Photo by Ashley Meredith
Vahur Teppan races in the 50 K event on Sunday during the U.S. National Distance Ski Championships. After being shown the secret code of elevator buttons, Fun Star writer Ashley Anklowitz was shown “Floor Zero” which is stocked with adult materials of all sorts.

Last week, skiers from across the Nation gathered at Birch Hill for the Tour of the Golden Heart and US Distance Nationals Mar. 25-30. During this time, the UAF Cross Country Ski Team won four podium finishes from three different events.

On Tuesday, Marius Korthauer, placed second in the Tour of the Golden Heart 10K skate race with a time of 25:53.2, just four seconds behind Norwegian Petter Eliassen who was the 2008 Under-23 World Championships Bronze medalist.

Saturday, Korthauer placed third for the US Nationals Pursuit race with a time of 1:22:30.9, losing again only to Canada’s Ivan Babikov and Norway’s Petter Eliassen. John Parry finished 30th in the same event and Robert Pakk finished 38th.

Vahur Teppan placed third in the Classic Sprint on Wednesday, with a time of 2:38.33 in the qualification round, fighting for the win with US Sprint team members Torin Koos and Andy Newell, who he finished third to earlier this year in the US Ski championships; Korthauer was sixth.

Henri Soom and Einar Often made it to the B final and finished fifth and sixth respectively, with Often having unfortunate luck on the last climb where he lost his ski.

Anna Coulter placed second for the Tour of the Golden Heart 5 km skating race on Mar. 25 while assistant coach, Ingrid Olson, placed fifth. The event was won by Sigrid Aas, a former UAF skier.

Sunday’s race was a grueling 30 K and 50 K race for the women and men, respectively. Seven skiers from the UAF skiing team compete: Anna Coulter, Julia Coulter, Krynn Finstad, Korthauer, Teppan, Often and Sabo. Many of their teammates were aligned along the course at designated feed points to help them through this extremely long event.

In the women’s 30 K race, Anna Coulter finished 14th, Julia Coulter 16th and separating the twin sisters was assistant coach Ingrid Olson who placed 15th.

Krynn Finstad finished 19th in her last race for UAF. There were no medals in the men’s race for UAF skiers this time, but Korthauer finished with an astonishing 7th place, just in front of the U.S.’s No. 1 long-distance skier Kris Freeman.

Teppan had a strong race and finishing 11th. Often and Sabo finished 19th and 31st, respectively.

The men’s 50 K race is a strong test of personality - finishing this event shows great will and mental power.