WEST YELLOWSTONE, Mont. — It was sunny and warm in Albuquerque. It was snow in West Yellowstone, and perfect for some of the University of New Mexico Nordic squad to get out and hit the trails for their first races of the season.
Head coach Fredrik Landstedt used the opening races, which are not a part of the official collegiate schedule, to get some competition in and see how some of his new skiers are out on the trails in an official race. The best news is all signs are positive.
The Nordic squads actually opened the USSA Super Tour in a race they never run during the collegiate season, a sprint. Why run the sprint? The challenge, and it’s a chance to race against other collegiate skiers, as well as USSA regulars.
“We normally don’t race sprints in college, but it was a great way to start the season out. It’s a really fun race for our team to compete in, and I think it helps them down the road,” said Landstedt.
In the women’s sprint, it’s probably no surprise to see Eva Sever Rus, last year’s NCAA champion in the freestyle, finishing high. In the sprints, everyone runs a qualifier before paring the field down to the top 30 for the sprint finals. For Sever Rus, it was no difference. She clocked in at 2:58 in the qualifier to easily make the field in sixth place, and then in the finals, she again finished sixth with a time of 2:57.8, missing first place by 1.3 seconds.
UNM’s only other female Nordic skier on the trip was Anni Nord (Jessice Gnuchtel was ill and didn’t compete and Heleene Tambet just finished the UNM cross country season) and she placed 43rd in the qualifier, missing the finals by just two seconds.
In the men’s sprint qualifier only freshman Alec Wiltz competed, coming in 65th out of 140.
In the women’s 10K Super Tour, Sever Rus finished 16th overall with a time of 28:42.1, and she was fourth among all collegians. Teammate Anni Nord was 36th overall and 14th collegiate with a time of 29:57.5
In the men’s 15K Super Tour, it was a chance for Landstedt to gauge two skiers who weren’t here last year in rookies Kyle Beling and Alec Wiltz, and senior Christian Otto, who redshirted with an injury last year. Otto, in his first race in quite some time, was 45th overall and 14th collegiately with a 40:16.8 time.
Beling was 64th in his first race (18th collegiate) with a time of 42:01.4, and Wiltz came in at 42:37.4, good for 68th overall and 20th collegiate.
For an opening weekend, especially one with a few ill racers, Landstedt was more than pleased.
“Eva skied well in the distance race although she was tired from all the hours of skiing the week before,” said Landstedt. “The rest of the team skied well considering that we did not focus on skiing fast in these races.” The men’s side was missing Aljaz Praznik, Mats Resaland and Aku Nikander, all three of which were All-Americans last year.