Nordic Skiing persevered through adverse conditions on Wednesday in its race at Dublin School (Dublin) to place third in the Boys 5-Kilometer Race and 5th in the Girls 5-Kilometer Race. Andover competed against a range of schools, including larger schools like Belmont Hill and St. Paul’s, as well as smaller teams from Proctor Academy, Dublin, Putney School, Holderness, Northfield Mount Hermon (NMH), and Kimball Union (KUA).
Sebastián Vermut ’27 explained the intricacies of Nordic skiing, emphasizing the differences between classic and skate skiing styles. Knowing the Wednesday race would be a skate race, the team tailored practices to this style, distinct from their typical training sessions, which focus on classic skiing.
“When you think of Nordic skiing, there are two different kinds. Classic skiing involves your skis parallel to each other, and you have what’s called kick wax. If you picture running on skis, that’s what classic is. Skate skiing is your skis splayed out from each other at an angle. You’re shifting your weight from left to right, creating forward motion. It’s a bit like ice skating or, if you’ve ever downhill skied before, like duck walking almost. And it is faster than classic,” said Vermut.
Matthew Wei ’28 elaborated on the team’s preparation for this race, as it had not raced skate since the second meet of the season.
“This past week and last week, we had some pretty intense workouts. For skiing, you don’t want too much fresh snow, you want it packed down. Because we had a lot of fresh snow recently, it was a bit hard, but we did what we could. We did some sprints, intervals, and hill workouts to prepare for this race because it was a really hilly course. One of the most important things was doing a step turn. When you go down a hill and there’s a turn, which there were a lot of in this race, one way to gain or maintain speed is to do a step turn. Instead of gliding, you actually take steps to keep your momentum. That’s pretty hard to do, but I feel like it was really helpful,” said Wei.
Hannah Jung ’28 praised the team for pushing through numerous weather-related obstacles, including slushy snow that proved treacherous.
“In the girls race, L Young [’27] told me how she got stuck in a pile at the very beginning. She said she was pushed farther back than she would have been if she hadn’t fallen, but did a great job throughout the rest of the race trying to catch up to the leaders. In the boys race, Henry Wall [’27] was right in the middle of where several skiers began to fall. His ski binding came off, and he had trouble getting it back on. Overall, though, he got back in and continued racing, which was really strong of him,” said Jung.
Nordic Skiing will compete at the Weston Ski Track this Friday for a tri-race against Rivers, Middlesex, and Belmont Hill.
