Sports

Andover Nordic’s First Official Relay Race is a Success

Andover Nordic competed in a two-skier relay race against Rivers and Belmont Hill on Wednesday.

The day began with two qualifier heats for the girls and three for the boys. The top six pairs from each heat advanced to the the A finals, while the rest of the pairs competed in the B finals, according to Co-Captain Eli Newell ’20. Each member of the pair raced two laps, according to Posie Millett ’20.

“We each raced one lap, then tagged our partner and they did a lap, and then repeated that, so each partner did two laps total per race,” said Millett.

According to Kate Pfister ’21, the team experiments with different styles of races each week, such as quick sprints or 5ks.

Pfister wrote in an email to The Phillipian, “We do different kinds of races every week, like sprints or [five-kilometer races]. Today was our first official relay, so each of us had a partner and we all did [two kilometers] during the race and had a semifinal followed by a final race.”

The texture of the snow made the one uphill on a relatively short course difficult to navigate, according to Newell and Millett.

“The course was short and deceptively challenging—the uphills became really soft almost immediately and the turns quickly washed out, revealing ice. This made the course favor technically skilled skiers, more than most races usually do,” said Newell.

“The course was fairly short, but the consistency of the snow wasn’t great, so it was really difficult when it came to getting up the course’s one major hill,” said Millett.

Due to the extreme temperatures the length of the course for some relays were shortened to expedit the races, according to Pfister.

“It was really cold today, so they had to shorten the later relays because they were taking too long,” wrote Pfister.

The inconsistency of the weather makes it difficult for Andover to regularly train on snow. Looking ahead, it hopes to increase its time on snow, according to Newell.

“We hope to get the team on snow as much as possible so the newer skiers can practice their technique and the more advanced skiers can continue to train and remain competitive,” said Newell.

Andover Nordic will travel to Holderness next Wednesday