Skiers continue winning streak with carnival victory
By Matthew Ritger, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Thursday, January 24, 2008
Ida Sargent '11 has been on the podium in all four of her intercollegiate Nordic races so far and finished in first place twice.
The seemingly unstoppable Dartmouth ski team stretched its winning streak to nine consecutive victories at the Saint Lawrence University Carnival this past weekend. This season, the Big Green has added two more victories to last year's flawless record and shows no sign of slowing down.
Dartmouth finished the weekend with 587 points, outdistancing second-place Middlebury's 555. The University of Vermont finished third with 527.
Dartmouth's Nordic women's team brutalized the competition, playing musical chairs on the podium. In the 15k classical race, the team took six of the top 10 spots and swept the top three spots. Ida Sargent '11 won the race, followed by captain and older sister Elsa Sargent '08. Rosie Brennan '11 followed in third.
In the 5k freestyle, it was Brennan who came out on top, snagging her first win in what could promise to be an illustrious career of collegiate skiing.
"Skate technique has been a weakness of mine," Brennan said, "so its good to see that I am making progress and it makes the win even sweeter."
Ida Sargent followed in second place. Dartmouth then packed an additional three skiers into the rest of the top eight.
On Monday, Ida and Brennan will head to Poland to represent the United States in the World Junior Championships.
"I think [the women's Nordic team] just shows the direction that college skiing, especially in the East, is headed," Brennan said, about the team's impressive performance. "The overall level of Nordic skiing in the U.S. is rising."
While the women's Nordic team garnered the most obvious accolades at last weekend's carnival, the rest of Dartmouth's ski team saw a number of impressive performances. Courtney Hammond '11 won the women's giant slalom by an unprecedented margin of nearly two and a half seconds. Glenn Randall '09 took the top honors in the men's 10k freestyle while Dakota Blackhorse-Von Jess '08 finished fourth in that race and took second in the 20k classic the following day.
The slalom races, however, still hurt the Dartmouth squad at St. Lawrence. The highly technical discipline has been a crown of thorns for the Big Green in recent races -- while there is a long-standing tradition of slalom talent at Dartmouth, mistakes and disqualifications have recently hurt the team scores. The men finished third and the women finished fourth at St. Lawrence, allowing competitors such as UVM and Middlebury to gain ground.
Scott Linton '09 led the charge in the men's slalom, tying for sixth place. Ace Tarberry '11 followed in eighth place. The team's captain, David Chodounsky '08, did not finish. On the women's side, Hayley Jones '10 led the way in 10th place. Captain Michelanne Shields '08 finished 12th. UVM took first place in both races.
In the Giant Slalom, UVM dominated both races again, but Dartmouth followed more closely. The men came in second, as Chodounsky took sixth and Francis Fortin-Houle '10 was eighth. Tarberry came through again, taking 12th. For the women, Hammond's gutsy performance in the race was not followed until a 15th-place finish by Kelsey Roddick '11, leaving the Big Green in third.
This week the carnival circuit will pause before the teams' return to the thick of competition at UVM on Feb. 1 - 2. The Dartmouth Carnival will take place in Hanover the following weekend, Feb. 8 - 9.
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