Third time’s a charm.

The Maine Event finally had good weather.

The first rollerski cross country race at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester in 2018 was held in “basically a hurricane,” organizer Justin Beckwith of the New England Nordic Ski Association said. Rain and snow fell on the 2019 race, making the course ramps, jumps and rollers as “slippery as one can imagine,” he said.

The Maine Event wasn’t held in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sunny and dry conditions Sunday thrilled the 55 student athletes and 10 coaches.

The 400-meter race course was filled with wooden features such as speed whoops, ramps, bicycle rollers and step-down jumps. Skiers had to turn 360 degrees within a tight space, weave in and out of traffic cones and scrub speed by skiing off pavement and onto the grass.

The Maine Event started in 2018 as a competition between Bates, Bowdoin and Colby colleges’ Nordic ski teams, Beckwith said.

This is the first year junior categories were added, and high school and middle school students from Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont competed Sunday.

The race that tested one’s agility and quickness is the second NENSA-sponsored rollerski competition in Maine this year. The Good Times Roll was held at the Cumberland Fairgrounds on July 30, but it didn’t feature obstacles such as Bean Bumps, NENSA Rollers and the Allagash Drop.

“Not only is this the first XCX course in the world,” Beckwith said, referring to the shorthand for the term Cross Country Cross, “but this is the only XCX course in the world.”

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