WORLD SKI MOUNTAINEERING CHAMPS: U.S takes 10th
Competing in randonnee rally events around the country and consistently placing in the top five at every race is one thing, but participating in the sport’s World Championships against hundreds of elite racers demanded a completely different mind-set for seven American ski racers.
As members of the first-ever U.S. Ski Mountaineering Team, Steve Romeo, Chris Kroger, Cary Smith – all from Jackson, Wyo., – Peter Swensen of Breckenridge, Colo., Jeannie Wall of Bozeman, Mont., Polly Samuels-McLean of Salt Lake City, Utah and Monique Merrill of Breckenridge, Colo., took on the world’s best randonnee skiers at the 2006 World Ski Mountaineering Championships in Cuneo, Italy, from Feb. 24 to March 4 with unwavering focus and determination. With Italian racers dominating the majority of the prestigious four-event competition, which attracted more than 200 racers, the young U.S. team proved they could ski at the highest level and learned a handful of handy racing techniques from their skillful international counterparts. As a result of their arduous, lung-burning skinning and savvy off-piste skiing, the U.S. finished 10th overall as a team out of 33 nations.
“Going over there and seeing all these large teams with coaches was an eye-opener,” Kroger, 36, said. The team, which is sponsored by Patagonia, Life-Link/Dynafit and Colltex, has limited funding, no coaches and works together, both financially and in training, to make traveling to such high caliber events possible. “It was good to be apart of the whole ski mountaineering scene. We’re definitely getting better, but we’ve got a lot to learn – it’s serious over there.”
With some countries fielding strong teams that included former Nordic Olympians and world champion trail runners who couldn’t really downhill ski to the Venezuelan team who had only one member, the U.S. team started off on the right track in the first event of the week, a single 3,000-vertical-foot climb. Silently shocking the women racers, Merrill finished 10th overall out of 36 racers, while Wall took 17th and Samuels-McLean nabbed 28th. Swensen led the charge for the men finishing in 30th place in the 99-racer field, while Kroger took 34th, Smith 36th and Romeo 44th.
“Racers there were glad to see us and see that we were up and coming,” said Romeo, 34, who threw-up before the climb. “Just to see how quick and efficient and top guys were was amazing. They were just calm and never had that frantic feeling.”
The second event, the teams race, included teams of two racers skiing at the same time over a 20-k course that included 6,500 feet of climbing. Team members couldn’t be more than 50 feet apart at any point in the race. For the women, Merrill and Wall cruised to 10th place out of 15 teams with a time of 2 hours, 57 minutes. Romeo and Swensen paced the men finishing 22nd and Kroger and Smith took 25th in the 49-racer field. “It was so funny, all the spectators were skinning around watching the event in Lycra – they’re just all about it over there,” the 37-year-old Smith said. “The spectators were pretty in-tune with what was going on and cheering you on with cow bells and yelling ‘go, go’ in different languages.”
The most anticipated race of the championships came on the third day of competition when racers tackled a highly technical 17-k course with more than 5,000 feet of climbing for the individual event. Due to high winds, the course was re-arranged which excluded summiting some of the higher peaks.
After breaking away with the lead pack and ascending a section of fixed line which led to a descent of a 45-degree couloir containing variable snow conditions, Kroger was in a position to accomplish his goal of placing in the top 20 when disaster hit.
“It was definitely a weird situation,” Kroger said. “We all saw this person coming towards us on skis crossing his poles in the air and shouting, but we couldn’t really understand him. Finally, one of the other racers understood what the official was saying and it was over.”
With two-thirds of the course behind them and the finish in sight, racers were swiftly stopped by a race official who told them that the race had been cancelled due to a moderate-sized avalanche that swept more than 12 racers for a few hundred yards. Luckily, no one was seriously injured in the slide although a few participants were buried up to their necks.
In the final event, the men claimed the ninth spot out of 18 teams in the relay where each of the four members climbed 800 feet around a set course.
With signs and banners promoting the championships lining the streets of the mountain town of Cuneo, which is about an hour south of Turin, the entire experience for the U.S. team was one that was not only filled with fun, but also influential on how races could be run differently in the states.
“I think changing the race courses here would attract more backcountry skiers and it wouldn’t just look like a Nordic course,” Smith said. “It needs to test your technical skills more and not just your aerobic – it needs to be more like its name, ‘ski mountaineering.’”