Scouting the course the day before.
(photo credit: Max Taam)
A cold start to the race today, -18c. We arrived an hour early for the start and huddled in the car for as long as possible. Typical Euro style, the bathroom was a hole in the ground inside a tent (No plastic porta-potties here!). An 8:45am start and we were off for 8,500' of climbing on a 15 mile course. Team Simmons/Ruckman were the first North American's after 5,000+ feet of climbing. We were in 13th place at the highpoint of the course. The downhills were challenging and we quickly started being passed. Ruckman had a spectacular crash and the American team of Dorias/Goth passed us on the last downhill. We skated hard to catch them and skinned to the line neck and neck to lose by .5 seconds. Dorias' blog post states; "it was pretty funny that we'd traveled all this way to end up racing each other". A great race course with tons of above treeline skiing. The four USA men's teams finished 10th, 17th, 20th and 21st. The women finished their race in 6th place.
4 Americans sprint it out at the finish line. Team Dorias/Gaston pulled ahead of Team Simmons/Ruckman who finished in 21st place.
(photo credits: Dom Maack)
Team Simmons/Ruckman crossing the finish line together.
Jon Gaston, Andy Dorias, Scott Simmons, Greg Ruckman
Team USA
