January 25th, 2010 by Coach
After a quiet weekend for the LHS ski team in town, here is a quick update on a few Lathrop skiers who skied in Homer and Finland.
Logan seams to be having a good time on the J1 Scandinavia Trip in Finland. Logan qualified for this trip by being ranked in the top ~6 J1 (~16-17 year old) aged athletes in the country. It sounds like so far they have experienced some interesting food, ski tracks, traffic signs and venues. Read more about the trip here http://usaj1team.blogspot.com/
At Besh Cup races 3 and 4 in Homer, the Lathrop skiers got to enjoy lots of sun, warm weather, exciting trails and some really good results as well. Highlights of the sprint race included Claire’s 4th and Mikayla’s 9th place finish in the women’s J2 field and Stefan and Kipps 13th and 17th places in the mens field. For the distance race Kyle placed 3rd in the mens J2 race while Pat and Stefan were 15th and 19th in the mens field. A few photos courtesy of coach Nick F.
Stefan
Kipp
Pat
January 19th, 2010 by Coach
We had an excellent tour down the river on Monday, many thanks to the Hajdukes for hosting us at their house!
Skiers in the sunrise
Skiers inside, skis outside
A bunch of West Valley (I hope) skiers after the tour
One last picture from a run at 21 below last week
January 11th, 2010 by Coach
Beautiful trails, scenery and snow in Valdez
After a long weekend in Valdez we’re back to some frigid Fairbanks weather. The trip was very fun and we had some good results as well. After the second place relay finish, we ended up finishing third as a team in both the mens and womens individual race. I really thought we deserved a second place finish in the mens race after having Pat and Stefan on the podium (second and third) and Kyle in 7th. Unfortunatley West Valley edged us out by just 11 seconds over the total ~33k skied. On the women’s side Megan was 5th, Claire was 10th and Kim was 15th. Dan led the Lathrop JV mens squad to an 11th place finish and Maddey had a great race for a 21st place in the JV women’s races. Lathrop also dominated the open race with coaches Nick and Brett finishing on the mens podium and Lathrop parent Ginger Hamlin taking second in the women’s race.
Kim clearly breaking the speed limit
Sarah
Stefan skiing to a third place finish
Dorian
Following the races we grabbed a nice dinner at the Thai resturaunt in town and then headed to the much anticipated Valdez Senior Ball. Robert may have won the dance but I’m not much a very good judge on this sort of competition. We wrapped up the trip with an epic descent of Thompson’s Pass where the bus drove us to the top and them picked us up at the bottom. Those on downhill skis and Snowboards did some serious “shredding” but it was tricky conditions for the ones that attempted it on nordic skis…
The Lathrop and NP crew on top of Thompson's Pass- If people aren't smiling its because the wind was blowing at least 40 mph
January 8th, 2010 by Coach
We arrived safely in Valdez after making excellent time to find excellent snow cover but not the feet of powder of a week or two ago. Ski conditions here are fast powder/granular mix but beginning to get a bit soft on the uphills.
Todays race was a mixed boy/girl relay which each skier doing a different leg. Lathrop had the second and sixth of the 49 teams competing. Our second place team of Pat, Claire, Kim and Stefan were awarded medals at this evenings award ceremony.
Tomorrow is either a 5.4k or 8.4k individual start skate race. Another update coming soon.
