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Pro Team Racing Update Part 2of 4! Bozeman Races. Finn O'Connell Series

February 24, 2021
by
Finn O'Connell

Welcome back to the 4 part race series update. As the team was preparing for the weekend's races, the amazing crew at BSF worked tirelessly through the week to prepare the course for our first home races! Saturday consisted of a skate sprint and Sunday was a 10K individual skate distance race. Both these races were held right in town at Lindley park.

Leading up to the races the team spent a few days really getting to know the course at high speed. We have skied here throughout the winter, but a course like this one can ski very differently at race like speeds. The team met up Friday morning for some pre race interval. Some people like to go harder and longer the day before the race, and others like to keep it easy. With having a sprint as the first race, more skiers tend to go hard to really warm up the body and get a solid preview of the course.

The boys getting a good pre race workout in!

I really like racing at home because you can control so many more factors you usually can’t when on the road at a hotel. The number one thing for me is having my own bed. I can easily wake up rested and ready to go. The second biggest benefit to racing at home is the food. Compared to our weekend in Vail or other hotels, where we are eating microwave meals or spending lots of money on take out food, each of us are able to make solid pre race meals and breakfast. Along these lines, everyone is able to eat what they want to eat. It’s not one big team meal that we decide on.

Waking up Saturday morning, there was a huge surprise of around ten inches of fresh snow, and it was still snowing. This was awesome because the course was pretty low on snow. They were able to groom in the fresh snow making for a completely covered course.

As each BSF skier, Pro Team, Collegiate, and Junior, toed to the line, it was speedy skier after speedy skier. Unfortunately, due to restrictions, heats were not allowed to be held. So this race was a 3 minute all out effort and then you were done. The sprint course was fairly simple, a long gradual hill with steep punchy section at the top, then a small downhill corner, then a flat section, before heading down and up a quick section into the stadium and finish. BSF Pro Team member Logan Diekmann took a commanding win by a couple seconds! It was a great day for all of the Bozeman ski community to be able to participate in this event.

Logan Diekmann Racing to a commanding win in the Skate Sprint

After an easy recovery jog, and a big hearty bowl of chicken pesto pasta, it was time for my favorite race, an individual skate distance race. The skate race was 4x3.3k making the race just over 11K. The distance course is very unforgiving. While initially the course seems easy because it has very few hills, it's not because it has very few places you can tuck and get rest. So the top skiers will push hard all 11K with no rest. I had a solid race finishing 2nd, 5 seconds off the winner. I was hoping to come out on top, but I am still satisfied with my result.

The team spirits were high and it seemed like everyone had a great weekend racing at home in Bozeman! A few athletes headed back to Colorado just a few days after the Bozeman races. Stay tuned for that race update tomorrow.

Full Race Results:

https://my.raceresult.com/165018/?lang=en