2024 Cross Country Junior Nationals Recap

The 2024 Cross Country Junior Nationals took place in Lake Placid, March 11-16. Five Ford Sayre athletes qualified to represent Team New England: Caleb Zuckerman (U20), James Underwood (U18), Sarah Glueck (U18), Annelies Hanna (U18), and Lea Perreard (U16). Also of note, in February, Caleb Zuckerman was honored to represent Ford Sayre and the USA for the third time at the Junior Nordic World Ski Championships in Planicia, Slovenia. In the U20 Nordic Combined men’s individual competition, Caleb fought hard in the talented international field and placed 20th overall and 1st American. It was so exciting to have Caleb represent the Ford Sayre Ski Club on the World Stage again, we are so proud of his accomplishments!

Andy Rightmire, the Ford Sayre JNT Assistant Coach joined as a U20 Coach for Team New England.

Ford Sayre BKL graduate, Jack Lange (U20, Dartmouth College) also represented NE at the races.

Monday: 5K freestyle nordic ski

Recap can be found here

Wednesday: Classic Sprint

Wednesday was a spring day at Mt. Van Ho with both rain and sunshine, soft snow and icy spots. It was a long hard day for competing athletes in the 1.3km sprints with the U20s and U18s events in the morning, and U16s events wrapping up just before 6pm. Lea (3rd U16), Annie (4th U18), Sarah (18th U18) and Caleb (21st U20) ranked in the top 30 in the qualifiers and advanced to heats. James just missed the heats coming in 33rd, with less than 1 second separating 28th-34th place! Lea won her quarter-final heat moving on to semifinals. She ended up in a fast semi-heat where her 3rd place time of 3:52 bested all other times earning her lucky loser status to move on to the finals. Despite a fall, Lea gritted out her finish and came in 4th place on the day, earning another All-American distinction. Similar to Lea, Sarah and Annie found themselves in very fast quarter-final heats. Sarah placed 4th in her heat with a time of 3:21, faster than all of the times in heats 1 and 3 and just missing lucky loser status. Annie came in 3rd in her heat with a time of 3:16, besting all other times, earning her lucky loser status. She moved into a 5th place finish during semi-finals, good enough to qualify her for the B final. Annie ended the day in 10th place overall, earning All-American distinction, a welcome relief after missing the races on Monday due to a respiratory cold. Caleb had a phenomenal sprint day. He competed in the quarter-finals after an impressive 21st in qualifiers in a field packed with college level racers. He ended the day in 29th place after getting tangled up with one of his New England teammates in the quarter finals despite having a blazing fast start in the heat. Jack Lange advanced to heats, placed 2nd in the quarter-finals, 5th in semis and after some brilliant tactical moves came in 1st in the B finals, finishing the day in 7th overall.

Friday: Classic Mass Start

Friday morning saw deteriorating snow conditions, as overnight rain and salting of the course made for slick snow on Van Ho’s unforgiving hills. The day started with the U16 girls, then boys racing 2 laps for a total of 5km in the tricky conditions. Spectators winced at the many tumbles and broken pieces of equipment. Lea ended her race in 10th position, first for team New England. Racing was paused after the conclusion of the U16 boys race as a thick fog rolled in and the course was deemed unsafe. At 1pm, the U18 women’s 10km event took place on a rerouted course, but the intense downhill ending in a hairpin left turn remained, with skiers making their way around the 5km loop twice. At the 3.75km split, Annie was in good position (6th) with the lead pack, but the fall of a NE teammate just in front of her on the notorious downhill resulted in Annie crashing and breaking a pole. After losing all speed going into the uphill and changing poles twice, Annie fought her way back to an 11th place overall finish! Sarah avoided crashing in the precarious snow and steadily worked her way up from 28th position at the 3.75km split to finish in 21st overall! The U18 boys saw James fighting for top 10 ranking- he was 2nd at the 5km mark,with the fastest split of the day! – and ended with an incredible sprint effort to the finish, catching the racer in front of him and placing 11th after prevailing in the photo-finish review. The U20 15km event took place late in the day, with a 4:30 pm start. Jack Lange won the race arriving at the finish line in an impressive 43:09.2. Following Sarah’s tactics, Caleb worked his way up as the race progressed moving from 34th to a final position of 28th with an overall time of 50:23.6! All of the spectating parents and coach Andy were relieved to have the day of harrowing conditions finished with only minor bumps and bruises for those who crashed.

Annie bib 207 chasing down the leader (photos by Phillip Belena)

Annie and James, lucky 11s (L) Annie’s battle wounds (R )

Saturday: Freestyle Relay

Saturday’s relays were nothing short of thrilling!

The NE1 U20 relay team (Mirra Payson, Jack Lange, Greta Kilburn and Finnegan Bailey) finished in 1st. Caleb’s U20 relay team ended in 16th with member Amelia Circosta on classic skis! New England entered 5 teams into the U18 competition with their second ranked team (NE2) made up of 75% Ford Sayre athletes: Annie, James and Sarah paired with Oliver Swabey (Prospect Mountain) as anchor. Annie skied the scramble leg in a smoking fast 8:07.5 (2nd fastest time of all the girls–and 27 seconds ahead of NE1!) tagging off to James in 2nd place. James skied the 3km course in an impressive 7:07.2 maintaining their position (clocking 3rd fastest for all boys!) and tagged Sarah who skied her heart out. Sarah had an early fall, but regained her composure and absolutely powered up the enormous hills finishing in 8:42.9, good for a 3rd place tag off and keeping NE2 in striking distance of 2nd place and well ahead of NE1 who currently sat in 4th. Ollie went for it in the final leg of the race, moving the team back into 2nd position at the crest of the final hill, but the fast skis of the Intermountain division skier proved too much on the final descent into the stadium. Ollie crossed the line in 3rd place and the underdog NE2 relay team celebrated their much-deserved podium position!

The day concluded with the U16 relays. The NE1 team, of Lea Perreard, Matthew MacIntosh, Mary Harrington and Matias Citerella were led out in fast fashion! Lea, skiing the scramble leg, quickly moved into 1st position and extended her lead on the large uphill. A crash on the notorious downhill took away a few seconds, but luckily all equipment was intact and Lea crushed the final ups and tagged off first with a time of 9:00.3 (3rd fastest girls time of the day). Matthew was next out on course and maintained first place position tagging off to Mary. The anchor legs saw a battle between Matias and Ian Carmack (Intermountain Div.). In the end Matias couldn’t match Carmack’s sprint to the finish, but NE1 was thrilled to be on the podium in 2nd place!