CRAFTSBURY, Vt. – Anna Bizyukova and Matias Øvrum won the EISA portion of the 1.4k freestyle sprint races Friday afternoon at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center on day one of the UVM Carnival. Greg Burt also earned a podium for UVM placing second. The Catamounts are in first place after the opening day of competition with 258 points. Dartmouth sits in second place 41 points behind Vermont.
 
RELATED LINKS
Day 1 Results
 
With the entire field of juniors and SuperTour racers five Catamounts qualified for the men's quarterfinals – Ovrum, Burt, Finn O'Connell, Finn Sweet, Jacob Nystedt. Ovrum finished second in the whole field with a time of 3:22.85 in the final. Burt was fifth in the final with a time of 3:29.74. Sweet was the third-best EISA skier, earning team points for the Catamounts, but didn't advance out of the overall quarterfinals. Ovrum has now won three straight Nordic races on the EISA circuit.
 
In the women's field Bizyukova, Annie McColgan and Waverly Gebhardt qualified for the quarterfinals. Bizyukova and Dartmouth's Callie Young and Jasmine Drolet were the only EISA skiers to qualify for the semifinals. Bizyukova was the only one of three to make the final, she placed fourth overall in a time of 4:00.94. In terms of just the EISA field Gebhardt placed fifth and McColgan finished eighth.
 
The Catamounts Nordic team is back in action tomorrow in Craftsbury for the men's and women's 10k classic. The women start the day at 9:45 a.m. followed by the men at noon. The alpine races of the UVM Carnival were canceled due to the snow conditions after 10+ inches fell at the Stowe Mountain Resort over the last 24 hours.