After a Covid hiatus, Junior National Championships were back in full force in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Nothing like bringing a bunch of kids from Northern Vermont to the big city! For many athletes, this was their first time flying to a ski race. Did you know that there are a variety of tips and tricks for packing a ski bag to fly? Coach Audrey shared that there was a “lot of learning about the little things,” such as flying with a ski bag and operating within the “60-person New England team.” There’s a procedure behind “getting your stuff organized and skis scraped” when you're part of a team that is so big!

The Craftsbury crew! Amelia, Anika, Maggie Tzevi, Jack, Nina, Isabelle, Audre

The change of venue and being in a large city did not deter our Craftsbury Ski Club athletes from putting together a slew of great races and earning several podium and All-American positions. Five current CSC and two alums, as well as coach Audrey Mangan, made the trip to the Midwest for the week-long racing extravaganza. The athletes were: U16’s Amelia Circosta and Anika Leahy, U18’s Maggie McGee and Tzevi Schwartz and U20’s Nina Seemann, Isabelle Serrano and Jack Young. Nina currently attends Dartmouth College and Jack is at Colby College.

The racing kicked off on March 7th with Freestyle Individual start races.

In the U16 girls 5k, Amelia was 16th and Anika was 20th. For the U18 girls 10k, Maggie was 22nd. Nina garnered her first win of the series in the U20 10k while Isabelle was 27th. For the U18 boys 10k, Tzevi was 18th, and Jack was the 9th U20 boy in the 10k.

Nina Seemann on her way to victory in the classic mass start (Photo: Skinnyski.com)

On March 9th, the longest and most exciting day of the year took place-sprint races! This year, races were in the classic technique. In the U16 girls race Amelia qualified in 3rd, and after speedy quarter and semifinals, ended up in 5th! Anika qualified in 25th and moved all the way up to 15th, by placing 3rd in her quarterfinal. In the U18 girls race, Maggie was 16th. In the U20 girls race, Nina is your 2022 classic sprint champion! Isabelle isn’t far behind, placing 8th (2nd in the B final) after qualifying in 3rd. On the boys side, Tzevi was 28th in the U18 race. Jack is your 2022 runner up, earning the silver medal only .2 seconds behind 1st.

After one day off, the classic head to head racing continued with Mass Start racing on the 11th. Bitter cold conditions made the New England racers feel right at home! In the U16 girls 5k, Amelia was 13 and Anika was 23. In the U18 girls 10k, Maggie was 24th. Nina once again took top honors in the U20 10k and Isabelle was 19th. For the boys, Tzevi was 22nd in the U18 10k and Jack was 13th in the U20 15k.

The racing wrapped up with Mixed Team relays on March 12. The mixed team format is new to JN’s, and also debuted at the World Cup in Falun, Sweden on the same weekend! In this format, there are two boys and two girls that race the same 3k distance.

In the U20 race, Jack and Nina teamed up with Aidan Burt and Catherine Stow for the gold medal. Isabelle was on the 7th place team. In the U18 race, Tzevi was on the 9th place team and Maggie on the 16th place team. In the U16, Amelia was on the 7th place team. Anika was in a unique position to be on the mixed team that finished 13th, meaning she got to make friends with athletes from other divisions.

Coach Audrey shared that “After two years of there not being a JNs, I think the new kids were super excited to finally see what all the hype was about, both from a racing perspective and from a social perspective. And the returnees got a long-awaited chance to see where they stacked up again in a national field. Everyone handled those unknowns super well and came away with at least one race they were pumped about, and in many cases more than one race.”

You can see full results here.

Craftsbury Juniors on fire at JN's