Sara Kadlec

This weekend marked the opening skimo race of the 2015-2016 North American calendar. Held at Wolf Creek, in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, 75 racers turned out (including a strong contingent from the U.S. Army and National Guard) for a lung burner of a race.
The course featured almost entirely skin track ascents with technical switchbacks, a couloir, skiing along a knife edge ridge, and five ascents to sufficiently challenge the competitors.
Temps were hovering around 1 deg F (-17 C) at the start line. As usual, the race started aggressively with Scott Simmons and Marshall Thompson leading the charge. A chase group, including Teague Holmes and Jon Brown, formed and applied pressure but could not close the gap while the leaders battled hard and stayed tight.
A smaller women’s field was still strong. Sara Kadlec, Catherine Richmond, and Stevie Kremer traded around for the top three spots with Kremer suffering a dramatic crash mid-race, accompanied by skin issues.
During the late stages of the race, Simmons pulled away from Thompson to finish with almost a minute lead and Holmes rounded out the men’s podium. On the women’s side, Kadlec took the win with a significant lead over Richmond and Kremer.

Of great note is the 7th place finisher, 14-years old Quinn Simmons, racing on his dad’s retired gear. It is safe to say we can expect big things from this athlete in the next few years!
Check out the next COSMIC Race at Irwin Backcountry Lodge on Dec 12th and the first event on the Canadian calendar coming up Dec 5th at Calgary Olympic Park and as always stay tuned to SkinTrack.com for updates and recaps!
Thanks to Joe Risi, Teague Holmes, and Myke Hermsmeyer for the info on how it all went down and be sure to check out Myke (on his website or Instagram) who graciously provided the excellent photos.

‘Crossing the line to familiar, and many new smiles, I remembered why I toe in to the line and pin it. This sport is a total blast with damn rad folks!’ – Teague Holmes

Results: HERE