Musgrave Smashes His Way to 45th In The World

Andrew Musgrave (18, Huntly) yesterday recorded the best performance by a British athlete for a number of years at the FIS World Cross Country Championships in Liberec, Czech Republic and in doing so was the youngest skier to finish the race.

Eighteen year old Musgrave had the race of his life to finish the 30km Double Pursuit race in 45th position – his first appearance at this distance having only raced at 20km before yesterday.

Musgrave skied like the wind and finished in a personal best just 5.5% behind the winner. He stuck to the back of the lead pack for the first half of the classic leg, picking off a few good skiers in the process, and came into the transition in 50th position. Musgrave set out hard on the skate leg and worked well with Ben Sim of Australia and skiers from the French, Canadian and Japanese teams and as a group they managed to climb through the field and in doing so the rankings.

The pace quickened among the group for the last 2km of the race and with tired legs Musgrave lost touch with Sim. He kept pushing hard until the finish and came home in 45th position, a result which has earned him a huge amount of praise from the biggest ski nations in the world.

British Team Leader, Al Dargie commented “today is yet another historic moment in our sport and words cannot describe the level of Andrew’s performance. Yesterday’s result has put Andrew a couple of years ahead of his performance pathway targets on his quest to become World Champion. The entire support team (made up almost entirely of athletes) did really well to give Andrew the help he needed from testing glide wax, grip wax, videoing for future use and covering the whole course with radios, so the right tactical advice could be given to Andrew. I am very proud of everyone today”.

Roy Young, Head Coach said “to have achieved a finish position and percentage from the winner like this at 18 is incredible. It was a fantastic performance that surpassed even our expectations of Andrew, every time we worried he might be flagging he picked it up a gear and worked incredibly hard to pass the next skier. He even managed to beat the reigning World Under 23 Champion”.