"I came, I saw, I carnivaled" might be the motto of this year's Winter Carnival, but the Dartmouth ski team will try to revert back to the original Roman maxim "I came, I saw, I conquered" at the oldest tradition of this long weekend the annual Dartmouth Carnival.
Dartmouth's four groups of skiers women's and men's Nordic and women's and men's alpine will participate in four different events against other top Northeastern schools, including the University of Vermont and the University of New Hampshire. This year's team has profited immensely from the success of the women's Nordic team, which has won every race it has competed in so far.
The Dartmouth Carnival is held at the Dartmouth Skiway and Oak Hill, where the Big Green will strive to continue its undefeated streak this season and further strengthen its chances for the post-season NCAA Championships. Due to a lack of snow, Dartmouth will host the Nordic races at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vt.
With home-hill advantage, Dartmouth will have the chance to continue dominating on familiar courses and with its own crowd of fans.
"We only get to race at home once every year, and it has always been a highlight," women's alpine captain Tina Roberts '10 said. "It's fun that we have the opportunity for our friends to come up and see what we work so hard at, and we have home advantage, so we perform a little better."
The Dartmouth Carnival will be the fourth carnival of the season, with the Big Green coming into the event from last weekend's win at the UVM Carnival.
Although recent unseasonable weather has made training difficult at both the Dartmouth Skiway and Oak Hill, the team is hoping for some quick turnarounds as Carnival approaches.
"The warm weather has been unfortunate, and the snow has been pretty granular, which makes it tough to ski," Roberts said. "You have to take it with a grain of salt, because you never know what the snow conditions are going to be like on racing day, and you just have to go for it."
Roberts said that the snow conditions were poor a day before last year's Dartmouth Carnival, but the day the races started, the team was surprised to find some of the best snow of the entire season.
Led by captain Ida Sargent '11 who along with Sophie Caldwell '12 and Rosie Brennan '11 recently participated in the Under-23 Championships and World Junior Championships in Hinterzarten, Germany the women's Nordic team has delivered strong performances in the classic, freestyle and relay races this season.
The men's Nordic team has also skied well, winning three different events this season. Team members Eric Packer '12, Ethan Dreissigacker '13 and Sam Tarling '13 also competed in Germany earlier this season.
The men and women's alpine teams have also seen great individual successes, although they have yet to win a team event. For the women, Courtney Hammond '11, who dominated both the slalom and giant slalom races with multiple first-place finishes last year, placed first in the slalom race at the St. Lawrence Carnival, this season's first carnival.
Ace Tarberry '11 also notched his first carnival win for Dartmouth in the giant slalom event at the St. Michael Carnival.
"The thing that is really unique in particular about our team is that we have strong skiers in every discipline," Roberts said. "There are definitely some other teams that are neck-and-neck with us, like UVM's alpine team, but we are strong in all four teams, which is a big part of our success."
Although competing during Winter Carnival prevents the team from participating in many of the weekend's activities, Roberts said that competing with the full team makes the Dartmouth Carnival special.
"For us, it's basically just another race, and it's different than Homecoming would be, because the whole weekend is racing, rather than it being a fun, hangout weekend," she said. "But I think it's really great, because one of the things about the Dartmouth Carnival is that it's not only at home, but the whole team is together."
This year's carnival will kick off on Friday morning with the men's and women's giant slalom race and the men's and women's 3x5 kilometer freestyle race.
The alpine teams will compete in the slalom race on Saturday while the men's and women's Nordic teams tackle the 20-kilometer and 15-kilometer classic races, respectively.
