Nordic team one big family, awaiting flakes
This year’s Nordic team is large, with about 60 skiers. According to freshman Ian Burns, some standout skiers are Julian Camera, Tesh Jaswal, Addie Mager, and Zoey Candito, all captains.
“Ella Workman is another [standout]; she is an 8th grader and she skis with the varsity team,” said Candito. “And Aria Haupt is another outstanding skier.”
Candito, Camera, Burns, and River Wolaver all said they all had different favorite moments of being on the team. “One of my favorite moments as a Nordic skier is when we went to Craftsbury for a few days over winter break,” said Burns. “I like the family aspect of the team and how we have a very good positive energy.”
Candito loves post-race experiences and hard workouts, while Camera loves “snow, and just having fun skiing on some really good trails.” He said he also appreciates the flexibility of Nordic. “It can be a social, cooperative sport, or a solo, competitive sport, or any mix of those things,” he added. Wolaver, meanwhile, loves “the feeling of being out in the snowy woods.”
While not on snow, the team loves to participate in team bonding. “We do occasional pasta dinners and sometimes go to the dining hall after practice,” said Burns. Camera said he enjoys the varsity dinners and gatherings, as well.
“Through these experiences skiing or not we grow closer as a team,” he said. Candito loves “skiing for fun and planning for the season.”
Wolaver said all this strengthens the team culture.
One struggle for the team is lack of snow; for the past couple of years, the team has had to deal with inadequate snowfall. The team has only hosted 1 home meet in the last two years and other teams like Greylock and Mohawk get much more snow.
“It really is a burden,” said Wolaver. “Much of our competition has snow at their practices and is able to continuously train on it, making the competition unfair. If we had snow, it would help. We would be a stronger team and better competition.“
Camera said they “do a pretty good job with what we have access to: ski erg, roller skiing, strength training, and running, which allow for pretty well-rounded training even when we have snow.”
Burns agreed. “With ski-erging to improve form and athleticism, running, roller-skiing, and weight lifting, we have a plethora of tactics and strategies to train without snow.”
All the athletes praised their coach science teacher Nat Woodruff. “his approach to teaching is by training us to be in really good shape and then building our form and technique,” said Burns.
Camera agreed Woodruff is a top coach. “His approach to coaching is very enthusiastic, dedicated, and supportive,” he said. “He works to build relationships with all of the skiers while encouraging them to train and improve in any way that they can, not just to be able to ski faster but to have more fun while doing it.”
Burns was looking forward to the season and said he was hoping “to do well at States this year.”
Candito also said the girls team was getting quite good “by the end of last season and are hoping to keep improving.”
“It will be a fun season,” no matter what happens, said Camera.
