The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Three tickets punched to Junior Nationals
By Than Acuff
The Junior National Qualifier (JNQ) season for Rocky Mountain Nordic racers comes to a close right here in Crested Butte as Crested Butte Nordic hosts the final JNQ of the season Saturday and Sunday, February 15-16.
After the first three JNQ races of the season, u18 Crested Butte Nordic Team (CBNT) athletes Finn Veit and Sophia Bender and first year u16 skier Tazzy Pozner have all secured their spots at Junior Nationals with Ben Larson, who is really a u14 age racer, just on the bubble heading into this final home weekend of racing.
“He’s racing against much older kids and to even be in the mix is pretty awesome,” says CBNT head coach Gordon Gianniny.
The CBNT was in Aspen February 1-2 for the third JNQ of the season and Veit and Bender continued their successful ways. It started on Saturday with a mass start skate race and after a tactically slow start from the heavy hitters, the race opened up with the overall points leader out of Vail taking off. That left Veit with three others to push for the podium and Veit remained there biding his time until the final big climb. Veit put in one last push to pull away from his peers and held them off the rest of the race to take second.
“He made a move and once you break the elastic, it’s really hard for the others to come back,” says Gianniny. “He nailed the tactics.”
Bender put herself in the battle up front as well during her race and stayed on track to finish in fifth place.
“She’s been right in the mix at every race, super consistent,” says Gianniny. “Fifth place at any of these races is a solid result.”
Veit would then place third the next day in the classic race and now sits in third place in the overall points standings while Bender would overcome some obstacles during the race to push her way into a fourth-place finish.
“It was a great weekend of racing for him,” says Gianniny. “Sophia broke a pole and fell twice and still finished fourth, not a bad day at all.”
Pozner had herself a great weekend of racing as well. After placing sixth in the skate race on Saturday, Pozner dropped the hammer in the classic race on Sunday. After spending most of the race in fifth place, Pozner made her move in the final kilometer to take over fourth and then sealed third place in the final stretch for her first podium finish of the season.
“That cemented her position qualifying for JNs,” says Gianniny. “She’s been working really hard all season and I’m super excited to see that pay off.”
While Larson has had quite the season so far, Gianniny admits Aspen was not his best weekend of the year. Still, he skied his way to a 16th place finish in the skate race and a 15th place finish in the classic race and is ranked 12th overall with the top 12 making the cut for JNs.
“He’s looking to rest up and move further up the rankings on our home weekend,” says Gianniny. “One of the races is a sprint race and he’s done really well in those.”
Robert Spencer has missed a lot of the season due to illness with his last races back in December. But he returned to the action in Aspen and was right in front of Larson on Saturday in 17th place and finished in 17th place on Sunday.
“He bounced back really strong,” says Gianniny.
Meanwhile, Micah Hansen was right there with his teammates in Aspen placing 19th on Saturday and right behind Larson on Sunday coming in 16th place.
“Those three worked really well together in that race,” says Gianniny. “It was the CB Nordic train coming through every time I saw them out on the course.”
Riley Thompson gained even more steps in over his race weekend building on both race prep as well as race strategy.
Those seven CBNT racers as well as 22 skiers on the CB Nordic Devo team will now be racing against their Rocky Mountain Nordic peers on the bench Saturday and Sunday. Saturday is the classic sprint races starting at 9 a.m. with the qualifier heats. Once seeded, skiers will then battle through a series of heats with the top two from each heat continuing to advance.
“It makes for really good spectating,” says Gianniny.
Sunday will be the individual start skate event with the racing starting at 10 a.m. And guess what, there’s snow in the forecast.
“We’re looking forward to having all the teams here and lots of spectators,” says Gianniny. “The snow should make for some interesting conditions.
