Gran Travers: Yankus and Davis win, but Goodman saves his day!

Sun, Feb  15, 2015 - By Mike Muha

Maybe the wind wasn't as bad as yesterday's North American Vasa, but the temperature was 20 degrees colder at the start of today's Gran Travers. At least kick waxing was easy...

Start of the Gran Traves cross country ski race. (Photo: North American Vasa)

Daniel Yankus was the overall winnner of the 16km classic race, dominating with a time of 53:26. Michael Davis finished second, over four minutes behind, in 57:30. Ryan Halstead took third in 59:46.

Rebecca Davis took the women's race in 1:09:19. Mariah Frye Colie and Brenda Carlson-Brown came in second and third in 1:11:34 and 1:17:46.

The real story in the 16km event was Glenn Goodman's recovery from a broken ski binding part way through the race. Says Glenn,

This years ski racing has not gone as well I expected. Feeling tired and not into the suffering as previous years. Yesterday I suffered through a very cold and windy 50k Vasa. Ended up 18th. Today I dragged myself to the Grand Traverse 17k classic. It was like 10 below zero. I started off a little behind but started feeling better. At about 8 k I was with 2 others, we were in 3-5 place, I was feeling good, then my ski binding broke and my ski came off...

I doublepoled for awhile, keeping all my weight on my ski.  Luckily Milan Baic was near by but not racing. He gave me one of his skis. I ended up 6th overall and winning my age group!

In the 6km event, Willam and Martin Cown finished first and second in 33:34 and 39:34. Kaysen Moertensen-Chown was the top women in 38:59, followed by Aili Simpson and Alexis Merka in 42:09.

Full results: Gran Traverse 16km and Gran Travers 6km