Skier of the Week - US Nationals

In November we decided to take a small team to US Nationals in Craftsbury, Vermont. This is the race where skiers qualify for World Cup, World Junior, and other teams. It's a big deal!

We only had 4 athletes ready for this event so we asked our high school associates if they knew someone who would benefit and be excited to join us. Thus Nathan became part of our team for this exciting adventure!

The racing at this level on these trails is adventure enough but we had additional challenges as we were laid over in Chicago for 24 hours and didn't arrive at our rental house until 2:30am on the day of the first race!

This is NOT a recipe for fast racing but our team went all jungle tiger and not only did we get everyone on the trails, on skis, but they actually RACED! It was awesome!

In our push to get registered, bibs, feed, glide & kick wax on the skis, and the hundreds of other details that are necessary to get racers to the start line we didn't have time to baby our junior skier. In fact, other than getting his bib, skis, and feed we didn't really talk to him much. Nothing like being in a huge race, in a completely foreign environment, with athletes you don't really know to cause high levels of stress.

If Nathan felt this huge stress we sure couldn't tell. He went through the process of his very first 15km, his very first feed, his very first chip timing, at his very first National Competition without even a slight waver. He skied and skied all week without showing any stress or weakness in any way. Three races with 100's of athletes later he was still standing and still smiling.

Nathan never complained, whined, nor cried and I am here to say that this alone was a MAJOR accomplishment!

Through it all Nathan skied his heart out, giving everything he had to every race!

We all hope this young man will come to Laramie after  his graduation and join the UW Team because he has got GRIT and he is a good skier!

For being such an incredible Jungle Tiger and skiing fast in adverse conditions we want to award Nathan the Skier of the Week!

You ROCK OUR WORLD!!!!