Many students and faculty members aren’t familiar with Plymouth State University’s ski team, much less the fact that both the men and women’s teams are NCAA Division 1. Ski season started for Plymouth on January 10th, and the team averages ranking 10th out of 13 participating schools (men and women’s giant slalom and regular slalom, combined).
As opposed to a typical game, ski teams host carnivals. The schools that Plymouth State competes against are University of New Hampshire, University of Vermont, Boston College, Dartmouth College, Colby College, Colby-Sawyer College, Saint Lawrence University, Williams College, Saint Michaels College, Middlebury College, Bates College, Bowdoin College, and Harvard University. Pretty illustrious group there, huh?
Sophomore Max Martin (Salt Lake City, Utah) is currently ranked 12th in the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association in combined giant slalom and regular slalom races, with freshman Charlotte Lemgart (Vaerloese, Denmark) coming in at 26th for the ladies.
The giant slalom is a technical alpine race event in which skiers weave in-and-out of “those flags connected by two poles”, called gates. The number of gates for men’s races are 56-70 and 46-58 for women with speeds reaching 50+ miles per hour. The slaloms must be 820 to 1476 feet for men and 820 to 1312 feet for women.
Regular slaloms are the same top to bottom distance, but gates are spaced closer together, forcing skiers to cut quicker. Giant slalom races are often easier because the turns can be a lot lengthier with less pressure on the skier to dig down deep for the fast approaching gate.
Upcoming “GS” and “SL” carnivals are at Dartmouth (February 7th-8th), Williams (14th-15th), and Middlebury (21st-22nd). Plymouth is anticipating a strong finish from all of their racers and is looking forward to improving with a young squad for next season as rival school’s seniors graduate.