The race season is off and running at the Outdoor Center! This weekend, we welcomed nearly 100 racers both Saturday and Sunday for the Rodrigues Sprints and Kendall Classic. For one of the first times since 2020, racers from outside of Vermont shared our trails for racing fun.

Saturday’s race, in memory of longtime TD, friend, and mentor Jim Rodrigues, was a Queen’s Court sprint. In this format, all racers do a qualifying round of the 1.5k course, followed by three subsequent “heats.” The highlight of this format is that every racer does all three rounds, rather than only the top several athletes from each heat moving on for the duration of the day. Heats started every three minutes, with the top two finishers moving “up” to the next fastest heat, the middle two finishers remaining in the same heat, and the last two finishers moving “down” to the next slowest heat. Winners are crowned after the three rounds of heats. The format was mixed gender and mixed-age, meaning young and old were duking it out on the racecourse against each other! 

We had almost 20 Craftsbury juniors hit the course on Saturday! The race was described as “really fun,” “really fast” and “really hard.” The coaches reminded several athletes that this race “helps get the cobwebs out” and is good practice for the rest of the season. In addition to a grueling day of racing, athletes also had to contend with pouring rain, which may prompt some kids to bring more than one or two pairs of gloves to the next rainy ski race! 

Here is a list of Craftsbury skiers that raced, with a few GRP athletes thrown in too!

• Cormac Leahy

• Tzevi Schwartz

• Leo Circosta

• Tara Geraghty-Moats (GRP)

• Kelsey Dickinson (GRP)

• Charlie Krebs

• Charles Kehler

• Noah Mckibben

• Amelia Circosta

• Anika Leahy

• Isabella Serrano

• Ruth Krebs

• Maggie McGee

• Margaret Voisin

• Ayla Bodach-Turner

• Claire Serrano

• Sam Brondyke

• Anna Isselahrdt

• Sara Saligman-McGill

• Gabbie Schaffer

• Phoenix Masten

• Luke Murphy

On Sunday, sunny skies and fast snow greeted athletes for the Kendall Classic, a classic individual start race in memory of Tom Kendall and a benefit for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The race was slated to be a mass start, but, as we all know, mother nature always wins, an interval start race was the feasible option. U16s raced 6k while older athletes completed 3 circuits of the loop for a total of 8k. Again, there were rave reviews about the quality and speed of the course and snow!

Men’s 8k: 

13. Samuel Clark (6th U20)

27. Charlie Krebs (10th U18)

52. Jason Wang (16th U18)

Women’s 8k:

17. Maggie McGee (7th U18)

27. Margaret Voisin (11th U18)

U16 Boys 6k:

22. Thomas Kehler (4th U14)

U16 Girls 6k:

1. Ruth Krebs

2. Claire Serrano

5. Anika Leahy

16. Sara Saligman-McGill

See full results from Saturday and Sunday. Junior racing continues next weekend with the opening Eastern Cup at Quarry Road in Waterville, Maine.