Dominic Giampietro was a model of consistency for the Mt. Blue boys Nordic team.
Giampietro used that consistency to good use for the 2018-2019 season. A senior, Giampietro put forth an excellent effort at the Class A state championships, placing sixth in the classical, freestyle and pursuit, helping the Cougars to a second-place team finish.
Dominic Giampietro of Mt. Blue is the 2019 Morning Sentinel Boys Nordic Skier of the Year. Morning Sentinel photo by David Leaming
For his accomplishments, Giampietro is the Morning Sentinel Boys Nordic Skier of the Year. His teammate, Sam Smith, was also considered.
At the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference championships, he had a sixth-place finish in the freestyle and a fifth-place finish in the classical, and sixth in the pursuit.
That consistency, Giampietro said, was always there in classical. But he spent last season trying to gain more consistency in freestyle.
“I’ve always been, in my opinion, a pretty consistent classical skier,” Giampietro said. “Up until this year, I was never really great at skating. This summer, I trained a little bit more than I usually would on roller skis. That was something that I tried to really improve on this season was my overall skating. I thought it helped a lot, I definitely improved on my skate races than what I did last year.”
Mt. Blue coach Claire Polfus praised Giampietro for both his leadership and his energy.
“Dom is a really strong skier,” Polfus said. “He was a leader for our team both on the ski trails but also as a leader especially for the younger kids on the team. He shares his enthusiasm well and is someone the other kids look up to. He’s fun to be around and keep things light.”
Giampietro agreed with his coach’s assessment of his energy.
“That’s definitely correct,” Giampietro said. “It feels like I have boundless amounts of energy, until I realize that I don’t. I get really excited sometimes.”
That energy was a positive for Giampietro during his career, though he admitted he had to harness that energy at times during races.
“I would always have that energy right as I began my race,” Giampietro said. “Leading up to (a race), I would be really nervous. But as soon as I got going, I would kind of have to rein myself in a little bit, because I would get really excited and go, ‘OK, I’m racing.’ I would always have to remind myself that (the course) is 5 kilometers and not a kilometer sprint.”
As a team, the second-place finish at states was a bit of a letdown, as the Cougars fell short of four-year sweep of Class A titles in boys Nordic. However, the finish did little to deter Giampietro or his fellow seniors, which included Smith, Mick Gurney and Jesse Dalton.
“It’s going to be so great to look back (on times) that I’ve won state championships with my best buds,” Giampietro said. “It’s going to be really cool. And even though we didn’t win this year, we still had a really, really close (race). I’m really happy with it, even though we were so close, I’m still super happy with it, because we gave it our all.”
At the moment, Giampietro’s plans are to attend Wheaton College and continue his soccer career at the college level. Though his competitive career with skiing is over, he said he plans to continue to ski recreationally.
“I’m definitely going to try to play soccer somewhere, because that’s something that I really like and just stay active,” Giampietro said.
Dave Dyer – 621-5640
Twitter: @Dave_Dyer
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