Eli Hoenig © Silke Hynes

February 15, 2016 (Craftsbury, VT) – Frigid conditions settled into Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom on Saturday (Feb. 13) for the Dartmouth Winter Carnival, held at Craftsbury Outdoor Center. With forecasters calling for an early high of -15C (-5F), and temperatures dropping to -20 (-4F) before noontime, organizers decided to move the two distance classic races to an earlier start time so as to fall within safer racing temperatures.

Men's Start © Silke Hynes

“After the race,” Kelsey Phinney (Middlebury College) said, “it was clear that we had raced right at the legal temperature limit. It was the coldest day of skiing this winter for sure!”

The men led off with a 20km Mass Start, skiing six laps of a figure-eight style 3.2km loop. The course, which featured one “A” climb up one of Craftsbury’s signature hills “Moss Run”, also included a 300m stretch where the course paralleled itself, requiring any lap traffic to be aware of which direction they needed to be going at the split.

Eli Hoenig from Williams College took an early lead going into the second lap, gapping the field by ten seconds after that lap, and held his lead going into lap four. Jack Hegman from University of Vermont put in a solo effort to try and bring Hoenig back, capturing the lead by lap five, creating a slight gap himself for the final lap. Hegman would hold on to take the victory by six seconds, besting Hoenig with 47:33.0 vs 47:39.4. Dartmouth’s Fabian Stocek crossed the line soon after for third in 47:45.3.

Women's Start © Silke Hynes

Starting 15 minutes after the last men’s finisher, the women’s 15km Mass Start (five laps) also got off to an exciting start, with a large pack of racers making a jump after two laps. This pack, which included non-collegiate skiers such as APUs Becca Rorabaugh, SMST2’s Katherine Ogden, and Green Racing Project’s Kaitlynn Miller, Heather Mooney, and Elizabeth Guiney, as well as Kelsey Phinney, Colby College’s Olivia Amber, and UVM’s MK Cirelli. This group held as a pack until the final lap, when Phinney was able to open up a small gap in the final 500m, and hung on to take home the victory in 44:59.0. Rorabaugh closed hard on Phinney to cross the line in 45:01.8, with Amber just behind in 45:03.8. Cirelli finished 6th overall to complete the collegiate podium, finishing in a time of 45:07.9.

Iris Pessey (UVM) (l) and Olivia Amber (Colby) © Silke Hynes

Amber, who was on the podium for the first time since the St. Michael’s Carnival last season, said after her race that “It felt good to be up there with a really talented field! I actually fell on the first and last lap, but those crashes only got me more motivated to get up with the lead pack again.”

MK Cirelli (UVM) © Silke Hynes

Racing continues on Friday (Feb. 19) with the William’s College Carnival where the Nordic races will be held at the Olympic Jumping Complex in Lake Placid, NY.

Men’s Results here.
Women’s Results here.