April 1-12 Skimo Racing News Shorts: Tour du Rutor, Shedhorn SkiMo, Ski Ecrins

Our skimo racing recap from last two weekends here in North America and Europe!

USA

Shedhorn Race at Big Sky, Montana – April 9:

Over the last weekend, and for second year in a row, the Big Sky Resort in Montana hosted the Shedhorn SkiMo Race which is now arguably the most technical race in North America. Boasting serious steep descents, plenty of boot-packs and close to 3000m of vertical gain spread over 6 climbs it is shaping up to become a beast of an event going into the future.

In the men’s race, it was Eric Carter and Tom Goth who took it by the horns during the first big climb. Unfortunately, not long after Tom broke his boot and abandoned the race. From there on, Eric, was pretty much unchallenged and was able to enjoy the beautiful course set by the local ski patrol team and COSMIC series team. He won in 3h 52min with Teague Holmes and Ellio Barcikowski completing the podium.
In the women’s race, we are not sure how it exactly went down as we don’t have regular (or even occasional) correspondent, but overall everyone enjoyed the raced as well! Meredith Edwards took the win in 4h 58min and was followed home by Inge Perkins and Michela Adrian.
Here is what Eric Carter had to say after returning home from Big Sky and as he was just literally changing bags to jump on a flight to Europe to do Patrouille des Glaciers later this month:

It was definitely a super fun race over big terrain! The skiing was full on. I even stopped to pull out my ice axe after I dropped into the first descent. It was steep and long ways down should you fall… Now, over to Euroland for PDG. We have a good team and some goals! Will see how it goes, will be in touch!

» Full results for Shedhorn Skimo race

Europe

Tour du Rutor stage race – Long Distance World Cup – April 1-3:

Just like the more famous Pierra Menta in France, Tour du Rutor is a cool multi-day skimo stage teams race. It takes place over three days every second year at the well-known Valle d’Aosta, a region in northwest Italy.

There were no surprises in the women’s race as the very strong French team of Laetitia Roux and Axelle Mollaret confirmed their domination by winning every stage. Overall, second place went to a Swiss team of Jennifer Fiechter and Severinne Pont Combe and third, after a bit of a rough first day, went to Italians Elena Nicolini with Laura Besseghini.
In the men’s race, there were multiple favourites but no team was really standing out as they were a mix of strong upcoming generation matched by experienced partners. In the end, the Italian team of Matteo Eydallin and Michele Boscacci delivered a flawless performance to win overall after winning first two days and finishing third on the last day. Our SkinTrack chips were on the “dark horse” Swiss duo as the well experienced Martin Athamatten teamed up with strong but still very young Remy Bonnet. They finished second but watch out for Bonnet to start winning World Cups by next year! Third place went to a team of great French skiers, a cheese maker William Bon Mardion and ski lifts electrician Xavier Gachet who’s father won the 3rd Pierra Menta.
» Overall and single day results can be found HERE
» Here you can watch couple of videos from the race.

Ski Ecrins stage race – ISMF series – April 9-10:

This is a two day French skimo stage teams race that Eric Carter and Pascal Egli (SWI) managed to win last year.
This year’s Ski Ecrins race saw wins of Gary Ozeray and Steven Blanc in men’s category and Laetitia  Roux and Tania Naville.