RUMFORD – Nils Koons and Sam Tarling raced through the foothills of Black Mountain with their high school ski teams many times before their Nordic skiing careers truly took flight.

Koons competed as a student at Messalonskee, Tarling at Greely.

This week, they returned to Maine for the U.S. Cross Country Championships wearing Dartmouth College green, finishing 22nd and 23rd overall in the men’s 30-kilometer freestyle event on Thursday.

“A race like this is such a great chance to race against the top skiers in the country,” said Koons, who was raised in New Zealand before moving to Sidney, Maine. “It’s great to test yourself.”

Koons finished 22nd with a time of 1 hour, 14 minutes, 1.5 seconds.

The race was altered from a mass start to an interval start to accommodate a course change forced by a lack of snow. Skiers raced 11 laps around a trail slightly longer than 2.5 kilometers instead of six laps on a 5K course.

Snow has been sparse here since the championships began Sunday, with large swaths of grass on the downhill portion of the mountain.

“Man-made snow, fresh-falling snow, I can ski in it all,” said Tarling, who was 23rd in 1:14:05.2.”

“It’s always nice to have a mass start. Individual-start races are really tough and gritty events. Sometimes you just have to put your head down and hammer through them.”

Tarling had a strong start.

“I started out fairly well. I think I died a little bit on the last couple of laps, but I think a lot of people were slowing down,” he said.

Koons had a slow start but a very strong finish.

The top three racers were grouped within three seconds of one another: winner Tad Elliott of Durango, Colo., won in one 1:10:16.2, one-tenth of a second in front of Lars Flora of Anchorage, Alaska. Third-place finisher Noah Hoffman of Aspen, Colo., finished in 1:10:19.2.

Elliott lunged over the finish line so hard, he crashed to the ground, a move that may have given him the win.

“They judge time from when the boot crosses the line,” said Elliot. “It’s kind of one of those sly smiles on your face.

“It’s such a small margin, but I’ll take it.”

Koons was using the race as a warmup for the college season and beyond. He is an up-and-comer on the international scene and may race in the world championships at Oslo, Norway, later this winter. He said he hopes eventually to follow in the tracks of older brother Ben, 24.

“It was great growing up with him, having someone to look up to,” said Nils Koons.

Ben Koons, who also went to Messalonskee, qualified for the New Zealand Olympic team last winter and competed in the Vancouver Games.

He had to sit out for five days when blood tests showed he had high levels of hemoglobin, the result of too much high-altitude training. He eventually was cleared to race but didn’t complete his first event — the 30K pursuit — after going out too fast.

The brothers moved to Maine when their parents relocated to Sidney.

“Both Nils and Ben are incredible endurance athletes,” said Dartmouth Coach Ruff Patterson. “It’s taking Nils a little while this year to get going, but I guarantee later in the year he’ll come along.”

Several other skiers with Maine roots competed in the 30K race.

Fred Bailey of Andover was 31st in 1:15:28; Welly Ramsey, a former Mt. Blue skier from the University of Maine at Presque Isle, was 35th (1:16:13); Spencer Eusden, an Oxford Hills and Bowdoin skier, was 54th (1:19:32); Andrew Clemence of Falmouth and the University of New Hampshire was 69th (1:21:46); and Graham Egan, a Middlebury skier from Cape Elizabeth, was 75th (1:23:17). 

Staff Writer Jenn Menendez can be contacted at 791-6426 or at:

jmenendez@pressherald.com