While Olympian skier Kikkan Randall occupies the headlines, her U.S. ski team mate and Talkeetna’s own Tazlina Mannix skied to top finishes this winter season, remaining the youngest skier to finish in most races’ top 10.Mannix is part of the Alaska Pacific University ski team in Anchorage and has scored good results in the national and international classic Nordic ski circuit this season.
Currently, the APU team is in northern Maine, where they competed last Wednesday for the U.S. Nordic ski Distance National Championship. Taz Mannix, who won the long distance event two years ago, placed 7th as the youngest skier in the top ten. She finished the 30-k course in one hour, 26 minutes and five seconds.
Prior to the races in Maine, the team had participated in the World Cup tour in Europe, taking them to Germany, Slovania, Austria, France and Italy.
Earlier in the season, she won the Sven Johannson 30k race at Kincaid in Anchorage and also placed second in the largest Nordic ski race in North America, the Birkiebeiner held in Wisconsin, competing against seven-thousand-five-hundred other skiers. She finished the 50-k race in two hours, 16 minutes and 49 seconds.
While placing in the top ten in many races is not a bad accomplishment, Mannix is hungry for more wins.
On her blog, she reflected on her life as a ski racer and wrote that her love of ski racing, sees her through the good times and the challenging. She wrote that “the frustration of not meeting her own expectations this season is a bump in the road, but also serves as motivation to be better, to train harder and to persevere.”
According to her father Arthur Mannix, Tazlina has enjoyed skiing and racing this season and she is looking forward to come back home to Alaska soon for some more training.
