Dartmouth wins UVM Carnival by nearly 200 points

STOWE, Vt. — The EISA circuit traveled to Stowe, Vt. to compete in the University of Vermont (UVM) Carnival on Feb. 3-4. Dartmouth College won the Carnival with 923 points total ahead of University of New Hampshire (UNH) with 728 points and UVM with 696 points. Big Green’s win was made possible thanks to the 450 points they earned in giant slalom and slalom, which gave the win in the alpine portion of the event. Behind Dartmouth, St. Michaels College (SMC) placed second in the alpine portion with 384 points and the home team placed third with 379 points.

On the first day of racing, snow pounded down during the second run of the women’s giant slalom and the visibility was low enough for race director Igor Vanovac to put the race on hold after 25 racers. It was about 45 minutes until the top racers from the first run skied the course and, during the hold, plenty of snow had accumulated on the track.

Middlebury College’s Caroline Bartlett pulled away from the day winning her second GS race of the season. Bartlett won the season opening GS and failed to finish the second run of the UNH Carnival GS on Jan. 28. She sat in fifth after the first run, and she was flagged down while skiing her second run just before the race was put on hold.

“I think, in general, I am pretty mellow at the start,” Bartlett said, noting that the delay was not much of an issue for her.

Bartlett won the second run by 0.63 seconds to take the lead with an overall time of 2:21.62. Anna Willassen of SMC came in second, 0.76 seconds behind to be the first Purple Knight woman to earn an EISA podium finish in more than two decades, and Dartmouth’s Audrey O’Brien skied into third in her first carnival start ever, 0.81 seconds back.

Despite missing two of their top skiers, the Dartmouth women took the win for the women in GS with 107 points, followed by SMC with 100 points and Middlebury in third with 97 points.

The men’s race was not affected by the snowstorm, but the course still provided enough of a challenge as the three fastest skiers from the first run failed to finish the second run.

The University of Vermont’s Gabriel Coulet won his team’s home GS with a time of 2:16.61. Middlebury’s Devon Cardamone skied into second, 0.08 seconds back, and Dartmouth’s Thomas Woolson finished third, 0.12 seconds back.

Coulet said that he does not consider himself to be a giant slalom skier, and his best result prior to winning on Friday was in 2014 when he came in ninth at the Bates Carnival in Sunday River.

Coulet said that although UVM was missing four athletes, he thought that the rest of the team stepped it up, and he felt something from his team that was very special.

“I was so pumped, and I was so fired up from the energy today that I pulled [the win out],” he said.

The University of Vermont skied without William St. Germain, Max Roeisland and Sandy Veitze, who were in Colorado for the NorAm races, but the team still managed to win the men’s GS with 116 points. Dartmouth, missing crucial skiers of its own, was led by Tanguy Nef and Brian McLaughlin, placing them in second with 104 points, and SMC finished third with 89 points.

The Dartmouth women’s team dominated the slalom on Saturday, taking four of the top five spots. Alexa Dlouhy won the event with a time of 1:55.30. Mardene Haskell from Colby College place second, 1.32 seconds off the pace, and Big Green’s Kelly Moore came in third, 1.85 seconds back.

Dlouhy said that her slalom is where it should be right now. She said she is trying to ski more aggressively at the top of the turn, and she is usually able to watch some of the other top slalom skiers on the circuit in order to improve. Several of those top athletes traveled to Colorado to compete in a NorAm Series and were absent from the UVM Carnival.

Woolson won the men’s slalom race, marking his first career EISA win. This put Purple Knight Guillaume Grand into second for the third time this season. Woolson had a combined time of 1:54.70, 0.38 seconds ahead of Grand. UNH Wildcat Chris Steinke finished third, 1.59 seconds back.

Woolson said that consistency has been important for Dartmouth, and it shows both individually and as a team as Dartmouth has taken first place in over half of this year’s races. Woolson said that even though they were missing athletes there was no added pressure.

“Every week the goal is to win the carnival, so there wasn’t more pressure, but it shifted a bit,” to the other athletes on the team, he said.

Dartmouth was able to take such a huge Carnival win in part thanks to their Nordic team. Big Green’s Fabien Stocek won both men’s nordic races, and their squad led the team standings in the sprint races and both genders landed in second place in the 10k races.

EISA racing continues on Feb. 10-11 at the Dartmouth Carnival. Full UVM Carnival results can be found here.