South Tahoe Middle School wraps up unique Nordic ski season

The South Tahoe Middle School Nordic Ski Team is wrapping up a modified season next week with races on Wednesday and Thursday.

The boys and girls on the team started practicing at the beginning of December with in-person, socially distanced practice two days a week and virtual practice another two days a week. Coaches kept the alphabetical cohorts together.

To participate in a safe manner, the students wore masks and kept six feet apart. When in person, the athletes started out on dots placed six feet apart on the middle school's blacktop. Once January came around the team trained at Heavenly two days a week, and at school another two.

Coach Beth Aiton said the boys and girls started actual intramural racing this week with a girls relay on Wednesday with boys hosting, and then boys racing Thursday with the girls hosting.

Next week is the last week of their season with both boys and girls racing a hill climb challenge on Wednesday and a sprint on Thursday.

"The kids have been amazing about keeping masks on and distanced as best as they can. Just nice to have some type of normalcy right now," said Coach Beth. Her co-coach for the season was Coach Caroline.