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December 7, 2006

Alpine Team - Head Coach George Brooks

This week our athletes have school on their minds, closed week this week and finals next week. They are well prepared and we expect good grades across the board. Ski-wise we have just completed our Turkey Camp which lasted nine days. We started with two days at Loveland, Colo., where the snow was good and the training very good. We then traveled to Red River, N.M., where the snow was great and the training fabulous. Drew Judycki and Craig Swagerty treat the ski team like kings providing nothing but the best. Craig provided lodging at the RIVERSIDE and Drew opened the ski area (normally closed) to provide us a great hill with outstanding snow for exceptional training at our private ski area. The team made excellent progress and by week's end were skiing like champions.

Last season the men's team was number one in the nation and it looks like they can repeat that feat again this year. Our women's team is much improved from last year and we expect them to also be competing for top honors nationwide.

On Dec. 14th we will travel to Steamboat Springs, Colo., with part of our team to compete at the Holiday Classic slalom. Two men, Alex Mach and Olivier Lacaille, and four women, Karin Ohlin, Amy Beresford, Malin Hemingsson and Lene Kassa, will represent the Lobos. The rest of the team will be heading home for the holidays to train and race in Norway. Everyone will return by Jan.3rd to put us at full strength going into the first University competition at Montana State on Jan 6-7.

I wish everyone a safe and pleasant holiday season.

Nordic Team - Coach Fredrik Landstedt

It is finals time here at UNM and everyone is bogged down with lots of school work. Training is light right now but that is a good thing since we had 10 great days of skiing in late November up in West Yellowstone, Mont., and are a little bit tired right now. During campy, we worked on technique and to ski efficient for long periods of time. Most skiers put in around 4 hours per day. We participated in three races during the training camp. The first two races were on our first two days of the camp and we were a little bit rugged. The women, however, did great and the freshman Russian skier, Polina Ermoshina, was our top girl in both races. Crystin Jaques also put in a very good distance race. The men did very well in the sprint but felt the effect of not having many ski hours in the 15K classical race. Casey Dyck was our top guy in that race. After training hard for eight days we drove by Breckenridge, Colo., on our way home to do a classical race. After 11 hours in the van the day before, the women once again showed that they will be one of the top teams. Polina won the junior race and had the 5th fastest time of all racers. Crystin was 3rd in the senior race and beat last years double NCAA Champion. Melanie Zemp placed 5th in the senior race. The men also had a better race with freshman Russian Vsevolod Soloviev being our top guy right ahead of Erlend Saetre and Casey Dyck. Our next races will be in Utah on December 16-17 and then part of the team will compete in the U.S National Championships in Michigan before our college season starts with the University of Utah Invitational January 13-14.