FEATURES

Masters Team Minnesota...Part I...

Monday, 26 December 2016 05:10

By Warren Peece

On December 14, Christel Kippenhan suggested, via Facebook, to her fellow 50-54 tri stars Cheryl Zitur and Julia Weisbecker, that they should put together a 2016 Masters Team MInnesota. We think this is an awesome idea, so much so that a few of the MMA Committee members have decided to create such a team, too. We are doing this "unofficially," with the intent of paying tribute to our state's mature multisporters,

We are curious to see how Christel's team would differ from ours.

To make the task easier, though not by much, we will not be employing an age-grading system and will not consider athletes that have fewer than four outstanding performances on their 2016 resumes. Unfortunately, the "volume rule" eliminates several fine athletes, like Jody Quesnell and Sara Sampsell-Jones.

Still, the list of female considerees--we will build a men's team later in the week--is a long one. First, we whittled the overall list down to twenty names. Then we looked at five-year age groups, and pared the list down even further. We now have fifteen names, ten of which will make the Team. Here are the fifteen finalists for our Women's Master Team Minnesota: ...

- 40-44 - Andrea Myers (40, Plymouth) and Jennifer Fitzharris-Funk (41, Minneapolis)

- 45-49 - Joyce Bourassa (48, Lakeville), Manuela Knispel (45, Shoreview), Anne Grabowski (49, Minneapolis), Jen Neuman (46, Ramsey), Ann Snuggerud (48, Chaska), Lisa Wacek (45, Minneapolis)

- 50-54 - Jeanne Fleck (51, Proctor), Christel Kippenhan (51, Bemidji), Tracy Serreyn (52, Lakeville), Laura Swartz (50, St. Louis Park), Julia Weisbecker (50, Mendota Heights), Cheryl Zitur (51, Corcoran)

- 55-59 - Jan Guenther (57, Mound)

Tomorrow we will reveal our Team and try to explain our rationale. On FB, Christel implied that women over the age of 50 would dominate her team. Did they dominate ours?

Stay tuned.

Photo - Esprit De She Duathlon women's overall podium, all of whom are elite masters (L-R): Anne Grabowski, Jennifer Fitzharris-Funk and Jody Quesnell