Skiing Finishes Last in Vermont

The Harvard men's and women's alpine skiing teams faced New England's best collegiate ski teams Jan. 28 and 29 in the University of New Hampshire Winter Carnival at Attitash Mountain, N.H.

The result wasn't pretty.

Outmatched by the skiing powerhouses, some of whom own their own skiing mountains, the Harvard men and women combined to finish last in the 11-team competition.

Harvard finished with 119 points. First-place Vermont blew away the competition with 688 points, easily beating second-place Dartmouth by 98 points.

The weekend was split into two competitions, with the slalom race on Friday and the giant slalom (GS) on Saturday. Each Crimson team raced five skiers for both slalom and GS.

The racing started off Friday with the slalom races, which were scored based on two runs, each on a different course.

On the women's side, UVM turned in a dominating performance, taking first place with 91 points, handily beating second-place Middlebury by 11 points. UVM captured five out of the top seven places.

The Crimson women finished 11th out of the 11 qualifying teams. They posted only six points.

"It was very cold," said junior Erin Marshall. "But the course wasn't very icy or rutty."

The top slalom finisher was Dartmouth's Gusty Swift who turned in a 1:42.13 combined time for the two runs. She edged out UVM skier Shaina Mulkern by only .19 seconds.

The Crimson's best finisher on Friday was freshman Julie Weintraub who placed 56th with a time of 2:21.86.

Following the women's race, the men took to the slalom course. However the result for the Crimson men was similar, as Harvard finished 10th out of the 11 qualifying teams, posting 15 points.

UVM also dominated the men's slalom race, finishing with 93 points, a whopping 14 points ahead of second-place Dartmouth.

The top Crimson qualifier was freshman Ryan Myers, who finished with a combined time of 2:10.64. Myers's performance accounted for 5 of the Crimson's 15 points and was good enough for 44th place.

Topping the standings was Kyle Hildebrand of Bates, who posted an impressive 1:39.98 combined time for the two runs. UVM captured the next three spots in the individual standings.

On Saturday, the competition turned to giant slalom. Unlike slalom, the GS races consisted of two runs on the same course.

However, the results for both Harvard teams were no different from Friday. Both finished 11th out of the 11 qualifying teams--the Crimson men posted nine points, the women only six.

On the men's side, Dartmouth claimed first with 83 points, outpacing New Hampshire and UVM, by 13 and 16 points, respectively.

UVM claimed the top individual spot as Brandon Dyksterhouse blew away the competition with a combined time of 1:55.76. Dyksterhouse finished 1.53 seconds ahead of second-place Greg Blaisdell of UNH--an eternity in competitive ski racing.

The fastest Crimson man was junior Kenan Stern, who posted a time of 2:22.16, good enough for 53rd place.

"The course was set up very strangely," Ryan Myers said. "It was a fun course, but nonetheless challenging."

The results for the women's GS were nearly identical to that of the slalom.

UVM took top honors again with 92 points, beating second-place Dartmouth by 15 points.

However, the Big Green's Swift bested the field again with a combined time of 2:01.27, winning easily by .93 seconds.

"The weather was gorgeous on Saturday," Marshall said. "But by the second run the course had gotten pretty rutty."

Junior Catherine Chen led the Harvard women, finishing 58th with a combined time of 2:31.57.

With this winter's relatively warm weather and the lengthy travel time, Harvard has had only a minimum of training on the snow. In December, the team trained three times at Blue Hill, their home mountain. In January, the Crimson had only one weekend of skiing before the competition.

The team has used a variety of dry land training to supplement the lack of snow training.

However, the fresh powder that New England has received in the past two weeks will improve the Crimson's training opportunities.

"I thought we did pretty well for our first race considering we haven't had a lot of practice time," Myers said.

Now that the Crimson has the first race of the season under its belt, the skiers will return to action Saturday and Sunday. They will travel to Stowe, Vermont for the UVM Winter Carnival, where they will face many of the same New England teams.