ASAA Championships – Mass Start

The 2022 ASAA State Cross Country Skiing Championships will be held on the Jim Whisenhant Ski Trails at Birch Hill Recreation Area hosted by Lathrop High School Malemutes, and organized by the Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, February 24-25-26.

The second event of the ASAA Nordic Ski Championships is the mass start event. The distances for this event are 10Km for boys and 7.5Km for girls.  This event alternates between classic technique and free technique from one year to the next.  The order of the genders also alternates between one year and the next.

In this event all skiers start at the same time.  A skier’s finish rank in the interval start event on Thursday determines his or her start position and bib number in Friday’s mass start event.  The winner on Thursday starts with bib #1 in position #1; the runner up with bib #2 in position #2, etc.  All the skiers are placed in specific start positions in the starting grid, or chevron.

For 2022 the mass start event will be held in Classic Technique.  The boys’ 10Km will start at 11:00AM and the girls’ 7.5Km will start at 2:00PM.  The boys will ski two laps of a 5Km course.  The girls will ski the same first lap as the boys, then ski the 2nd half of the 5Km loop again to make 7.5Km.

A skier’s results in the interval start event and the mass start event are combined to determine the ASAA Skimeister.

SPECTATOR INFO

The ski stadium of the Jim Whisenhant Trails at Birch Hill Recreation Area is one of the best places in the world to watch ski races.  A spectator can stay in the stadium or walk 100m-200m and see competitors multiple times over the duration of the competition.  Because the course comes and goes so frequently to and from the stadium, and because specatators are so close to the action our spectator policy is this:  SPECTATING ON FOOT ONLY – SPECTATORS ARE NOT ALLOWED ON SKIS.  This is to ensure the safety of the competitors, as well as to ensure a fair competition for all.  We appreciate your adherence to this policy.

Links to information for all days of the championships

• Thursday, February 24 – Interval start free technique 7.5Km for boys, 5Km for girls
• Friday, February 25 – Mass start classic technique 10Km for boys, 7.5Km for girls
• Saturday, February 26 – Relay mixed technique (Cl-Cl+Fr-Fr) 4 x 3Km for girls and 4 x 5Km for boys