By Robert Gillespie

Abigail Lathrop '06

It would be amazing enough if there were only one Lathrop skiing at Colby.

Identical twins Jennifer '06 and Abigail Lathrop '06 carved their place in Colby sports history, earning first-team All America honors by placing second and fifth, respectively, in the NCAA Division I women's slalom championships March 8 at Dartmouth Skiway. Only one racer, Lina Johansson of Sweden and the University of Utah, skied faster than Jenny Lathrop. Both women were second-team All Americans for their top-ten finishes in the national championship giant slalom. "In their first year of college . . . handling this type of pressure was awesome," Colby coach Mark Godomsky told the Waterville Morning Sentinel after the race.

The championship capped a season of firsts. In her first college race, Jenny Lathrop became the first Colby woman alpine skier to win an NCAA Division I race. By the time she'd competed in six carnivals she had skied to five slalom victories, including the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association title at Middlebury in late February--all of this with her identical twin sister, Abigail, on her boot heels or a smidgen ahead.

Zigzagging down the slalom course at 25 miles an hour, bowling over poles as she blasts through 12-15 foot-wide patches called gates, a ski racer needs plenty of grit along with leg, abdominal and back strength to hold herself upright at crazy angles. Depending on the vertical drop and conditions, gian slalom skiers accelerate to 30 to 40 miles an hour around the GS's wider turns and straight stretches between gates. As many as 60 gates, staggered about 12 to 16 meters apart, thread down the mountainside.

Successful as Jenny is on the slopes--she took the EISA slalom title with a 51.83 first run and a blistering 45.62 on her second--Abbi is right with her. She finished third in the two slaloms at the St. Lawrence Carnival, and at Dartmouth, when Jenny won with a two-run total time of 1:38.17, Abbi was second in 1:38.84. She placed 11th in the EISA slalom. In the giant slalom, Abbi finished second at Williams on the first day of two GS races and fifth at the EISA race, where she and Jenny were both named to the All-East EISA first team.

Jennifer Lathrop '06

The 19-year-old sisters from North Conway, N.H., are together so much and know each other's discipline and dedication so well, Abbi says, that they think of themselves not as rivals but as friends skiing together and competing together. "We push each other," Abbi said. "We are like two minds working for one skier." They talk on chairlifts or while waiting around between runs at races. They talk about learning to do their homework while they're away, about working out. Because they're an identical 5'4 3/4" and 117 pounds, Abbi says, one can profit from the other's technical information or lessons learned.

"And we share secrets," she said. "Skiing together gives you a general knowledge about all sorts of things. It's fun to learn about yourself. I realize I can do more than I thought I could."

Last year at Vermont's Green Mountain Valley School, the Lathrops trained four days a week in the mornings and raced all over the world. They already knew most of those who were to compete at the NCAA championships, including Europeans trying to make their national teams. Jenny says she would like to be recognized for the U.S. Ski Team but thinks that coming to Colby "put me back in life. I'm really excited I'm focusing on school," she said, happy with her studio art course in the fall semester and with geology and history in the spring. "I'm more in reality."

The sisters were on skis before they turned 3 and started racing at 8 or 9. Their grandparents, parents and older sister are ski racers. Their father, Jeff Lathrop '68, co-captain of the Colby ski team his senior year, was general manager at Attitash Ski Area in Bartlett, N.H., "so we were always there," Jenny said.

Abbi considered going to Denver University. Jenny always leaned toward Colby, thinking "it'd be cool to be on the same college team and help each other out. It's been really fun to focus on the team aspect," she said.

The team trains at Sugarloaf/USA or Titcomb Mountain in Farmington about 40 days a year, about half the number of days Abbi and Jenny got in on snow last year. Like other student athletes fitting their workouts around class schedules and course work, they try to make each day of training doubly productive.

"People say, 'Oh the weather is terrible, you're not going out in that, are you?'" said Jenny. Yes, she was going out. Skiing, she said, is "almost like conquering gravity, but it's a connection with nature. It's something I've done for a long time and gotten good at. Of course I want to go skiing."