December 10, 2007 (Bozeman, Montana) – Some things don’t seem to change. Exhibit A: Laura Valaas and USSA Cross Country SuperTour sprints – hold one and Valaas finds a way win it.

A year ago, Valaas won nine of 10 SuperTour sprints (plus the sprint silver medal at the Under-23 Championships) en route to securing a place on the U.S. Ski Team. This season, she’s 2-for-2.

Valaas, who trains with the Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center program when she’s not with the U.S. Ski Team, won the SuperTour season opener, a skate race, in West Yellowstone over Thanksgiving Weekend. Saturday, she took the classic sprint race at Bohart Ranch.Temperatures were in the low teens most of the day.

University of Utah’s Snorri Einarsson won the men’s sprint, edging teammate Even Sletten in the six-man final at Bohart Ranch.

Earlier in the week, not too many folks would have bet the races would be held. Warm temperatures and rain had spoiled the snow cover at Lindley Park downtown in Bozeman, so Bohart – which will host collegians in the NCAA Ski Championships in March – agreed to take the races.

A drop in the temperatures provided the necessary pick-me-up to stage the SuperTour event. There was even some light snow during the sprints.

Organizers put together a challenging 1.1 km loop. Sletten and Katie Ronsse of the University of Denver had the fastest qualifying time and the top 30 skiers in the prologue moved into the finals heats, five heats of six skiers each. The top two in each quarterfinals heat advanced to the semifinals where the top three advanced to finals (and the bottom three moved to the so-called B Final).

In the end, Valaas used a familiar tactic: bludgeon everyone in every heat. She won her quarterfinal, won her semifinal and topped Lindsay Williams, who was second, third-place Ronsse, Kasandra Rice in fourth, Kristina Strandberg in fifth and Karin Camenisch in sixth in the women’s final.

For the men, Einarsson emerged from the final six with Sletten runner-up, Kevin Hochtl in third place, Marshall Green fourth, Brian Gregg fifth and Dave Chamberlain sixth.

Men’s sprint results here.

Women’s sprint results here.

Sunday’s Women’s 10km and Men’s 15km

Garrott Kuzzy and Caitlin Compton, teammates on Team CXC, skated off Sunday with victories as the USSA SuperTour ended its annual swing through Bozeman.

The win took some of the sting out of being ousted Saturday in the quarterfinal of the classic technique sprints at Bohart Ranch. He had won the seson-opening sprint two weeks earlier in West Yellowstone.

Sunday, Kuzzy finished the freestyle race with a time of 33:54.9 while Zack Simons took second place in 34:15.4. Completing the podium in the field of 54 was another CXC racer, Brian Gregg (34:39.6).

Missing was local favorite Leif Zimmermann, who elected to skip the race when it was single-digit cold early in the day. Although it warmed up, Zimmermann – who is aiming to compete in the World Cup races January 22-26 at Canmore, Alberta – decided to train at Bohart rather than race.

In the women’s 10 km, Compton – who has veered into biathlon this season – hung up a solid victory with a time of 25:46.6. Liz Stephen – in her first race of the season – took second place (29:04.2) and Taz Mannix, one of Stephen’s teammates on the U.S. B Team, finished third (30:06.3) among the 43 skiers.

“Liz said she had a blast. We’ve sat on her, kept her training this fall, so she was ready to roll today and did very well. A podium for Taz was excellent, too,” said U.S. Development Coach Matt Whitcomb.

He had high praise for Bohart, which quickly accepted relocation of the races when poor weather wiped out the planned courses at Lindley Park downtown. Organizers had hoped holding the two days of racing at Lindley would attract more spectators, but Bohart didn’t flinch when the flare went up for help, Whitcomb said.

“They put together a world-class course in terms of terrain. It’s so refreshing to find these challenging trails; we’re used to seeing a little more flat or roll, but Bohart was outstanding,” the coach said.

From Bohart, which was the venue for the 2002 U.S. Championships on the eve of the Olympics in Utah, the SuperTour heads next to Soldier Hollow, the cross-country venue for those Olympics. The racing schedule next Saturday and Sunday include another classic sprint and a men’s 15 km and women’s 10 km skate races – except it will be a mass start instead of an interval start.

Women’s 10km results here.

Men’s 15km results here.