial to figure out seeding for the heats.
The sprint classic format is not Durgan’s strongest discipline, and he ended up falling short of the cut-off in the time trial.
Smith posted a fast enough split in his time trial to move on, eventually getting bumped into the quarterfinals and finishing 18th overall.
The two skiers lined up on Wednesday for their next event, the five-kilometer mass start skate race. Durgan and Smith found themselves in a massive cluster for most of the race settling in around the mid-20s. As the race came into the final stretch, both skiers stepped on it to make up some spots, with Smith finishing 17th and Durgan in 19th place.
“It was really tight,” says Callahan. “Thirteenth place through 25th place were just nine seconds apart. It was a really good race for both of them.”
Smith peaked two days later in the five-kilometer classic race, coming in 11th place overall, just two seconds away from being named an All-American.
“That was the race of the week for Forrest,” says Callahan. “I was super-impressed with the 11th-place finish.”
Durgan, on the other hand, was “not firing on all cylinders” that day and struggled in the race to finish 25th overall.
The week had a somewhat sour finish to it in the 3×3-kilometer skate relay. Both Durgan and Smith were named to the RMN A squad and had visions of a podium finish but a collision during an exchange dashed their hopes, leaving the relay team with a 10th-place finish.
“They skied fantastic legs but there was a botched exchange,” explains Callahan. “They got tangled up and went down.”
Nevertheless, Callahan feels both skiers reached their pre-season goals and believes it was a solid finish to a great season for both athletes.
“They wanted to finish top five in their division and they hit that on the money,” says Callahan.
