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Show ing to his time, in the senior men's 18km event. Hall was disappointed to report that Sweden's Thomas Wass-berg, Wass-berg, who was expected to give Koch, 19, Guilford, Vt. a challenge at Salen, did not enter the race. Rockwell, 30, West Lebanon, Leban-on, N.H. , faced her most difficult test of the young season, but came out on top by two seconds over Eva Ohlsson, a Swedish Olympic veteran. Third and fifth in the race were Canada's Firth twins, Shirley and Sharon. In fourth, 26 seconds off Rockwell's pace, was Sweden's Swed-en's Meeri Bodelid, who had defeated Rockwell in Orsa, Sweden, December 8. I couldn't be happier with how well Martha is skiing," Hall commented. "Placing first against such a tough field is tremendous. She and Koch are really rolling now and are anxious to prepare for the big races after Christmas. From Salen, Hall, Koch, Rockwell and Larry Martin, 24, Homer, Alas., traveled to Seefeld, Austria, for training on the courses which will be used in the 1976 Olympics. The next scheduled competition will be December 26 atNes-selwang, atNes-selwang, West Germany. Joining the three U.S. competitors in Austria on December 18 were three other top Americans, Ron Yeager, 22, Durango, Colo.; Tim Caldwell, 20, Putney, Vt., and Twila Hinkle, 20, Frisco, Colo. Yeager felt certain that he and his teammates team-mates would bolster the success suc-cess of the trio that has been in Europe since late October. Octob-er. "I'm confident that I'll do better than ever in Europe," Eur-ope," Yeager said, after winning win-ning two races in the U.S. "Besides, the momentum that Koch and Martha have going has got to be infectious," infect-ious," "The six American cross country skiers will enter five highly competitive European meets before returning home January 10 for the U.S. National Na-tional Championships. After Nesselwang, the schedule in-cludes in-cludes two West German night races December 27 and 28 at Fischen and Hinde-lang, Hinde-lang, a January 5-6 meet at Neukirk, West Germany, and a January 8-9 meet in Castelrotto, Italy. Wins All Four SALEN, SWEDEN Bill Koch has started in four races this season in Europe and has won all of them, including a junior 9-kilometer 9-kilometer event here December Dec-ember 15. His cohort on the U.S. Cross-Country team Martha Rockwell, won the women's 7.5 km race here to bring the American win total up to six in 11 starts. "The field at Salen was the toughest we've faced so far, reported head coach Marty Hall. "Koch won his junior race by over a minute, nonetheless, none-theless, and he would have placed about fourth, accord- |
