March 24, 2016 (Craftsbury, Vermont) – APU 1 took a decisive victory over Stratton SMS T2 in second place winning the 4x5km Mixed Relay by fifty seconds at the Craftsbury Nordic Centre on March 24. The APU-2 team finished third and was ahead of SMS T2 until the final leg.

At the first exchange, APU 1 already had a narrow 4-second lead over the red and blue of SMS – however it was SMS’s second team led by Benjamin Saxton that had the advantage-nearly 45 seconds ahead of SMS 1 led by Simi Hamilton. Hamilton, who raced for the first time this week after battling a post-Ski Tour Canada chest cold struggled to hang with the leaders after the first lap. Both of SMS men opted to double pole the course, which consisted of two times around a figure-eight in a light snow fall, as did several collegiate skiers.

SMS coach Patrick O’Brien, who also raced the third leg of SMS 2, said that he helped his athletes make the call to race on skate skis with double poling. “It was not incredibly tricky dry-wax but not straightforward either,” he said, “I was noticing some moisture and was a little worried that the kick wax was going to slow it down.” While it worked for Saxton, who is usually known for his sprinting but finished just four seconds behind Bjornsen, Hamilton bled time on the uphills and tagged off with almost the same time gap that Stratton finished behind in the end. Erik Bjornsen, who won the classic sprint on Tuesday, went with classic wax.

O’Brien also acknowledged the risk to race Simi [Hamilton}, but both he and his athlete agreed that it was worth the risk. “It was his call in the end,” said O’brien, “It was tricky to be racing untested, but any time you have World Cup athletes used to high level relays their experience is very valuable.”

In the second leg, Ida Sargeant, skiing for the Vailbury Green team (which was not eligible for the overall title as it took skiers from two different clubs), gained 35 seconds on APU’s Rosie Brennan, and brought Vailbury Green into within 25 seconds of first place. Meanwhile, Sophie Caldwell, skiing for SMS 1 gained two seconds on the leaders, but tagged off to third leg skier Patrick Caldwell in 6th position.

Scott Patterson, the third leg for APU 1, skied the fastest time of the day to add another 24 seconds of cushion vs Caldwell from SMS 1, who handed off in 6th place, right behind APU 2. “I was reasonably confident before the start eventho nothing was guaranteed,” said Patterson, “Jessie [Diggins] is fast but not that fast.”

David Norris, who had the second fastest time of the day and handed off ahead of Caldwell, said he was conscious of the battle for first place between the rival teams. “The only instruction I had was that I didn’t aid any of the other teams in catching up to our leading team,” he said, “It’s the only time I’ve had in skiing where we used some cycling tactic – making the other teams pull as my teammates were in the lead.”

Norris, sporting a “Make America Great Again” painted on his cheek, said he wasn’t trying to make a political statement. “I didn’t know it’s a Donald Trump slogan,” he said “I just think skiing is an incredible sport for the community and lifelong sport and I wanted to promote how awesome it is for America.”

APU’s Chelsea Holmes, who was 4th in the 10km skate earlier this week started her final leg with a comfortable 1:20 gap over SMS 1’s final skier, Jessica Diggins, who won her first World Cup 5km this year. “I was very, very, very nervous,” said Holmes about her feeling before the start, “I was terrified. A gap is better than no gap, but I’m pretty sure Jessie beat me by 30 seconds in the sprint the other day, so I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy.”

Holmes credited her teammates with great performances and giving her such a big gap. “I didn’t want to be the one to lose it,” she said. Diggins gained over 20 seconds after the first lap, but was not able to keep the pace and ended up gaining 30 seconds on the leader. In fact, Diggins’ team crossed the line almost twenty seconds behind the Vailbury Green Team, which was ineligible for prize money or official recognition.

Jessica Yeaton, who competed at Ski Tour Canada racing Australia and skiing in Craftsbury for APU 2 crossed the line in fifth place behind another unofficial team, The Green Buffaloes, and secured APU a bronze medal in addition to it’s gold. It is the third time in as many years that APU has finished with two teams in the top three at the Club Relay.

“We obviously want to fight for the win, but we also want to have fun,” said O’Brien, in his second year as head coach of SMS T2, “It’s easy to say we should have done one thing or the other but at the end of the day I am really happy with how everyone of our athletes skied, especially considering some of them were not all the way healthy.  The most important is that everyone is out there giving it all that they had. That’s the thing you care about as a coach.”

The racing in Craftsbury ends on Saturday with the US Nationals 30/50km Classic competitions.

Results here.