Both the men’s and women’s teams traveled to Duluth, Minnesota to compete in the SuperTour finals and the spring national championships last week.
The SuperTour and spring national championships were made up of both collegiate and professional athletes. On the men’s side of the competition, there was a total of 72 skiers with 45 on the women’s side.
Each day of the championships was dedicated to one event for the day. The four events the Wildcats competed in were the classic interval start, classic sprint, skate team sprint, and finally the 40km skate. Both teams competed in all four events.
Freshman Henriette Nilssen came in second place among collegiate athletes in the first event, the interval start, which placed her tenth overall. Her final race time was 27.41.2. The next Wildcat to place in this race for women was Sophomore Merle Richter who came in fourth for collegiate and was the 14th skier overall, timing out at 28.10.7.
On the men’s side of this race, two Wildcats went fourth and fifth collegiately. Luke Fricker placed fourth and Kristoffer Karsrud placed fifth. Fricker’s time was 23:57.7 with Karsrud’s finishing around 24:09.2.
The next day, the Wildcats competed in the classic sprint. For the men only Kristoffer Karsrud. Karsrud placed sixth in the finals and was the only collegiate athlete to compete in the finals. Karsrud’s final time was 3.00.12. Two women made it to the semi-finals of the sprint. The two wildcats were Henriette Nilssen and Merle Richter. No Wildcats qualified to compete in the final race.
On the third day of the competition, the skiers competed in the team sprint race. One women’s team competed in the team sprint made up of Merle Richter and Henriette Nilssen where they placed sixth overall with a time of 20.38.58. The men’s team placed fifth in the finals. The two wildcats were Luke Fricker and Kristoffer Karsrud. Ficker and Karsrud’s time was 17.35.95.
Three women Wildcats finished one after another in the final race, the 40km state. First, Sophomore Pearl Harvey led the way in the last race of the championships, classic interval start, where Harvey placed 15th overall and fourth overall among the collegiate athletes competing with her time of 2.12.4. Finishing in 16th place overall and fifth collegiately with a time of 2:13.24.2.8, right behind Harvey, was Sophomore Kolibri Drobish.
Seventeenth place overall and the sixth collegiate athlete to finish was Junior Victoria Dybwad, finishing in the race at the 2:13:24.2 mark. On the final day on the men’s side, Kristoffer Karsrud and Luke Fricker were the first Wildcats to cross the finish line. Fricker came in 12th for collegiate athletes and 34th overall with his time of 1:53.09. Karsrud came in 13th collegiately and 35th overall with a time of 1:53.40.
This was the final race of the season for the Nordic ski teams.
