Complete Results

RIPTON, Vt. (csssaints.com) -- St. Scholastica sophomore Sharmila Ahmed (Savage, Minn./Burnsville HS) toed the start line Thursday as the first Saints woman to race in an NCAA Skiing Championships, in the women's 5km classic at the Rikert Nordic Center on the Breadloaf campus of Middlebury College.  The effort was valiant, but the form and challenging conditions left Ahmed near the bottom of the heap at the end of the day, finishing 39th in a time of 17:32.2.

Ahmed started 16th in the field of 40, and was running 14th at roughly halfway with 16 skiers through.  Warming conditions made the grip wax a challenge for the second race in a row for Ahmed, though the Saints staff was better prepared with a pair of waxless skis after the NCAA Regionals Classic race required similar action.  Ahmed struggled initially to make the skis work perfectly but got them gripping later in the race.  It was a lack of physical snap that seemed to hinder Ahmed more than anything.

"I felt great leaving the stadium, then couldn't get the [grip] working on the first climb and felt pretty bad [physically] then recovered and felt good again, then felt bad again," recounted Ahmed.  "I worked hard.  I just didn't go fast."

The University of Vermont's Anja Gruber lit up the podium in a nearly-home-town setting, winning soundly in a time of 15:31.1.   The university is just 40 miles north of the venue.  She outpaced Dartmouth College's Mary O'Connell by 11.1 seconds.  Alaska Anchorage's Marie Dusser finished third in 15:43.0. Dartmouth College and Colorado tied as the top women's Nordic team on the day.

"It's hard to walk away from a race knowing an athlete gave it everything they had, but feeling a collective sense of disappointment," said Saints head coach Chad Salmela.  "I think it's hard to finish at the back of the pack, but if this was Shar's best performance and we knew this was all she was capable of, it would be easier, but we know it's not."

Salmela looks forward to a second chance for Ahmed in Saturday's 15km freestyle mass start.  "She's capable of a lot more than what she was able to do today, for whatever reason.  The field here is so good and so small, that there is nowhere to hide.  A less-than-great race sends you to the bottom of the results so fast, it'll make your head spin.  But she has beaten more than a few people way up the results today, and she is great in the mass start freestyle, so we're looking to Saturday as another great opportunity to shine like she can."

The Saints 2013 season comes to an end Saturday with the 15km mass start freestyle at Rikert Nordic Center.