Mich racers do great at World Masters!

I'm no statistician, but from the looks of it, the Lower Peninsula of
Michigan sent a nice group of skiers over to the World Masters in
Lillehammer this year and did really well.

I have a fast hookup but darn all those PDF files and all those age
groups ARE CONFUSING. So I'm just going by guesswork and vague recall
here. I didn't write down anything as I wandered thru the JILLION
results files.

And I only looked at the guys.

Offhand, it looks like ours was the biggest US contingent, with 3 or 4
from one region.

Also, I'd say that all our skiers were true citizen racers, non-team,
maybe even non-college types. Regular guys with jobs and kids.

In addition to the Michigan Force there seems to have been a couple
former US Olympians and then another 3-4 from the rest of the US.

Our Michiganders appeared to generally have finished 10th-20th in
basically all the events they entered. Once at least they were the best
US finishers.

Maybe Milan once got 6th or 8th or something very good.

It seems in general that our local gang held down 15th and a couple
other places in that vicinity in every event. That was my impression.

Also, our local guys seemed equally strong across the board: each guy
seemed to have nailed about 15th at least once: Milan, Denny, Tim,
Randy, sorry if I forget other locals.

From various reports it seems like the racing set-up was a little
unusual, something about selecting alternating techniques every day and
not knowing who you'd ski against. Hard to follow for soft heads.

It was great to see Todd Boonstra GET A GOLD! And maybe Jon Engen, too?
Yikes. I'm lousy at this. Well, those guys DID GREAT anyway. And so did
our local heroes!

And all of them look like they raced a VERY FULL WEEK. No sandbagging or
selective cherrypicking. I saw all their names in almost all the events.

I hope they all had a great time. It looks like they did. The USA looks
to have had great results. It must've been AMAZING to race in the
SKIER'S HEAVEN! I hope there were BIG CROWDS for them all.

--

Jeff Potter
****
*Out Your Backdoor * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com
publisher of do-it-yourself culture ... bikes, skis, boats & more! ...

... offering Vordenberg's XC ski tales in "Momentum"! ...
... "The Recumbent Bicycle": the only book about these bikes! ...
... Rudloe's "Potluck": true-life story of workingclass smuggling! ...

... with radical novels coming up via LiteraryRevolution.com! ...
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Jeff Potter wrote in message ...
I'm no statistician, but from the looks of it, the Lower Peninsula of
Michigan sent a nice group of skiers over to the World Masters in
Lillehammer this year and did really well.
....
Also, I'd say that all our skiers were true citizen racers, non-team,
maybe even non-college types. Regular guys with jobs and kids.
....
In addition to the Michigan Force there seems to have been a couple
former US Olympians and then another 3-4 from the rest of the US.

Our Michiganders appeared to generally have finished 10th-20th in
basically all the events they entered. Once at least they were the best
US finishers.

Maybe Milan once got 6th or 8th or something very good.

It seems in general that our local gang held down 15th and a couple
other places in that vicinity in every event. That was my impression.

Also, our local guys seemed equally strong across the board: each guy
seemed to have nailed about 15th at least once: Milan, Denny, Tim,
Randy, sorry if I forget other locals.

It was great to see Todd Boonstra GET A GOLD! And maybe Jon Engen, too?
Yikes. I'm lousy at this. Well, those guys DID GREAT anyway. And so did
our local heroes!

And all of them look like they raced a VERY FULL WEEK. No sandbagging or
selective cherrypicking. I saw all their names in almost all the events.

I hope they all had a great time. It looks like they did. The USA looks
to have had great results. It must've been AMAZING to race in the
SKIER'S HEAVEN! I hope there were BIG CROWDS for them all.

--

Jeff Potter


Jeffy ! You gotta get out to the Michigan Cup races in your backyard
more ! It's awesome. The hot mover of the year was Ludington &
GRNST's own David MacClean ! He got in front of Milan a couple times
in Lillehammer (!), thus qualified for the Silver Medal Relay squad
with Engen, Boonstra & Aalberg ! How's that for exciting Masters
Racing ! He missed yesterdays Michigan Cup Classic 15k @ Boyne
Saturday, but he was there today for the 15k FS race. (BOY ! What a
weekend ! Probably the best race weekend of the year. What snow. What
trails. What competition) It was really something to see David
MacClean ski away from the lead pack in the middle of the first lap
and hang on for the win. He's had a great year, and yep, he meets the
regular working Joe-skier standard (contractor).

The Michigan Cup Rocks.

Oh, & the "skating in classic races" issue has been taken care of. See
Muha's site (www.NordicSkiRacer.com) for details on the repair. It was
business better than usual on Saturday with nobody grumbling about
skaters in the classic race, and plenty of ski racers very pleased
that the matter has been brought out into the open and evidently
corrected. Much more fun.

David McClean is a Michigander? Cool! I saw the name but didn't check the locale. Man, we even keep on getting more
great skiers around here.

Good to hear about the fine skiing, Dell. I'll keep an eye out for the results.

I sure wouldn't mind a longer spring ski season. I only got one day of crust skiing in.

--

Jeff Potter
****
*Out Your Backdoor * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com
publisher of do-it-yourself culture ... bikes, skis, boats & more! ...
... offering Vordenberg's XC ski tales in "Momentum"! ...
... "The Recumbent Bicycle": the only book about these bikes! ...
... Rudloe's "Potluck": true-life story of workingclass smuggling! ...
... with radical novels coming up via LiteraryRevolution.com! ...
... music! ... articles! ... travel forums! ... WOW! 800-763-6923