Skiing Season Recap

For the Harvard skiing team, winter break is spent in a cabin in Vermont, with each skier training hard to prepare for the season against the top competition in the nation.

“The ski team is very small,” said sophomore and incoming captain Samantha Udolf. “We start training in November and go out to Colorado. We spend all of January in Vermont.”

This intense training is necessary for the team to match up against many skiers who are on the World Cup circuit or on the Olympic level.

For the men’s alpine team—a young team consisting of six sophomores and freshmen—this season was about catching up and learning to race to the fullest of each skier’s potential while overcoming nagging injuries.

“This year was better than last year,” said sophomore Simon Merryweather, an incoming captain. “I think the next two years should be an improvement over the past two.”

“People put in more effort [last] summer because they realized what it took,” he added.

While the team did not qualify any skiers for nationals, it achieved marginal successes, including finishing every run in the Slalom event at regionals.

Merryweather finished 51st in the giant slalom, making him the top representative for the Crimson.

Freshman James Stevenson led the way in the slalom event, finishing in 1:45.13, good for 52nd place.

The Crimson women’s alpine squad led a strong, competitive season despite its small size.

Captain Rebecca Nadler, who two years ago became the first skier in Harvard history to win an NCAA title, has consistently shown that it is possible to be a competitive Harvard skier on the national stage.

Once again, Nadler had a successful year, placing 16th in slalom and 8th in giant slalom at regionals to qualify for nationals.

There she earned All-American honors in the giant slalom, placing sixth out of 34 entrants.

She placed 20th in the slalom, a 12- position jump from her start position.

Freshman Katie Gibson placed 33rd  at regionals.

Harvard’s nordic team had a successful carnival season as well, putting two of its skiers in position to qualify for nationals going into the final weekend of the regular season in Middlebury, Vt.

On the women’s side, senior Jen Rolfes had a solid carnival season, marking a vast improvement from her junior season performance and securing her spot in the NCAA Championships before regionals began.

She finished 12th that weekend in the women’s 5k classic, earning her All-East recognition.

For the men’s team, junior Akeo Maifeld-Carucci and senior Chris Stock both qualified for nationals.

Maifeld-Carucci was well on his way to qualifying before the final weekend at Middlebury, but the fate of Stock was less certain.

Fortunately for the skier, a 39th place finish gave him just enough points to head to nationals.

At nationals in Park City, Utah, Rolfe missed the cutoff for the top 10, finishing in 17th in the classic 5K.

In the 15K, the senior finished in 43:03.00, a time that slipped her into 23rd overall.

After the 2012-2013 season in which the only Harvard skier at nationals finished 15 spots behind her bib spot, the team as a whole improved greatly this year.

As a squad, the Crimson finished 14th in a field of 23 at nationals. Harvard racers managed to earn points in five of the six races in which they competed.

Going forward, the team will have to replace Nadler, the most decorated skier in Crimson history.

“[Nadler] put Harvard skiing on the map,” Udolf said.

Nadler’s example, however, will live on in the team’s memory and the squad’s training.

“The team will miss her tremendously,” Udolf explained. “[Nadler] has definitely been a role model for the entire team.  Everybody has looked up to her—not only on the slopes, but off of it as well.”

With the continued work, the squad is hoping to build the program and qualify more skiers for national competition in the future.

“I think ultimately the goal is always to qualify kids for NCAAs,” Merryweather explained.

“We’ve had a lot of problems with being able to race as well as we trained,” Merryweather added.

“So I think we have to get ourselves in the correct mentality so that both the practice and competitive runs can link up with each other, and we can race as well as we train.”

—Staff writer Jacob W. Lynch can be reached at jacoblync@gmail.com.