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SuperTour Classic Sprint (SilverStar, British Columbia)

December 2, 2022
by
Finn O'Connell

Welcome to the start of the 2022-23 SuperTour circuit! The team arrived in Silver Star, British Columbia on Sunday. The team has spent the last few days testing skis, and learning the courses here. Silver Star is the cutest little ski resort town. It looks like it belongs in a snow globe! The snow globe is accurate as it has been constantly snowing since the team arrived. With all the new snow, and the very cold temperatures, the snow and race courses are squeaky slow. However, that has not stopped the BSF Pro Team from racing fast and placing well. 

The first race of the week was a classic sprint. After a one hour delay due to excessive snow, the ladies were ready to jet off the line, and complete the 1.3k course. The course starts up a gradual uphill for nearly a minute with a steep kicker before pulling a U turn and heading back down with just enough speed to get in a tuck for a few seconds and catch your breath. The course then goes up another gradual hill followed by a flat section before heading down to the low point of the course and heading back up a long straight stretch into the finish.

Classic Sprint Course Profile

In the qualifier, Sarah Goble led the ladies in 7th place. 8.01 seconds behind world cup skier Hailey Swirbul. Mariah Bredal finished 16th, Hannah Rudd was 18th, and Erika Flowers finished 21st! Hannah recaps her qualifier and her heat. In the end, Sarah finished 9th, Mariah 14th, Hannah 15th, and Erika in 24th.

Erika Flowers charging hard, and having fun

“As Wednesday’s sprint was the first race of the season, I went into it not knowing exactly how my body was going to perform but shooting for some big goals. The classic sprint course here in Silver Star is relatively flat with a lot of transitions and working corners. While doing my pre-race workout on Tuesday and during my warmup, I practiced skiing the transitions by pushing hard over the top of each hill and being powerful in my cornering. I was also thinking about being relaxed and powerful on the uphill sections. My qualifier didn’t go as well as I wanted it to in terms of results as I finished in 18th. I feel like I skied the course well, but my top speed just wasn’t there. In my quarter final I was in around 4 place for the first section of the course. On the hill section there were two girls breaking away ahead of me so I sped up to catch them. It ended up being a double pole sprint to the finish line and I ended up in 3I was definitely bummed about not moving on throughout the rest of the heats, as I was hoping to make the finals. Although it wasn’t my best race, I feel like my shape is there, and this race was a good opportunity to shake off the cobwebs. I’m looking forward to our next sprint race on Saturday!”

Without any long steep hills, a large portion of the men decided to go without kick wax and double pole the entire course with skate skis on. This proved to be fast but those with kick wax were still able to place well. In the qualifier, Finn finished 10th, Graham finished 12th, Reid was 14th, Max Kluck, a member of the junior team with BSF, made the senior heats by qualifying 27th, and Simon was 41st. All the BSF men besides Graham used kick wax.

Finn in the Qualifier

In the heats, more people saw the benefits of using skate skis and decided to go that route. Graham recaps how the heats went below! He also made his first final and placed 6th at the end of the day! A personal best. Reid was 12th, Finn finished in 14th, and Max ended the day 28th. 

“Yesterday I had one of my best classic sprint results in a very competitive field no less, which made being in the final even more gratifying. To be honest, I surprised myself a little as it being the first major race of the year, I wasn’t sure what my shape would look like and where I would stack up against the competition. Sure, I’ve done some time trials leading up to this week, but being in a TT is different than being in a race; as the nerves are much higher. My mind set for the day was to take everything one step at a time, and not think too far ahead. So heading into the qualifier my mindset was set on just that, give a maximum effort for 1.3 km and see where that would land me. The major decision that I had to make before the race was whether or not I was gonna double pole or use kick wax. When I went out and tested it, it seemed like going on classic skis seemed like the move, but looking back I should have gone on skate skis. But for the heats, my plan was to sit in the group and try to stay out of trouble before making my move. The plan worked great for my quarterfinal, and almost back fired on me in semifinal as I left my move a little late and had to expend a large amount of energy that I was planning on saving for the finals. But seeing as it was my first SuperTour final appearance, I was very excited. Contrary to what my strategy was in the quarters and semis, with the finals I decided that I would just go for it and see what would happen. I hung with everyone else until last major hill where my muscles were just too fatigued to stay in the group and dropped back to 6th. Overall though it was a pretty great day and not a bad way to start the season and hopefully I can keep the momentum going into the rest of the races.” 

Graham starting hard in the final of the Mens Classic Sprint

Overall the BSF Pro Team had more skiers in the top 15 in both the mens and women than any other team. Stay tuned for more race recaps from the BSF team in SilverStar!