Andover Nordic shows grit in first league race
Despite the record warmth and snowless fields in Andover over the past week, the Nordic team gave a great effort with good results in the first league race of the season at Proctor. The race was a 5.2km classic race on a snowmaking loop with some challenging hills. The girls were up first with 67 girls from 8 schools taking to the course. Claire de Saint Phalle led the way for Andover with a 9th place finish in 20:10. Posie Millet and Nikita Muromcew were close behind in 13th and 18th place. Kate Pfister rounded out the Andover scoring in 31st place. Hannah Justicz placed 43rd in her first official race and was followed by Amelia Vinton and Christina Li in 48th and 54th place. Overall the girls scores added up to 4th place with 59 points.
The boys were up second with a huge field of 95 skiers. Eli Newell and Sam Gallaudet were quick off the line and towards the front of the race the whole time. Newell finished in 9th and Gallaudet slipped to 13th after breaking a pole in the last lap. Remy de Saint Phalle had a good race in 38th place and Henry Hearle had a great first race finishing in 54th place. Other newcomers Tyler Yung (56th), Sam Capobianco (61st), Nico Von Eckartsburg (73rd), and Samson Zhang (84th) all did well in their first races as well. Jeremy Zhou also raced, but had to pull out with a broken ski. The boys ended up in 5th place out of 11 teams overall.
Next week the team is looking to build on the solid start at Dublin for pair sprint relays.