The North American cross country scene offers numerous race opportunities throughout the winter season, but it’s the SuperTour that involves the very most competitive skiers from the United States and Canada. On December 12-17, Anchorage’s Kincaid Park plays host to the Anchorage WinterStart SuperTour, the first SuperTour event of the 2023-2024 season (presented with the support of Nordic Ski Association of Anchorage and Cross Country Alaska).

Men’s and Women’s Sprint

Tuesday saw SuperTour action in both the Men’s and Women’s Sprints. American, Sammy Smith, topped the women’s results ahead of Lilian Gagnon and Anna Marie Dietze, while Canada’s Julien Locke led the men’s field ahead of Walker Hall and Michael Earnhart.

In post-race interview with FasterSkier’s Nat Herz, Locke articulated the importance of doing well at these North American SuperTour races. “SuperTours [are] the top level of domestic racing,” he said. “So everyone who’s not at the World Cup is here right now . . . For the United States and Canada, these are selection races for the World Cup later in the year.”

Sprint Qualifying RESULTS

Sprint RESULTS

Men’s and Women’s 10 k Classic Interval Start

In Wednesday’s 10 k Classic Interval Start, the men’s field was led by Maximillian Holman, ahead of Hugo Hinckfus and Hunter Wonders. Smith continued her winning ways at the head of the women’s field ahead of Sydney Palmer-Leger and Nina Schamberger.

Winner of the first two women’s events (Freestyle Sprint and 10 k Classic), Smith commented on the heavy/fresh snow conditions in Anchorage. “The snow definitely made the conditions a little interesting,” she said. “It definitely made technique stuff a little more complicated; but it was super-fun racing, super competitive day.”

10 k Classic Interval Start RESULTS

Schedule of Events

Anchorage WinterStart SuperTour events continue on Saturday with Men’s and Women’s Classic Sprints, followed by Sunday’s 10 k Freestyle Mass Start.

The pressure was on at Caledonia Nordic in Prince George, BC, for the trials that would be used to select athletes for World Championships in Planica, Slovenia, and U20/U23 World Championships in Whistler. The three days of racing is also a Nordiq Cup, which is a FIS tier 1 event equivalent to a US SuperTour or Scando Cup, but the focus was on earning a spot on one or more of the teams.

The snow conditions were trickier than usual for January. Prince George is the geographic centre of British Columbia, and is better known for cold weather than rain, but the atmospheric river that damaged California delivered warm and wet weather over a large part of the west. The weather also added excitement to travel, with some skiers missing ski bags after cancelled flights. Chelsea’s Tory Audet, a 17 year old who collected three open category wins in Eastern Canada Cups in December and represented Canada at U20’s last year, received her skis Tuesday night, with no chance to test in advance of Wednesday’s sprint.

For Planica, three athletes were preselected from World Cup results: Katherine Stewart-Jones, Antoine Cyr, and Graham Ritchie. That left five to nine selections open, with selection guaranteed for the top Canadian racer in each of the three races.

For Whistler, the team size is four to six athletes in each of the four groups (male/female, U20/U23), with no athletes preselected. The selection order is 1st place Canadian in the classic sprint, 1st place in the 10km free, and 1st place in the 20km classic mass start, then cycling through 2nd, 3rd until at least four athletes are selected.

Full details are in the selection criteria.

While most competitors were Canadian, a few younger international athletes stopped in on their way to Whistler. World Cup fans will have seen Poland’s Izabela Marcisz and Monika Skinder along with Estonian twins, Kaidy and Keidy Kaasiku.

Quotes are from interviews by Nordiq Canada’s Nathaniel Mah, unless otherwise stated.

Classic Sprint, Wednesday

It was +4C and klister for the sprint day. The top 30 qualifiers from both U20 and Open automatically went into the Open heats. Fondeurs Laurentides Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt won the 1.1km qualification in 2:47.09, 0.98 ahead of Skinder and Whitehorse’s Dahria Beatty. In the final, Bouffard-Nesbitt, Skinder, and Marcisz got a gap on the other three before a collision took Bouffard-Nesbitt down. Marcisz won ahead of Skinder, with Beatty dropping Katie Weaver and Liliane Gagnon to take third and the Planica selection.

“[It was] soft conditions, the tracks were completely gone by the time the heats came around,” Beatty told NC. “Try to be as efficient as possible on the climbs… It was really about being tactical in your positioning on the downhills, trying to give as much as possible on that final plateau and a draft into the finish.”

Beatty was feeling the fatigue from the Tour de Ski, and skipped the final two race days to get an early start on the pre-Planica altitude camp at Apex (at 1,800m elevation, near Penticton, BC).

Marcisz was a little surprised to win a sprint, as she sees herself as a distance skier, but the challenging course suited her.

Gagnon, in fifth, was the top Canadian U23 to book her trip to Whistler, along with Edmonton’s Alison Mackie who was top U20 in 8th.

For the men, it was Thunder Bay’s Julian Smith, who won the qualification in 2:20.62 and then won each heat from the front. Foothills’ Xavier McKeever was second and top U20 with Black Jack’s Julien Locke taking third.

“The course was so fun,” Smith said. “Caledonia did a great job putting on this event.”

Tactics were straightforward; on all three heats, I came into the downhill in third … and my skis were so free today,” Smith said. “Before the last little kicker, I would find myself in the lead, and from there it was just going as hard as I could to the finish.”

McKeever was happy in second, confirming selection for Whistler and (probably) Planica. “I definitely had some fun on this course, there’s a lot of good turns, and really technical sections. I just went out and enjoyed myself today.”

“It’s definitely a good downhill to slingshot on,” he said. “I got a slingshot into second, that’s where I wanted to be to get some draft, but Julian was really strong today.”

Whitehorse’s Sasha Masson, 6th in the final behind Orford’s Léo Grandbois and Canmore’s Russell Kennedy, was the top U23 finisher.

20km Mass Start Classic, Thursday

The men raced first, with Orford’s Olivier Léveillé and Kennedy getting a gap. Léveillé arrived late on Tuesday night and took Wednesday off to recover from travel and lost baggage.

“We started pretty hard, Russell and I, the second lap was even harder and that’s when we broke away, just the two of us.”

“We exchanged the lead for a little bit, but the last lap I was pretty dead,” he said. “I punch as hard as I could on the last uphill, and I made a little gap, just enough to hold him to the finish line.”

The winning time was 51:51.4, with Kennedy at 0.1 back and Grandbois taking third alone at 1:40.1 behind.

Léveillé is U23, but he may not accept the Whistler invitation.

“I don’t know yet, where I’m going to go next. I need to talk to my coach. Senior World Champs is a big goal for me this year. I got a top ten last year in World Cup and I really want to prepare myself to do well.”

Léveillé admitted that he is still feeling his Tour de Ski finish and after last year’s U23 individual podium, it makes sense for him to be looking ahead.

For the women, Nakkertok and U of New Hampshire’s U23 Jasmine Lyons grabbed the win in 1:02:10.4, 25.5 ahead of Gagnon and 48.1 ahead of Bouffard-Nesbitt. Lyons, Gagnon, Bouffard-Nesbitt and Keidy Kaasiku got a gap early and skied together for three of four laps.

“The last lap we picked up the pace a little, and I just tried to hammer up the hills,” Lyons said. “We were trading off [earlier]. Olivia was doing the brunt of the work a lot of the time, and especially on the downhills… She would often pull away and really push the pace.”

Lyons has been racing in NCAA and didn’t have a comparison to other Canadians going in, but that cuts both ways.

“Yeah, I just skied my own race. I really had no idea where I was compared to other people.”

Bouffard-Nesbitt was processing after Wednesday’s crash and now third.

“I’m trying to qualify for the world champs, and the only way to do that is to win a race.”

“I was just trying to track whoever was trying to lead the race, trying to save energy. When Jasmine started pushing the pace, I went with it and then I just blew up in the last lap.”

Mackie was top U20 again, finishing 9th at 3:13.2 back.

10km Individual Free, Saturday

The final day brought falling snow and extra pressure for athletes who hadn’t earned selection targets yet.

Marcisz again showed her form on the way to Whistler, winning the two lap 10km in 26:05.8.

“I really like [the skate course], I think it’s quite similar than Planica,” she said on Wednesday.

Keidy Kaasiku earned second, 30.3 seconds back, just edging out top Canadian Lyons at 33.0 behind. Gagnon continued her strong results in 4th at 56.0, followed by Kaidy Kaasiku and then Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt at 1:09.2.

Before the start, Bouffard-Nesbitt was absorbing two races that hadn’t gone to plan and focussing ahead.

“I think the skate course is a lot of fun, and I’m just going to go into it …  and hope the result is what I’m looking for.”

With only the top Canadian guaranteed a trip to Plancia, hope would depend on the High Performance Committee and the more intricate parts of the selection criteria document.

Australia’s Zana Evans was the top U20 in 9th while Revelstoke’s Alexandra Luxmoore locked down her selection in 10th at 2:07.6.

For the men, Kennedy locked down his Planica selection with the win in 23:20.6. TBay’s Max Hollman took second and top U23 at 15.3 behind. Masson was third at 16.8 followed by Black Jack’s Rémi Drolet at 26.0 to put three U23 athletes in the top four.

“I like to leave it to the last day, I’ve done it with everything,” Kennedy said jokingly. “I think it’s a really good team going to World Champs, I’m excited to see what the young guns can do. Olivier’s looking good and we’ve got Max over here, he’s skiing really fast.”

Kennedy and Drolet both completed the Tour de Ski, with Kennedy wanting some recovery and training time before the next race.

“I’m just so happy to do a whole race without falling over,” Hollman said of his race. He fell in the mass start Thursday, but no one remembers any previous crashes, surely…. Hollman wasn’t sure he had qualified for Whistler, which means he spent less time than most with the selection criteria.

Masson knew what he needed to do to get to Whistler and was showing his excitement in the finish interview. “I think it’s going to be awesome,” he said. “I’m really excited [to go back to U23’s] because the gang of boys is really fun.”

Full Results, Event Website, Kelly Bergman Photo Gallery

Selections

The Planica announcement shows the maximum of 12 athletes were nominated.

The Whistler announcement confirms that Léveillé declined U23’s and will likely join the Planica altitude camp at Apex.

Nordiq Canada has selected the maximum number of athletes for both trips. This fits well with the stated goal of building experience for the 2026 and 2030 Olympic cycles.

There are a few missing names that readers might have expected to see. This is partly from having a high stakes selection in a four day period. One athlete had a minor injury in Prince George and missed all three races. With only six or seven recovery days between the last missed trial to the first Whistler race, it is probably not a surprise that the High Performance Committee didn’t use the injury or illness provision for a discretion selection.

Many athletes came to measure themselves and went home with lessons learned. The top athletes came with specific result goals and some of them are headed home with missed goals to digest.

“Cross country skiing is the greatest sport for life,” Head Coach Robin McKeever told FasterSkier last week en route to Prince George. “But we still need to absolutely understand what is high performance and what we’re up against on an international level. Because there is it’s about seconds that matter, 10ths of seconds in sprints. and it’s a hard environment to be successful in.”

Hard work, pain, and missed opportunities abound at the top level of this sport. All the more reason to celebrate the successes when they come.

Mont Sainte Anne (MSA) held the final pre-Christmas races in Canada over the weekend, with a 20km freestyle mass start Friday, freestyle sprints on Saturday, and 10km individual start classic on Sunday.

Fresh snow, steep hills, and temperatures comfortably below freezing greeted 400+ racers at a continental cup hosted by Skibec, Centre National d’Entraïnemente Pierre Harvey (CNEPH) , and Club Nordique MSA.

MSA is a popular racing destination, as Nakkertok’s Bronwyn Williams explained: “I love racing at MSA because the trails are amazingly challenging! For some other race courses you need to work hard to bury yourself but at MSA the courses go out of their way to destroy you and if you’re not careful they will. That’s what makes it so fun though because you are not just racing your competitors, but you are also trying to survive the courses.”

Friday

Sasha Masson (CNEPH) kicked off the weekend with a win in the 20km skate, finishing in 47:44.9, 6.2 seconds clear of four skiers: Orford’s Léo Grandbois, Montériski’s Alexandre Bourque and Xavier Lefebvre, and Big Thunder’s Conor McGovern.

“It was a good day overall,” Masson wrote to FasterSkier. “I played it safe and skied with the pack for a bit, then used my legs to work my skis on the flats and the downhills. Today, pushing over the top and in the downs was essential and allowed me to win.”

For the women, it was the U20 show with Kanata’s Helen McCulligh winning in 59:08.5, followed by MSA’s Ophélie Grandmont at 8.9 seconds and Whitehorse product Constance Lapointe at 9.8 back.

“It was a very fast day out on the course,” McCulligh told Nordiq Canada. “It was my first ever time racing a 20km, so I didn’t know what to expect going in.”

As in Davos two days later, the new distance caused some learning moments and a change from ‘normal’ tactics.

“We had a really big group of girls, a big pack stuck together for a long time.”

Saturday

Saturday brought a 1.1km skate sprint and a deeper field with the addition of many student athletes.

Chelsea’s U20, Ry Prior, now training with the Alberta World Cup Academy, won the Open men’s final in 2:20.53, ahead of CNEPH teammates Felix-Olivier Moreau at 1.58 back and Guillaume Pelchat at 3.25 seconds.

Chelsea’s U18, Tory Audet, continued her domination, skiing away from the group in each heat on her way to win in 2:35.94, 10.13 seconds ahead of Nakkertok’s Bronwyn Williams. Katherine Mason was third for Nakkertok, 12.54 behind.

Audet went with a straightforward tactical plan: “I didn’t think much about tactics,” she said. “I just tried to ski the course as fast and efficiently as possible due to the fact that it was a very short course.”

A very short course at MSA? There was a course change announced at 7:30am race day.

“The course ended up basically being a short 1km loop that had one really big uphill followed by a downhill and a loop of the stadium,” Williams explained in an email. “It was a wind tunnel through the end of the stadium and the snow wasn’t really fast because it was snowing. I found out pretty quickly that if I got out in front at the beginning, skied controlled until the middle of the big hill and then accelerated over the top of the hill and into the downhill that no one would be able to draft off me on the downhill and through the windy stadium. This tactic really helped secure my spot in the A final.”

Sunday

The 10km classic brought more fresh snow but the same women’s winner. Audet won in 36:15.9, ahead of Williams in second again at 25.6 back. Lappe’s Hannah Shields was third at 1:37.0.

“The 10km classic race yesterday was definitely one of the hardest races I’ve done,” Audet wrote to FasterSkier. “The course had some epic climbs and with the fresh snow we got, there weren’t any tracks going up any of the hills making it very difficult. I felt good, I think I paced my race very well, and my skis were awesome!”

Williams, one of three athletes older than U23 to reach the podium this weekend, was not expecting to repeat her 10km victory from the previous weekend.

“The race was two times a crazy challenging 5km course that had huge hills and finished with about 1km of flat double pole…the bane of my existence. Tory Audet, my friend and an incredible athlete, started 30 seconds behind me, so I decided my goal was to see how long I could stay ahead of her.”

The strategy worked to the end, with Williams finishing with 4.4 seconds to spare.

For the men, Moreau moved up a step on the podium, winning in 32:13.1. Orford’s Nicolas Beaulieu was second, 4.6 behind to improve on his 6th in the sprint. CNEPH’s Mats Halvorsen was third at 12.7 back.

This brings Canadian ski racing to a holiday pause, with lots of positives to look back on: all the Canadians who raced World Cup period 1 have at least one top 30 result, first-year senior Liliane Gagnon earned her first World Cup weekend in Davos, eight days of FIS racing happened at three Canadian venues, the Para National team collected a suitcase worth of World Cup medals, and Nordiq Canada has signed on with Abuse-Free Sport, a significant upgrade from the previous SafeSport program.

Results

Friday 20km freestyle mass start

Saturday 1.1km freestyle sprint (heat brackets)

Sunday 10km individual classic

Full Weekend

Photo Galleries

Raphaël Payo: Saturday, Sunday

Mario Walker: Friday, Sunday

The OC has Instagram content, with more photos, videos of sprint finals, and more.

Canadian racing continued with the Eastern Canada Cup #1 at Nakkertok Trails on December 10th and 11th. The event is hosted by Évènements Nordiques Gatineau Nordic Events (ÉNGNE), a collaborative organization that leverages the skills and volunteers of four local clubs: Chelsea Nordiq Ski Club, Nakkertok Nordic Ski Association, Club Skinouk and the Gatineau Loppet.

Canada recently divided the Canada Cup series into Eastern and Western to reduce the need for travel and to make the sport more accessible financially. The previous week in Sovereign Lake was a Nordiq Cup (World Cup starts on the line), US SuperTour, and Canada Cup combined. Despite being a “smaller'”race, there were 580 racers on the Nakkertok trails to discover surprisingly good skiing.

The large field comes in part from geography: FasterSkier once calculated that 12 million Canadians live within a weekend’s driving distance to Nakkertok, which is just outside Gatineau, Québec, right across the river from the national capital, Ottawa, in Ontario. That is almost the same number of Canadians as live in the entirety of Western Canada (2016 census numbers). Thunder Bay was not included in those “nearby” Canadians; nevertheless, a large group made the drive this weekend.

The “surprising” part of the good skiing conditions stemmed from lowered expectations after mid-week rainfall that destroyed much of the manmade snow, shortened the race loop, and dampened expectations. More on that later, but the pictures and the racer’s comments make it clear that a big thank you is owed to the grooming team and volunteers.

Classic Sprint Saturday

Centre National d’Entraïnement Pierre Harvey (CNEPH) athlete Léo Grandbois won the 1.3km sprint in decisive style, qualifying first and winning all three heats to finish the day in 2:23.11. Sasha Masson, Grandbois’ teammate at CNEPH and the NextGen National team, was second, 2.35 back. Thunder Bay’s Conor McGovern was third, at 5.41 seconds.

In what would be a theme of the heats all day, the time gaps were large, with the winners blowing up the pack well before the finish was in sight.

“I’m happy with my race today, I felt good,” Grandbois said in an official interview. “It was nice weather, and the volunteers did an excellent job on the trails. I didn’t race strategic at all; I trusted my form and it worked really well.”

For the women, it was a similar situation, with local product Tory Audet winning everything. Audet, who is a U18 skier for Chelsea Nordiq and a member of the National Development team, is “racing up” in U20 this season which allows her to qualify for Open heats. Audet followed up her good results the previous weekend with a win in 3:02.84. Carlton U’s Maggie McClure was second, 7.64 behind, with CNEPH U20 Élie-Anne Tremblay placing third at 10.98 seconds back.

Audet’s official quote to the OC shows her growing professionalism, with a shoutout to the waxers: “[The race] was great, it’s so nice and warm here, compared to Sovereign Lake B.C. where I raced last weekend. My skis were fast, big thanks to my wax techs for a great day.”

In an email to FasterSkier, Audet expanded on her day.

“Skiing at home feels great, my kick was amazing which helped a lot, thanks to my wax techs!  It felt great to win a race in front of my family and close friends.”

Free Distance Sunday

The men raced first again on the 1.64km loop, doing six laps to complete 10km. Grandbois continued his hot weekend, winning in 21:00.7, 10.2 seconds ahead of Montériski’s Xavier Lefebre, and 29.1 seconds clear of TBay’s Julian Smith.

“Today was a lot harder than yesterday I thought,” Grandbois revealed. “It was a course that I had to ski well because there were not many hills, but I am happy with the effort I put in.”

Last year it was Smith in total domination mode in December;this year it is Grandbois. How does a ski fan tell the difference between a “Christmas Star,” to paraphrase the Norwegians, from a skier having a great season? We will know by the end of January.

Bronwyn Williams grabbed the victory in the women’s 10km on her home course, finishing in 24:59.1.

“Super, super fun race today,” she said. “I really enjoyed skiing the six laps and tracking down the other skiers. I always love racing on my home trails at Nakkertok, there is always lots of people cheering me on.”

Williams’ Nakkertok teammate Shilo Rousseau was in second, 10.4 behind.

“The race today was hard, six laps is definitely a lot to count,” Audet shared with FasterSkier. “Conditions were great, and my skis were fast! It wasn’t the results I was hoping for, but this was my first completed long distance race since world junior championships last year, so it is a great feeling to be back in it and on the podium!”

Audet, who missed the end of last season through illness, is enthusiastically making up for lost time.

“This season I was selected to be part of the National Development team [and] with this team I was given the opportunity to attend many camps and meet so many incredible strong athletes where I was able to work with some of the best coaches in Canada! These camps were definitely my highlight of this year!”

Snowmaking

This race weekend—and the two weeks of training on snow that preceded it— wouldn’t have been possible without the Nakkertrak snowmaking project.

In a country with early season racing in October (Frozen Thunder in Canmore), November (Sovereign Lake), and a lot of groomed trail before December, it might seem like one more venue with snowmaking is not important. Is another 3km of trail important when 150km has been open for a month?

What matters here is not snow, but skiers. Most of the early season skiing is in the mountainous parts of BC, Alberta, and Labrador, which are all less populous areas.

Having a top racing venue 30 minutes from the national capital also makes cross country skiing a nationally important sport. People, including federal employees and elected officials, focus on what they can see.

“Getting in the training and racing early season for me is so important to prepare for bigger races later on in the season! With snow usually falling later around here, Nakkertrak is so helpful for all our eastern athletes!” — Tory Audet

Audet has set the goal of 2023 U20 World Championships in Whistler, and time on snow is a crucial factor in snatching that spot from motivated 19 year olds.

Organizing early season races is very similar to other races: make plans with the local ski community, negotiate courses and distances with the National Ski Federation, recruit a lot of volunteers, recruit chiefs to organize those volunteers, and a high level event appears in a puff of snow.

Without reliable snow, every part of that gets harder. More time is spent on  contingency plans, money can’t be spent until the last minute, and volunteers are less enthusiastic if they aren’t sure they will be proud of the final result.

Long time Nakkertok and Cross Country Canada volunteer Toni Scheier explained the significance to FasterSkier:

“The Outaouais region has had only a couple of inches of natural snow so far this season. We have been able to ski on a part of our Nakkertrak artificial snow loop for two weeks, but pouring rain on Wednesday put even that in jeopardy. Fortunately, a cold snap Thursday allowed for some touch ups on Thurs that provided excellent conditions for the 580 racers skiing our 1.64 k track. Special mention to Kathy and Marty Hall for their Hall Mark of Excellence contribution of $25,000, to upgrade our snowmaking capacity this year and $4,000 cdn towards the prize money.”

Scheier was one of the volunteer team that brought Nakkertrak to life in 2016: planning, fundraising, promoting, and then expanding. New money this year has expanded the artificial snow loop again, introducing more hills.

Even with Nakkertrak, the first Eastern Canada race this season is the same weekend as the third World Cup in Europe. If Canada wants to see more athletes like Nakkertok’s Katherine Stewart-Jones banging out top 20’s in period 1 on the World Cup, bringing snow to skiers is essential. Just ask Audet.

Results

Saturday Sprints Overall, Heat Brackets, Qualification

Sunday Individual

Full Weekend

Photo Galleries

Robert Smith Saturday, Sunday

Race day four at Sovereign Lake was a 10km individual start classic in the sunshine. With humid new snow at -10C all day while the air warmed up to -4C, all the teams found fast skis and solid kick on a great day for striding.

Once again, the Open and U20 categories skied 2x5km first, followed by U18 and U16 who skied 2×2.5km, for a total of 385 starters Sunday.

Individual start races are about skiing fast, but also about pacing. Keep reading to the end to see the different pacing ideas from top skiers.

At the end of a hard week of racing, only 102 men of 118 would finish, with University of Denver’s Andreas Kirkeng (NOR) taking his second win in his second race, completing the 10km in 27:17.7. Bridger’s Finn O’Connell (USA) was second, 53.1 seconds back. Dartmouth’s John Steel Hagenbuch (USA) was third at 1:08.6.

Canada took the next three spots, with AWCA’s Scott Hill at 1:09.6, U of Utah’s Sam Hendry at 1:23.5, and National team member Xav McKeever at 1:25.3 (and top U20).

Kirkeng was pleased with his racing, having skipped Wednesday and Thursday to complete a volume block here.

“Today, I was really good. I felt super strong and my skis were perfect. They were like real good kick, more than enough to do the hills here and the speed on them in the downhill were just insane. So perfect day.”

Here is Kirkeng’s second time up the final ‘kicker’ climb with 500m to go:

O’Connell was more moderate about his second place: “It was pretty solid I’d say. The goal is always to go out there and fight for to win and I felt good today, skis were really good. Thanks to both my coaches and yeah, gave it everything I had.”

So many skiers commented on having great skis that it would become repetitive to quote each one.

“It was good,” Hagenbuch said. “It was definitely quite hard after a long week of racing and a lot of cold air that has been breathed so far this week. So like the lungs are definitely feeling that but I tried hard.”

On the women’s side, APU’s Hailey Swirbul (USA) continued her solid week with a third win, skiing the 10km in 31:55.9. U of Colorado’s Hanna Abrahamsson was 23.6 seconds back with U of Utah’s Sydney Palmer Leger (USA) taking third at 1:12.5. AWCA’s Sonjaa Schmidt was top Canadian, in sixth at 1:33.5.

Swirbul was happy: “Today was a really good one for me. I felt like I paced it well and tried to race really smart for me. And I think that paid off.”

Abrahamsson was all smiles on Sunday and FasterSkier has the video evidence:

FasterSkier missed Palmer Leger, but did get some video on the final ‘kicker’ climb:

The women’s field was also diminished by a hard week, with only 75 of 87 starting. There were a lot of smiling faces on those that persevered.

Results: Interval Start (click on Time, then All Times, to see all 28 splits!), Full Week

The Course and Pacing

For some, the Upper World Cup 5km is a course they can ski in their sleep. Or nightmares. For others, it was the first visit. The course looks simple on paper, with only 154m of climbing in 5.2km. With 14 splits per lap, there is endless opportunity to compare pacing.

Kirkeng won by 53 seconds. Almost a minute in a 10km with a deep North American field. Which means when he talks about pacing, FasterSkier records video:

Kirkeng took a different view of the course than most of the others and maybe that made the difference.

“I knew with fast skis that some of the downhills and flats that were tracked I would be able to rest quite a bit. So I really just pushed the hills and got up with as quick as I could, knowing that there was rest ahead.” — O’Connell

“It’s at altitude. And it’s there’s a lot of sustained climbing on this course. So I think you have to start out the first lap almost in threshold. And that actually is race pace on a course like this. I also had the benefit of, honestly, some of the best skis I’ve had in years. And my coaches did an amazing job with skis today. So that really helps to have good kick and also enough glide through the double pole you can make up time because there’s a lot of time to be made on those transitions. ” — Swirbul

“I started out a bit easier on the first lap, especially because it’s a lot. There’s a lot of uphill the very first half of the first lap. So I started out a bit easier. And then when I came around for my second lap, I really started to dig deep and give it all I had.” — Schmidt

“Oh, just crush it up hill and double pole like a maniac in the flatter part. I would say and just survive.  Yeah, enjoy a little bit of a nice view, it was so beautiful out there today.” — Abrahamsson

“You got to really keep it controlled in the first k. I almost feel like I’m warming up the first climb and then kind of get into the race. But yeah, thinking about it, I don’t think I’ve raced a race course in any part of the world more than this course, I’m used to it. ” — Hill

“It’s always hard to race at Sovereign because it’s high altitude. Always hard racing. So yeah, it’s probably one of the tougher spots to race in Canada.” — McKeever

“Just kind of settling into a rhythm on the long climb there [pointing to the first A climb] and just working it and then making sure you save something for those last two punchy climbs into the finish.” — Hendry

How Was Your Week

After a long five days that both Swirbul and her coach Erik Flora compared to the start of the Tour de Ski, FasterSkier asked skiers for their impressions.

“Oh, I absolutely love SilverStar. And there’s no better day like today to finish off this really good week of racing and just well, well put on races by everyone here.” — Swirbul

“I really like this place. I don’t want to go home. We’re flying back to Boulder tomorrow. And I don’t want to do that. I want to be here. It’s like, it’s so amazing. The skiing is so good. And yeah, so beautiful.” — Abrahamsson

“It was great. I’ve never been to SilverStar [before] but the conditions have been unbelievable and races have been very, very well organized. The volunteers and race organizers did an amazing job and I look forward to coming back sometime.” — Hagenbuch

“I live over in Canmore, so as soon as Sovereign gets snow, I’m hopping in the car and coming here [and] did a two week training camp leading into these races. So yeah, the SilverStar magic is a real thing.” — Hill

With the first round of SuperTour racing complete in Sovereign Lakes, British Columbia, the NNF is proud to announce the return of the NNF Cup as a presenting sponsor of the US SuperTour this season.

Originally launched in 2012, the NNF Cup celebrates club excellence in America’s premier domestic ski competition by tallying performance of club teams across the SuperTour season. The NNF Cup was awarded to Alaska Pacific University last season.

The recent success of the US on the World Cup and at the Olympic level has been fueled by a renewed commitment by US ski clubs to provide a club structure that supports athletes from their time as Juniors through to post-college senior professional racing. With the NNF CUP, the National Nordic Foundation wants to celebrate the spirit and creativity at play in providing US skiers with structured programs for their continued development, and nod to the competitive nature of these programs by adding a club-wide aspect to their performance-oriented goals.

NNF Board Chairman Yuriy Gustev says that, “Not only do the clubs create a positive learning and skill development environment for the youth, but they also provide essential support to develop athletes and surround themselves with high-level coaches and race service staff. The NNF Cup is a way we can recognize the efforts of our clubs, and our Board of Directors is happy to sponsor it again this season.”

NNF Cup standings will be updated weekly on our website. The full SuperTour schedule can be found here. Individual SuperTour standings can be found here.

You can read full recaps of each race from FasterSkier: including the Classic Sprint, Skate Mass Start 10 k, and Skate Sprint. The SuperTour heads to Sun Valley, Idaho this Saturday, and Sunday to continue its round around the West during Period 1.

Current NNF Cup Standings Here

NNF Cup Rules

• Athletes score points for one club.
• Use all Super Tour races.
• Score top 3 club skiers who finish in the top 10 using Continental Cup scoring in each event.
• Scoring for making camps
• 15 points for athletes qualifying for U16 Camp. No limit per club.
• 30 points per athlete qualifying for camps. No limit per club.
• There will be three team standings: Male, Female and Overall
• Overall winner will win the NNF Cup and be awarded a traveling trophy.

NNF Cup Standings After Sovereign Lakes, British Columbia Races

The first round of races in British Columbia this past week saw a strong start for a number of college teams, while defending NNF Cup champions APU also got off to a strong start – narrowly missing the top 3 in the week’s overall standings.

Overall

1^st. University of Utah – 323 points.

2^nd. University of Colorado – 285 points.

3^rd. Bridger Ski Foundation Pro Team – 260 points.

Men

1^st. University of Utah – 187 points.

2^nd. Bridger Ski Foundation – 165 points.

3^rd. University of Colorado – 102 points.

Women

1^st. University of Colorado – 183 points.

2^nd. University of Utah – 136 points.

3^rd. APU Nordic Ski Center – 106 points.

Day 3 of the Sovereign Lake race week brought a skate sprint on a shorter course and warmer weather:  -10C with no wind and occasional light snow.

Wednesday and Thursday were Nordiq Cup events, with only U20 and Open categories. Saturday and Sunday are Canada Cup races, with the addition of U18 and U16 categories, resulting in 402 racers across the eight groups. All four race days are part of the US SuperTour.

All groups completed the 1.2km qualifiers first, starting at 8:30am, and the heats ran from 11am until 4pm, finishing 1 minute ahead of schedule. Though today’s skate course incorporates one meter more of climbing than Wednesday’s classic course (37m total skate climb, compared to 36m on the classic course), many athletes described the feel of skate course as flatter. For comparison, the fastest women’s qualifier on the skate course—APU’s Hailey Swirbul (USA)—finished in 2:46.77, significantly faster than her 4:10.99 win in Wednesday’s classic sprint on a slightly longer 1.3km course.

Men’s Freestyle Sprint

The men raced first today, with University of Denver’s (DU) Andreas Kirkeng (NOR) taking the victory in 2:20.30. Dartmouth’s John Steel Hagenbuch (USA) was second, at 0.07 back, with Black Jack’s Julien Locke (CAN) in third at 0.54 seconds behind. Tom Mancini (U Utah, FRA) who won Wednesday’s classic sprint was fourth, followed by Bridger’s Graham Houtsma (USA) and teammate Finn O’Connell (USA).

Kirkeng liked the course: “It’s a flat course, but you don’t have any rests so every small uphill, over the top, transitions, turns, everything matters in this course. The finish is really hard . . . 25 seconds with slightly uphill and a long flat section to the finish line. So the finish is really hard and that’s coming after like two minutes with all out flat skiing so it’s a challenging course, not like in terms of steep hills and a lot of climbing, but just because you have to ski fast and be on top of everything all the way.”

As with many of the podium finishers, Kirkeng tried to save energy for the end.

“For the final, I plan to stay like in third, fourth position and go all out from like the last turn, up and under the bridge, and it worked out real well,” he told FasterSkier. “[Hagenbuch] was coming real fast like the last 100 meters but I managed to stay in front of him.”

“I actually did better than I thought considering I’m usually a distance skier,” Hagenbuch said. “And it was super fun out there. I think, tactically, I was kind of doing the same thing, where I was sitting back a little bit for the first part of the course, and then really pushing on the final hill through the finish.”

Hagenbuch liked the course: “it’s super fun. It’s fast. And obviously a very competitive field here today.”

Locke was the top Canadian, expressing satisfaction with the day as he builds back from injury. He pushed hard into the ‘hole’ descent and led the climb back to the bridge.

“My tactics in all the heats was just cruise the first half and then try to have some good punch at the end,” he said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have great legs in the finishing straight. But it was not a bad day; a step in the right direction for me.”

Many racers would be happy with a SuperTour/Canada Cup podium under any circumstances, but skiers reach the top by always chasing the next target, each success leading to a higher goal.

Women’s Freestyle Sprint

After the men’s open and U20 heats completed, it was the women’s turn. “It was a really fun and exciting day,” top qualifier, Swirbul, told FasterSkier. “It’s a shorter sprint course than last time so it was fun to do some real sprinting and tactics.”

Swirbul wanted to try something new today: “I’m normally a racer that will kind of hammer from the gun. So today I challenged myself to try to play more strategy and try and sit behind people into that last downhill. In the last downhill, I’ve tried to free skate as hard as I could and carry as much speed into the final corner and up into the last climb into the drag race in.”

Swirbul won the final in 2:43.02, 0.87 seconds ahead of Bridger’s Sarah Goble (USA). U of Colorado’s Weronika Kaleta (POL) completed the podium, 1.17 seconds back.

Goble was happy with her hard finishing tactics in the earlier heats: “I tried to do that again in the final when I was in third, and I pushed over the top of the hill to put myself into second and kind of control the race through there,” Goble said. “And then Hailey had a really good final push to the finish but [I] couldn’t quite hang.”

Kaleta was very happy with her racing and sticking to her plan: “I wanted hard to be controlled, make sure that I save some energy for the last part. So I tried to do it and I guess I did it quite great.”

U of Utah’s Sydney Palmer Leger (USA) continued her solid week in 4th at 3.49 behind, followed by top Canadian Liliane Gagnon from CNEPH and Team Birkie’s Erin Bianco (USA).

U20 skiers who qualified in the top 30 were automatically moved to the Open heats. Sun Valley’s Samantha Smith (USA) and Chelsea Nordiq’s Tory Audet (CAN), both born in 2005, ‘raced up’ in the U20 group, and qualified into the Open heats where they were eliminated in separate semi-finals.

Asked about the challenge of racing in the open heats instead of U18, Audet was direct: “I love it. I love the competition,” she told FasterSkier. “World juniors would be probably the biggest goal this year. And then a national title would be awesome. Due to COVID and then a concussion last year, I wasn’t able to attend.”

As Canada ignores the U18 championships, Audet is targeting U20 World Championships in Whistler in late January.

Many of the skiers appreciated the race volunteers at these Sovereign Lake events, but Hagenbuch may have phrased it best: “Sovereign put on a great event. The volunteers have been great. I think they’re gonna be out here for something like nine hours today. So pretty Herculean effort. So big thanks to all the volunteers for their hard work and another day of racing tomorrow.”

Results: Qualification, Qualification with 14 splits, Heat Brackets, Full Week (with live timing)

Continental Cup racing at Sovereign Lake continued Thursday with a 10km mass start skate for both genders, using the traditional Upper World Cup 5km course. The weekday races are U20 and Open categories only, with ‘smaller’ fields of 87 women and 127 men registered Thursday.

“I think this is probably the most competitive race in North America this year, so there were a lot of really strong and talented skiers.” — John Steel Hagenbuch, Dartmouth Ski Team

Mass start races at this level usually run in two modes. The group at the front has a tactical race, with most of the group skiing in control and making plans. Behind this group, all the skiers are drilling it, pushing hard to reduce the time gap to the leaders. Many of the men experienced their first 10km mass start today, as this has traditionally been a distance offered primarily in women’s racing.

The day was cloudy and cold, with temperatures hovering at -18C.

The women raced first, with APU’s Hailey Swirbul (USA) setting the pace to reduce the lead pack to 15 skiers by the end of the first 5km lap. The video is at the mid-point of the first A climb, just short of 1km into the race.

“I often find it comforting to be able to ski my own pace and take my own line,” Swirbul told FasterSkier. “I did that. And yeah, it ended up not working out for me, but that’s the way it goes.”

Swirlbul estimated that she led for 9.5km: “I tried making a move,” Sydney Palmer Leger (University of Utah, USA) said, “and then right at the finish, I ended up sliding on my butt.”

Palmer Leger stepped on a ski at the Tree Island turn leading into the finish straight, but was able to sprint back to take second place to U of Colorado’s Anna-Maria Dietze (GER). Dietze finished in 29:59.0, 0.6 seconds ahead of Palmer Leger, with U of Utah’s Karianne Dengerud (NOR) 1.1 seconds back.

“I feel like always kind of sitting in the back for the first loop,” Dietze said, “trying to figure out like which downhills I can take where I can like draft a little bit and was trying to stay relaxed and then when people started to attack, just trying to stick with them and then putting everything on the finish line.”

“I was just trying to take the [last] turn really well,” Dietze continued. “My legs were hurting and I was like I’m just gonna send it and I felt pretty powerful. Felt like I had few metres on them. I thought that was gonna be it and it was awesome.”

Dengerud followed a similar strategy: “I managed to stay like quite far up in the front from the beginning of the race and that helped me save a lot of energy so I had a lot towards the end. And then I wish I’d passed one girl earlier, but except from that, it was great.”

Dengerud skied the loop for the first time in her pre-race warmup and liked the course: “It’s really good. I didn’t ski it before this morning and I heard that it was really hard. But I skied it on my warm up and I figured out that it was as many downhills as uphills, as it should be.”

Dengerud, who grew up near the famous Holmenkollen venue, prefers this course which was built for a 2005 World Cup: “I like it better when you can work the flats a little bit more and it’s not only downhill or uphill, and this course has it all.”

Liliane Gagnon from the Centre National d’Entraînement Pierre Harvey (CNEPH) was the top Canadian in 6th at 9.8 seconds back, trailing Bridger’s Sarah Goble (USA) and Swirbul.

“It was pretty fast at first,” Gagnon said, “but then it calmed down a bit, but on the second lap, the pace got picked up. So you really had to be in the game for it to finish strong.”

The men’s race played out in similar fashion to the Women’s, with 22 men finishing the first lap together, passing through the stadium at a comfortable pace.

“I will say that a 10k skate mass start is definitely fast and pretty hectic,” Hagenbuch confirmed. “So there was definitely some carnage out there.”

Wednesday’s winner Magnus Bøe (U of Colorado, NOR) broke a pole in the first kilometre, losing the advantage of his second row start.

Canmore’s Russell Kennedy (CAN) was one of the people pushing the pace, shown here at the top of the second A climb, about 2km into the race.

“[It was] a lineup of guys ripping it and then Johnny [Hagenbuch] started moving up and I saw the attack coming but I wasn’t sure when he was gonna go,” Kennedy said. “And then the second last hill, he pushed super hard. I got boxed in and then tried to make up time but I couldn’t see really what was going on in the finish for them.”

Ten skiers reached that second last hill, known locally as the ‘Wall’ climb together.

“There’s a pretty big steep kicker hill, about a kilometer and a half out from the finish,” Hagenbuch said. “I kind of felt the moment there and I went for it. And luckily, I was able to drop most of the field. But Tom Mancini, he was able to stick on me after that. And then we kind of duked it out towards the end, but I knew going up against Tom in the finishing stretch probably wouldn’t go my way given that he’s such a strong, older skier and obviously a 2018 World Junior Champion.”

U of Utah’s Tom Mancini (FRA) took the win in 25:24.2, 0.6 seconds ahead of Hagenbuch and 4.7 seconds clear of Kennedy.

“Yesterday, I was disqualified [for micro-skating], ” Mancini said. “I wasn’t totally agree with this decision. But so, today, I wanted to race nice. And also just enjoy my first race here. And this is what I did.”

Mancini moved to Utah in the fall and still thinks in French grammar. He also was seeing this course for the first time, unlike Kennedy who has years of experience here.

“I noticed that they have a nice finish,” Mancini revealed. “So I was like, I just need to stay in this game until the last two kilometres. And so the pace was hard since the beginning. So it started pretty high, so pretty fast. So at the beginning, it was a bit hard for me and then after maybe one lap, I felt better. And I was like, alright, no, just have to keep focus and wait until the end.”

It was a challenging day for clothing selection, with many athletes struggling to stay warm on course. “I think we got prepared by being in Alaska last year and Canmore two weeks ago,” Dengerud shared, “so had a lot of clothes on, for sure.”

If the Alaskan skiers (names withheld to protect the guilty) are complaining about the cold after the race, that is a sign that others suffered more.

Results: Mass Start, Full Week (including live timing)

North American racing hit high gear today with the opening of the combined Nordiq Cup and SuperTour series at Sovereign Lake with classic sprints. This week brings together the top skiers from all of North America, Mexico included, and Wednesday’s qualification was kicked off by the top ranked skiers: USA’s Hailey Swirbul and Canada’s Russell Kennedy.

Many teams arrived two weeks in advance to enjoy some elevation training on corduroy while teams with good early skiing—like Alaska Pacific University (APU) and University of Utah—rolled in just in time for official training.

Race day dawned with heavy snowfall and strong winds at -11C. Roughly 20cm of snow fell while the grooming team was preparing trails, starting at 3am. The snowplow got stuck before clearing the Sovereign Lake access road, forcing a one hour delay. The wind and snow ended about 10:30, half an hour before Swirbul started her qualification. As the day rolled on, skiers saw clouds and sunshine, but ended under the lights as the sun set on the men’s final.

APU’s Swirbul qualified first, completing the 1.2km course in 4:10.99. University of Colorado’s Anna-Maria Dietze (GER) was second, 3.29 back, followed by University of Utah’s Karianne Dengarud (NOR) at 4.29.

For the men, Sun Valley’s Peter Wolter (USA) was fastest, completing the same course in 3:32.38. U Utah’s Noel Keefe (USA) was close behind at 0.86 seconds, with national team member Kennedy third at 1.78 back.

Canada has joined a number of countries in automatically shifting U20 athletes into the open heats if they qualify in the top 30 overall. National team member Xav McKeever (CAN) was the fastest U20 male in 9th, 3.29 back, 

Mexico’s Karla Schleski Shepard did not qualify for the heats, but her presence made this a truly North American event.

In the heats, racing progressed smoothly with a minimum of jury intervention, although many racers commented on how long the 1.2km course felt.

Swirbul won all three heats on her way to victory, leading the final in 4:02.05. Sydney Palmer Leger (USA) was a close second at 0.35 with Dietze completing the podium at 1.05. The final was distinctly international with Germany, Poland, and Norway represented.

Swirbul and Palmer Leger talked about their races and the full North American field, watch it here.

“It’s definitely a hard course,” Dietze told FasterSkier, “it was really tough to do four of these loops all out. A lot of fun.”

Canada’s top woman was CNEPH’s Liliane Gagnon in 10th, followed by AWCA teammates Katie Weaver and Sonjaa Schmidt in 11th and 12th.

On the men’s side, U Colorado’s Magnus Boee (NOR) won in 3:23.83, with APU’s Zanden McMullen (USA) at 0.46 and McKeever leading the U20 contingent at 2.70 seconds back.

U Colorado’s Will Koch (USA), Kennedy, and Bridger Ski Foundation’s Graham Houtsma (USA) completed the final heat, with U Utah’s Walker Hall (USA) scoring the same 3:28.68 lucky loser time as Houtsma, but losing out on a tie breaker.

FasterSkier reporters didn’t locate race winner, Magnus Bøe, in the post-race darkness, but we caught up with the other podium finishers.

“I think it was important to keep your energy low early, in the first half of the race, and then coming around the last turn, you want to be in a good position,” McMullen said. “Make sure you really gunned it from there.”

“It’s amazing to be here. SilverStar is beautiful and Sovereign Lake here. This is my first time here, only second time in Canada,” McMullen continued. “So yeah, no complaints. I’ll definitely be back again.”

“I had a pretty spicy semifinal there, broke a pole going into the biggest climb of the course,” McKeever said of his lucky loser path the final. “I just tried to ski as best as possible in the final and just try and be tactical and position myself well and came out third.”

Thunder Bay’s Julian Smith was the third Canadian, going out in the semifinals for 8th.

Athletes will spend a lot of time combing through results from these first high level races, and comparing those with results of Canadian NextGen skiers from Bruksvallarna earlier in November.

“I was happy with my races overall and was happy to come back here to SilverStar, as it’s one of my favourite places in the world to ski and compete in.” McKeever said. “I had a good time in Europe, just warming up with some first races of the season, competing with some really strong people, had some good sprints.”

The “strong people” mentioned by McKeever included a list of stars like Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson and Ebba Andersson , who moved on to the World Cup in Ruka. Many domestic racers will be looking at the NextGen results in Bruksvallarna and Sovereign Lake to get a sense of how North American racing compares to Scandinavian speed.

Results: Qualification, Brackets, Heats, Full Week (including live timing)

Look for some action video on Nordiq Canada’s social media, because Nathaniel Mah is raising the bar.

SilverStar/Sovereign Lake

Confused about the Sovereign Lake versus SilverStar thing? Sovereign Lake Nordic Club has 50km of trails hosting races in Silver Star provincial park. SilverStar Mountain Resort has lodging, an interconnected 50km of trail, and an alpine resort, but isn’t in the park.

The 1.2km loop used today is nicknamed the Beckie Scott course. In December 2005, Beckie Scott earned her first World Cup win in a skate sprint here. This was also Canada’s first dual WC podium when Sara Renner snatched a bronze medal. Nothing brings the passage of time into focus like realizing that both Scott’s and Renner’s children will be racing in the U16 group this weekend. 

After growing up in Vermont and developing as a skier at the Stratton Mountain School, and later training with the SMS T2 elite team through most of his professional career, Newell moved to Bozeman, MT in 2018 with his wife and former SMS T2 teammate Erika Flowers, who had grown up in Bozeman and taken a job there. Both at a transitional point in their ski careers, Newell would continue to pursue World Cup skiing for another two seasons, while Flowers continued to train with her sights more focused on domestic racing.

Over the last four years, this transition has seen Newell race his final World Cup events and officially leave professional ski racing behind, only to launch and support the thriving BSF Pro Team, alongside his online coaching business, Nordic Team Solutions. In this interview, which took place on Friday, June 3rd, Newell provides insights into this transition from athlete to coach, while also adding behind-the-scenes details of getting the Pro Team off the ground. He also speaks to the challenges of elite training groups, their role in supporting the trajectory of U.S. skiing at the international level, and what’s in store for the BSF crew this summer. 

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

FasterSkier/Rachel Perkins: Starting with the timeline, in the spring of 2018, both you and Erika started to transition to ‘retirement-lite‘. And at that point, you were already talking about doing some coaching and working in athlete development. Is that when you guys moved to Bozeman? And from there, what was the evolution of your relationship with the BSF program?

Andy Newell: Well, I was actually still on the U.S. Ski Team in 2018, but we did move to Bozeman that year. I was still racing essentially full time, but at that time I started a business, Nordic Team Solutions, and with that, I launched a summer training program where I was coaching college kids, so summer of 2019 was my first year where I was kind of stepping more into a formal coaching role. Which for me felt natural because I’ve always kind of participated in and loved the whole training camp vibe.

Growing up at Stratton, Sverre [Caldwell] always had these amazing summer camps for juniors that I participated in my entire life. And then, as I became an older athlete and a U.S. Ski Team athlete, I would actually help with some of these training camps as well. And then in my years with the U.S. Ski Team, I had this program that I started calling “speed camps,” which a lot of people might remember. We would host these free clinics around the country that would coincide with the U.S. Ski Team training camp. Basically we would reach out and have a bunch of juniors come and join us for an afternoon of rollerskiing and agility courses and fun stuff like that.

So to me, it felt like a natural progression to take that a step further – once I launched the Nordic Team Solutions business, where I was running the website, to then pair that with a summer college training group. So my first year here in Bozeman, I actually ran that group independently from BSF… so I was actually not part of BSF in that first year of 2019. I was planning to race some World Cups, did race some World Cups in 2019-20, and then COVID put a quick end to our season when we were getting ready to race in Quebec and Minneapolis.

I had planned on those being my final World Cup races as a professional, to go out racing in Quebec and in Minneapolis and had spent all year preparing for those specific races. And sure enough, they were canceled. So it was like, ‘Surprise! You’re officially retired now.’ And at that point is when I signed on with Bridger Ski Foundation to be the elite team coach.

FS: The announcement of your hiring went out in April 2020 – which kind of feels like a lifetime ago, but it also seems like it would have been a somewhat challenging time to launch a new elite team. Was the foundation already there with the BSF program or was this the onset of the elite team program?

AN: There was an elite team in 2018, but it disbanded because the coach, Rogan Brown, went on to [coach at Denver University], and there were only a handful of athletes here in Bozeman at the time. So in 2019, there was no elite team tied in with BSF, and then in 2020 when I was hired, it was essentially my job to kind of relaunch this program, and to make it a successful program.

There’s no reason why BSF should not have a successful elite team. The Bridger Ski Foundation has been around for over 70 years. It’s very well established here in Bozeman; we have a great pool of young athletes that participate in the youth skiing program – hundreds of athletes.

Andrew Morehouse was signed on as the new nordic director in 2019, and then I came on in 2020. And we shared a vision that, in order [for BSF] to be a premier club, we should have an elite team. And then basically, I had free reign to kind of do what I wanted, which I’m super grateful for – that BSF has kind of given me the ability to choose the team makeup the way I see is best, and to choose how I run the program.

We work closely with the juniors and Andrew Morehouse and the youth programs in town, so I very much have taken the model that I learned growing up at Stratton and tried to implement that here in Bozeman.

At that point [in 2020], I basically just got on the phone and started calling some different athletes that I had met or worked with through NTG camps. The US Ski Team in 2018 and 2019 would hire me to come to NTG camps or development team camps – that was part of my business as well – so I started reaching out to different athletes and mentioning to them that we were going to start a new team here in Bozeman. So I was able to recruit nine athletes initially to come to the team, which was great.

Here’s a preview of the 2021-22 BSF Pro Team. Note that one of the original 2020-21 athletes, Leah Lange, stepped back from her racing career after the team’s first season to begin coaching in Big Sky, MT. 

FS: Can you say more about getting the team off the ground?

AN: So we launched [the Pro Team] in 2020 in the midst of COVID, which – there were so many unknowns and unique circumstances to try to convince these athletes to move to Bozeman and train here in the midst of all that was going on. And we essentially only had very unofficial racing our first season of 2020-21. Kind of a mismash of some official races, some non-official. But in hindsight, it was a nice opportunity for us to just build a team and spend a lot of time training with one another. 

When you name a team like this as a coach, you have no idea what type of team culture or team vibe there’s going to be – you’re bringing all these different athletes from different colleges or different programs around the country. You want to create a team that really acts and feels like a team and you have no idea what type of form that’s going to take. So in hindsight, to have that COVID year where we just spent a lot of time training with one another, building the team here in Bozeman, was nice to lay that foundation so that we could have what was a very successful season last year in 2021-22.

FS: You’ve still got Nordic Team Solutions going on also. Has your work there shifted in any way and how do you balance your time between both of those?

AN: It has shifted in that, my first few years with NTS, I would actually hire [myself] out and go to more training camps. As I mentioned, I would help the U.S. Ski Team out with some of their NTG camps, or I would be hired by a club to go do a two or three-day training camp with them. And that has pretty much stopped, because my priority time-wise is with the BSF Pro Team. So I don’t travel so much for any other coaching duties, I mostly just travel to training camps with the BSF Team and work with them here in Bozeman.

But I do still run the website, which is a great resource for training information for ski clubs, high school coaches, college coaches, or any individual that’s looking to learn more about training. I still run that [program] on a weekly basis and in published training plans and right strength plans for various individuals.

FS: In terms of Bozeman: you spent most of your career based in Vermont, though Erika has roots in Bozeman. How have you found that setting for leading this Pro Team and what are your thoughts on the training environment there?

AN: The environment for training is fantastic here in Bozeman; we have access to mountains, access to a long season of skiing. We’re just an hour and a half away from West Yellowstone where we often have early FIS races, or we’re within driving distance of Sun Valley, Canmore, all these other places that historically have early-season racing. The rollerskiing is quite good here and there’s already a great support network within the Bridger Ski Foundation community.

What is tough, with any elite team, is the fundraising aspect. I actually rebranded it as a Pro Team for a reason, because I want these athletes to be not scraping by, but to be actually making money while pursuing their dreams of being an Olympic-level racer. I think they deserve that, and I think that’s what all professional skiers deserve in the U.S.

But it’s taken us some time to get there, and we’re not there yet. Fundraising is a huge part of my job on a yearly basis; we essentially have to fundraise from scratch all the money that it’s going to cost to travel around the country, or travel to Europe with these athletes who are making World Cup or World Championships. All the wax, all the hotels, all the logistics – all of that falls on a single program budget, basically.

And I think there’s a huge potential for that in Bozeman. Bozeman is one of the fastest-growing towns in the U.S. and there are a lot of new businesses here, so I think our fundraising potential is huge. But given the fact that we started in COVID, and we’ve only been here for two years, we’re still trying to figure that piece out. And so that’s a place where we still have room to grow.

And I would encourage anyone out there who’s reading this to realize the importance of these pro teams that we have in the country… We have Stratton, we have Craftsbury, we now have the Birkie Team, we have Sun Valley. And these clubs are essentially responsible for the development of the US Ski Team. This is the club model that we have adopted. Now, you know, it’s now been 30 years since we’ve, more or less, adopted this model. And we’re not getting any money from the U.S. Ski Team to develop these athletes. These clubs are and are all self-funded. APU is a little different since it’s tied in with the university.

Unless you have a massive endowment or some other amazing bankroll that I am not familiar with, these pro teams and elite teams are fundraising their entire budgets on a yearly basis. Every single year, you have to raise the amount of money to send these [athletes] to these races. And that’s challenging, but it’s a hugely important piece of our development, because we wouldn’t have the U.S. Ski Team that we have now – we wouldn’t have the depth or the success on the U.S. Ski Team level – if we didn’t have these clubs as feeder programs. So I think it’s important that people help support these teams.

FS: Looking back over the last few years, what are some of the indicators of success that you look at in identifying what’s going well for the program? And what are some of your objectives in terms of heading into the next few seasons?

AN: That’s a great question. The goal we have here with the Pro Team is international success, and that means I don’t bring someone onto the BSF pro team [whose only] ambitions are racing SuperTour and winning the Birkie, although those are amazing achievements. Those are, for sure, stepping stones in our development. But my goal is to put people on the U.S. Ski Team, and to qualify people for World Championships and Olympics.

So international success is what we strive for, and that’s how we measure our season, and how folks are doing. Last year alone, we had three athletes achieve their first ever national podiums in Soldier Hollow. We actually qualified four different athletes for World Cup, although two of them – Finn O’Connell and Mariah Bredal – did not get to start there because they were canceled. But both Logan Diekmann and Lauren Jortberg started their first ever World Cups, which is great. We finished the year with Logan Diekmann as the overall sprint champion on the SuperTour. Finn O’Connell was the second best ranked distance skier on the SuperTour, and he also qualified for the U.S. Ski Team [as a B-Team member]. So for us, that was a solid year, and I was very proud of the way the team performed and much of the team, if not half the team, was able to have personal bests and be called up for some type of international racing, whether that was through World Cup or Opa Cup, and that’s exactly what you know I want to do. That’s my mission: to get these kids into those big international races and have them perform well.

FS: Can you speak a little bit about the depth of the team, too? Momentum seems like an important thing with elite or pro teams. Just having that critical mass of athletes that are on the same level, or have similar objectives. Is that something that you’re seeing with the BSF crew?

AN: Yeah, absolutely. I think the phrase ‘critical mass’ is for sure something that you see with these pro teams. I mean, it’s hard to deny the Jessie Diggins/Julia Kern effect that Stratton has right now. That’s a huge draw to their program.

I think, for us, considering we started with zero members of the U.S. Ski Team on our pro team, and now we have one B-Team member – I’ve just been really excited with our success so far and how the team has stayed driven and motivated and helps push one another. That’s why I do this job – I love the team environment. That’s what I lived in my entire life; I was on the U.S. Ski Team from when I was 18 years old until I was almost 36 years old. 

So the concept, the feeling of being part of a team, where people are genuinely supportive of one another you share in the training process and learning process, and you’re pushing one another, that’s the most valuable and successful scenario you can have. So I’ve been glad that we’ve somehow been able to find that nice mix of motivated individuals that genuinely get along and have fun with one another, and are able to travel the country and have put together successful race weekends.

FS: Last program question: what’s new and what’s on deck for this summer? You mentioned that you guys are heading to Norway. What other summer/fall camps or projects are you guys working?

AN: [Starting with the team roster:] so far this year, we’ve added Sarah Goble to our squad squad. She’ll be a new athlete with us next year. We also have her brother Reid Goble on the team, who has been great. I think those two have a ton of potential.

We did lose Lauren [Jortberg] to Stratton – and you know how these clubs work, it’s a very friendly exchange. I’m sure we’ll find ways to collaborate, and that’s honestly what I find a lot of value in is elite teams collaborating with one another. Last year, we did a bunch of training camps with Sun Valley [Gold Team]. We joined Stratton and Sun Valley in Lake Placid training camp. We did some camps in the Midwest where we’ve had overlap with some Birkie athletes. And so I’ll continue to do that this year.

We are scheduled to go to Norway next week for a two-week camp where we’ll be in Sjusjøen for five days, and then on Sognefjellet ski fields for five days. We’ll try to overlap with some fast foreign skiers while we’re there and try to learn from some folks over there, and we’re bringing a handful of college skiers with the Pro Team as well on that trip. After that, we’ll be back here in Bozeman for the main summer training block and that’s when we do our BSF college training group as well. That runs through the end of June and into the first week of August.

So we have a solid six-week block of training here in Bozeman, which has been the staple of the BSF program the last couple years – having this really competitive college training group. It’s been so fun to see that program grow and see the success of the college training group. The first year with BSF, we had folks like Sophia Laukli on the team, and so many talented individuals. It was great to see them develop here in Bozeman and then have such amazing seasons that winter. So we’ll continue that program where for six weeks we’ll have a team of 12 collegiate athletes that join the Pro Team on daily training all the way through August.

After the summer training group ends, we’re planning to head to the Midwest for another training camp, like we did last year. We try to get to low-altitude in August. Right now we’re looking at Marquette as our training destination, and we’ll try to collaborate with Team Birkie on some sessions out there. And then we’ll be going to Park City camp in October, like we always do, to join the many clubs from around the country and the U.S. Ski Team for their [fall] camp. And then we’ll probably get on snow early here in Montana or in BC as the snow flies.

FS: How much crossover is there between the collegiate group that you have joining in the summer and the Montana State University (MSU) program?

AN: Historically there are not many MSU kids that stay in town [over the summer]. This year I think we have two MSU kids in the college training group, so that’s great. If there are MSU athletes in town, we try to prioritize them to get them onto the team to keep them within the community. But a lot of college kids go home, whether it’s Alaska or back east or the Midwest. But we do have some good crossover and I have a good relationship with Adam St. Pierre and the university. We use their facilities all the time – we just did a round of testing on the rollerski treadmill at MSU – so it’s handy to have those types of resources nearby.

FS: I know you’ve also got the Jim Bridger Trail Run coming up this summer, and there is a new rollerski race component. Can you share more information on that?

AN: We’re doing our first ever Jim Bridger Rollerski Race at the end of July, which is paired with our annual trail run. I’ve been working with the town of Bozeman to shut down a city block behind where the MSU campus is, and we’re going to be hosting a crit-style rollerski race on the weekend in downtown Bozeman.

We have prize money for that, and we’re getting some great sponsors on board. So that’ll be a cool event.

FS: Can you also talk about how that event supports the BSF Pro Team?

Yeah, absolutely. Like I mentioned, we as a Pro Team essentially need to raise $150,000 each year just to get the [athletes] to all the races and try to cover their expenses. That is a travel budget, a wax budget, everything – and that needs to be raised on an annual basis. For us, the Jim Bridger Trail Run is one of our biggest fundraisers.

It’s an incredible amount of work. It’s a weird part of my job to be a coach, but also an event organizer. There’s a lot of weird things that go into being a ski coach. But, if we can make the Jim Bridger event big and successful, we can actually raise a lot of money for our budget. So that’s why we put so much attention and effort into it. It’s also a good chance for us to partner with local sponsors to raise money for the Pro Team, because all proceeds from these events go directly to the Pro Team.

So historically, it’s just been a trail run, but this year I wanted to add a rollerski event for a couple reasons. One: I think it’s a huge development tool for BSF. We have so many talented youth skiers in this town. I want them to kind of be exposed to this type of high-level rollerski racing that we see in Europe. We see it all over Norway and Sweden and Germany; we need to have high-level rollerski races here in the U.S. So my secondary goal is to have this be an annual thing, where people know there’s going to be a quality rollerski race that’s super exciting to watch, fun to participate in, there’s going to be prize money and sponsors, so we can make it an annual thing and have it tied in with all the different clubs throughout the West. I’m hoping teams from Sun Valley, Park City, and all over the West will bring their athletes here to compete in this rollerski race on July 30th in downtown Bozeman.

FS: And they’re staggered, right? So people could do both theoretically?

AN: Exactly. The rollerski race is on Saturday, running races are on Sunday. The running race is 10 miles, but we also have a 5k option for the younger kids. And we have U16, U18, U20 and open class for the rollerski race. Swix and Salomon are sponsors of the event, and we’ll be getting a race rollerski fleet from Swix, so these are going to be matched rollerskis for the open men and women, so it’s going to be a legit rollerski race.

We’re hoping to livestream it too. TBD on that, but check the BSF Facebook page for live streaming.

Perhaps highlighting this transition and the sharing of responsibilities the two are in the process of navigating, FasterSkier connected with Thomas in mid-May while he was in his second week of supporting the SMS T2 athletes who had joined the U.S. Ski Team for their spring training camp in Bend, OR, and with O’Brien who was back in Stratton, having recently wrapped up with his participation in U.S. Ski & Snowboard spring congress sessions. 

A 2006 graduate of SMS himself, O’Brien raced collegiately for Dartmouth College, then spent four years training and racing professionally with the Craftsbury Green Racing Project. His move from Craftsbury back to Stratton was timed with his retirement following the 2014 Sochi Olympic Quad. Given his age and the proximity to his racing career at that time, many of the athletes on the T2 team were among what he called his “peer group”, having overlapped with many of them during either high school, college, on the race course, or all of the above. Jessie Diggins and Sophie Caldwell Hamilton were quickly becoming rising World Cup stars on the women’s team, while Andy Newell and Simi Hamilton headlined the men’s roster, and a young Julia Kern and Katharine Ogden were spending a PG year training with the T2 team.

Eager to stay connected with the sport after retirement, O’Brien seized the opportunity to take over in Stratton, stepping in as his predecessor Gus Kaeding departed.

“Ski coaching is the one thing that I’ve always known that I wanted to do, it was just kind of a natural progression for me. I knew that I was done with my athletic career – I didn’t really want to ski race anymore – but I knew that I still wanted to ski, I still wanted to be involved and to give back to the sport. I felt like, to some extent, when you spend basically your entire life skiing, you get pretty good at understanding the sport. But we never know as much as we think we do, and we always need to be students of the sport and have an open mind and learn.”

As he began his coaching career, he quickly realized that writing training plans and facilitating training was only a small subset of the responsibilities of an elite club coach.  

“Good coaching is being comfortable wearing a bunch of different hats. And I mean, I joke, but the actual coaching is such a small part of it. The nitty gritty of pulling an athlete on the side of the trail and looking at video and all of that is important, but you’re there as a friend, a drill sergeant at times, and as someone that is just really trying to be supportive.

“And that’s all-encompassing. So for me, it has been a pretty fun experience to see people figure stuff out and be there to support them when they needed a little extra help and to do it in a pretty collaborative, dynamic way.”

He described his experience transitioning to coaching primarily as a mindset shift from the inevitable self-centric focus required of professional athletes toward selflessness; but the work required and pace of life remained equally taxing. 

“When you coach at a club level – all coaching is a demanding job. I do think that you have to – I don’t want to use the word ‘sacrifice’, but when you transition from being an athlete yourself to being a coach, your job as an athlete is to be a little selfish. You’re trying to maximize your athletic performance. You need to have balance… but at the end of the day, you need to make sure that you’re training well and with purpose, you’re recovering well, you have goals and you’re going about achieving them. It shouldn’t be simply looked at as like what you have to give up to do that, but to be the most professional athletes and succeed against people who are trying to do the exact same thing, you just have to do a really, really good job with it. And coaching is the same thing. You have to be willing to approach everything that you do with the same degree of drive and focus that you would as an athlete…

“Basically, I just threw myself into it with the same approach that I had as an athlete which is, I’m just going to work, and work, and work, and learn all along the way. And then give it my best push and know that if I get to the point where that balance starts becoming harder and harder, or I can’t really do the job that I want, to be supportive of the athletes [to the level I want to be], that’s when you’ve got to know that you either double down and keep pushing or make a transition.”

While O’Brien is no less dedicated to the SMS T2 program or its athletes, a new endeavor has begun which will make achieving the balance he described significantly harder: he’s about to become a father. His wife, two-time Olympian and long-time U.S. Ski Team member Ida Sargent, is due in mid-August.

Since retirement, Sargent has been working for her high school alma mater, Burke Mountain Academy, in Northern Vermont, and is currently the Academic Director for the school while also teaching STEM classes. O’Brien has been splitting his time between Burke and Stratton, which lies roughly 150 miles southeast in the opposite corner of the state. His usual coaching schedule pulled him around the country for weeks at a time to support athletes at U.S. Nationals and SuperTour events, and sometimes around the globe for World Cup, U23s, and other international camps and races. 

While he acknowledged that there are many examples of coaches at all levels who have successfully juggled a demanding work and travel schedule with raising a family, what felt like the best fit given his and Ida’s vision and priorities for their own growing family was for O’Brien to decrease his level of responsibility with the T2 program, allowing greater flexibility and more time at home. 

“I just felt like there’s part of me that was like, ‘I’m not seeing a pathway that I feel like I can still commit [to coaching] at the level that I want and know that you need to in order to to do the best job with your job, while simultaneously trying to start a family.’ I felt like it was my time to reevaluate and maybe step back or be completely done with ski coaching, because I certainly didn’t want Ida to have to put her growing career on hold to be the [primary] caregiver…

“Eight years is a long time to do something and I am very proud of what the team has accomplished in that time… it’s really cool having spent this time seeing athletes grow, not just not just athletically and within their their ski careers, but as individuals from high schoolers to finishing up college to full blown ‘this is my job.’”

While his role will be smaller, O’Brien is certainly not stepping away from the T2 team altogether. “Starting a family does not necessarily mean that it means the end of being involved in the sport,” he said. “It just means trying to figure out what the right relationship is with it.” 

The exact balance and distribution of responsibilities remains a work in progress as Thomas moves into the head coach role and the new season of training begins, and both O’Brien and Thomas are excited to collaborate and support one another throughout the year. 

Explaining his philosophy as “under-commit so I can open perform”, O’Brien anticipates taking on many of the behind the scenes tasks that support the team, from collaboratively blocking out the season calendar, to managing travel logistics for camps and SuperTour races. As he put it, the little details of deciding “which flights to take to get from Canmore to Sun Valley” and where to stay are often made easier with several years of trial and error under your belt. 

While Thomas will spend more time with ski boots on the ground, both in Stratton during the summer and at races and camps throughout the year, O’Brien anticipates he’ll still be plugging in a fair amount too. Though his stay might be shortened to the period immediately surrounding races, he plans, at minimum, to be in Houghton, MI for U.S. Nationals in January, and also the SuperTour finals in Craftsbury in late March.

He’s also excited to reconnect with the team in Stratton early in the summer before Ida gets close to her due date, but also to take off a few of his usual coaching hats while doing so. 

“I think it’ll be really fun for me to actually be able to flow in and out get to see people, connect with them, but also not be like ‘Okay, now I don’t have to worry about making sure that the van’s filled up with gas, or water jugs have been filled, or that I’ve ordered all the lactate strips in advance so that we don’t run out.’”

As Thomas gets his feet under him in Stratton, he explained that he feels “very fortunate that Pat will still be involved.”

“As much as I can have him in the mix, the better,” Thomas said. “His knowledge with skis and wax is just unreal, so tapping into that resource is huge for me, for sure.” 

***

Prior to joining the UVM program, Thomas spent five years as the assistant coach at the University of Vermont, working alongside head coach Patrick Weaver. During his own collegiate racing career, Thomas spent four years racing for the University of New Hampshire, where he served as team captain during his senior year in ‘12-13. Departing briefly from the cross-country ski world, he spent a year teaching high school science to underprivileged youth in the Oakland area of California, before returning to the Northeast to begin his coaching career as the assistant coach at Williams College in Massachusetts. 

“Working at UVM was unreal – a great experience,” Thomas said emphatically. “I really loved working with Patrick Weaver and the athletes there and it seems like almost a seamless transition, in many ways. Four of the skiers on the T2 team I actually coached at UVM. So knowing a lot of athletes here already – what they’re working on with technique, and racing, and goals and all that – has been very seamless, and that’s been great.”

The UVM graduates who now ski for SMS T2 include Alayna Sonnesyn (‘18), Bill Harmeyer (‘20), Lina Sutro (‘21), and Ben Ogden (‘22). 

Given the caliber of these athletes and the success of the UVM team as a whole during his tenure, Thomas credits his time with the program to the acceleration of his development as a coach, preparing him to take his next steps forward with SMS T2.

“Patrick Weaver definitely gave me a lot of opportunities and ownership over different facets of coaching that team and I think that’s been instrumental in me being here now with T2. I was able to go to World Cup Finals with Ben Ogden in Quebec his first year in school [in 2019], and I was just able to do trips like that on my own with athletes. That was huge for my development as a coach and for my experience of waxing, ski testing, and [other responsibilities at that level of racing]. So working at UVM was a lot of fun – I’m gonna miss it for sure – but it set me up very well for this transition.” 

A theme of both Thomas and O’Brien’s comments on the difference between collegiate and elite club coaching is small in terms of the training and technique coaching itself, but vastly different in terms of the opportunities elite club coaches have to support their athletes. 

“I think the big differences are what we can and can’t do throughout the year from collegiate [racing] to the elite team,” Thomas explained. “Like, I wouldn’t be here [in Bend] and been doing an on-snow training camp if I were at a college team. And obviously the racing schedule is super different.

“The college schedule is pretty efficient, whereas the SuperTour calendar is quite a bit more spread out. And then, in addition to that, you have an athlete’s like Jesse Diggins, and Ben Ogden, and Julia Kern that are going to be on the World Cup, as well as athletes that are trying to make it to the World Cup. And at UVM, we had crazy talented athletes – Ben Ogden is one of them – so working with with high caliber athletes is nothing entirely new, but dealing with athletes where some are on the World Cup and some of them on the SuperTour is an interesting dynamic that you don’t often get with the college teams.”

In terms of what Thomas adds to the program as he steps in as head coach, he described his coaching philosophy and the environment he seeks to create within the training group, which keeps athletes motivated and happy through the arduous and long-term development process.

“[Cross-country] skiing is such a hard sport – it’s so much time that that we’re putting in, and so many sacrifices that we’re making, that I wholeheartedly believe in making that time that we’re together training and working hard fun and enjoyable,” Thomas said. “I think that’s a big part of what we do –  and it has to be a big part of what we do –  because like I said, it’s a hard sport. So I think making things light and having fun with all that is super important. And that’s definitely something I bring to the table in that regard.”

But Thomas will add more than just fun to the T2 program. While he may be, as phrased by his new colleague, “almost too humble”, O’Brien was quick to highlight Thomas’s preparedness to prescribe training, coach technique, and otherwise lead an elite team stacked with some of the nation’s best athletes. 

“If you have been at a D1 college program where you’re dealing with 15-20 athletes and that dynamic environment where student athletes are constantly balancing all these different commitments and time constraints… And really, what you learn there as an athlete and what you learn there as a coach is that working with a club – it just isn’t that different.”

O’Brien added that the shift to an elite club from college may, in fact, be easier than going in the other direction. When athletes no longer have to miss key workouts to take an exam or rush off to class halfway through a team meeting, barriers to consistent communication and training are removed, and consequently a coach has a greater capacity to build relationships with the athletes as they stack together the bricks of the training program. 

“You get an opportunity to really work one-on-one with the athletes and to really be there to facilitate and support their training and their racing. In that sense, I think coming from a college background – especially given his ties with many of the current athletes that are on the team – you’re just working with the same people and you’re doing the same stuff.

“I mean, there’s no magic formula,” O’Brien continued. “Someone can claim that they can write the best training plan in the world. And that’s all fine and dandy – there are definitely people who do an amazing job with it and they really enjoy that aspect of that aspect of the sport. But at the end of the day, it’s just really just working with people. You don’t need to make it more complicated than it is. The best athlete is not a robot. The best athlete is someone that is self aware, that can think critically, learn from mistakes, recognize when things go well, and the coach is there to support them along the way.”

Thomas identified building upon his relationships and experience with his former athletes, who account for half of the team’s eight athletes, as something he’s looking forward to in joining T2. 

“I am very appreciative of the continuity and being able to work with some athletes I’ve worked with in the past,” said Thomas. “I love all of them –  they’re incredible people, incredibly hard workers. So to be able to continue working with them is just awesome. With that, too, it’s like – I have been working with Ben for the last four years, I worked with Lina Sutro for four years, I worked with Alayna for a little bit. It’s just a matter of knowing how they operate and how they train and knowing what they’ve been working on too. It’s easy for me in training, [even] this morning, to see some of them and be like, ‘okay, like this is something we’ve been working on for the last however many years’ or maybe, ‘a couple years ago, this was something we’re working on’. So let’s continue this, let’s continue these cues that we’re working on, and have that continuity there. 

“It’s been awesome to be able to continue that work with them. It’s nice to see the progress – to see what they were doing in college a few years ago, and then to see where they are now, and then also to be able to help them through the transition to professional skiing.”

Simultaneously, these UVM-T2 athletes are excited to be working with their former UVM coach again. In an email to FasterSkier, Alayna Sonnesyn reflected on her time as a professional skier guided by O’Brien, while crediting Thomas’s contributions at UVM for her reaching the professional level in the first place. 

“Stepping into the professional ski world four years ago and onto the SMS T2 team was super intimidating to me,” wrote Sonnesyn. “The team has been home to some of the fastest skiers in the world and I was clueless when it came to racing at that high of a level. Pat O’Brien helped steer me in the right direction as I made this adjustment and took huge jumps in my skiing ability. He taught me when to train for fun and when it was time to buckle down and get serious. When Pat says it’s go time, you go! He helped develop me from a reasonable distance skier to a strong and powerful distance AND sprinter, a trait I never thought I would be capable of. Pat’s knowledge of the sport and ski waxing, as well as the mental and emotional obstacles that come along with it, is unparalleled. He was a coach that believed in me as a junior skier and saw potential. The only thing that can make a good ski race even better is when Pat gives you a proud hug at the finish line. Although I will miss these hugs and his direct coaching, I know that he will use these skills to care for his growing family and I am excited to see where life takes him next.

“Back when Pat was just seeing the potential in my college skiing, I was working with Perry Thomas when he was the assistant coach at UVM. I feel like my athletic career has come full circle as I get to transition back to a coach who helped put me in a place where I first believed skiing professionally was an option. Although I only had the pleasure of working with Perry for one year at UVM, it was a very special season! I instantly trusted him with my skis and could feel his enthusiasm for the sport radiate on the ski trails. I’ve witnessed just how hard Perry has worked over the years and how well-prepared he is to take over the position as head coach of the SMS team. Just in the first month of working with Perry again, I already know the team is heading down a path to continue its mission; local inspiration, international excellence.”

Likewise, Lina Sutro shared she is looking forward to the transition, applauding Thomas’s dedication to his athletes.

“I am truly so excited to be working with Perry again,” she wrote. “He is one of the most hard working and committed coaches I have worked with. He has a strong work ethic that I am excited for the Stratton community to experience. Pat and Perry both give so much back to the ski community and their athletes, I am excited to see the two of them work together.”

As for the broader questions of “what’s new?” and “what lies ahead for the SMS T2 team this summer?” Following Katharine Ogden’s retirement in March, Lauren Jortberg will join the team as the fifth athlete on the women’s side – five and five is what the team identifies as the sweet spot for numbers. Jortberg joins Jessie Diggins, Julia Kern, Alayna Sonnesyn, and Lina Sutro. The men’s team is light this season, as Ian Torchia moved on this spring also, leaving behind a three-man roster of Bill Harmeyer, Will Koch (who also competes for University of Colorado), and Ben Ogden. 

After Bend camp, the team will part ways with many attending “a big event in the Midwest” which happened over Memorial Day Weekend. The SMS T2 team will finally reconvene as a whole in Stratton in early June. Though regional and international camps are planned, particularly for athletes named to the national team, Thomas anticipates ample quality training based in Vermont and the surrounding region.

“We’ll be in the Stratton area for the majority of this summer,” he explained. “I think one of the cool things that we’re doing is: Sverre, and Pat and I have started working on doing a summer [training] program, so we have some awesome athletes joining our crew this summer.”

This list includes University of Utah and U.S. Ski Team skiers Sydney Palmer-Leger, Novie McCabe, and former SMS junior athletes Adam Witowski and Zander Martin, who now ski for Michigan Tech and Bates College, respectively. JC Schoonmaker and Gus Schumacher also plan to join the T2 team for some training in Vermont throughout the summer. 

“So a really stacked crew, for sure,” said Thomas. “It’s gonna be a really exciting summer to say the least.”

Adam Martin’s skiing has always tended to be best described in conjunctions rather than disjunctions. He could do this and he would do that.

Or, that’s always how his mentors looked at it. My most distinct memory of Martin is from a CXC (Central Cross Country Skiing) camp about a decade ago when Sten Fjeldheim, then Martin’s coach at Northern Michigan University (NMU), gathered a group of us J2s (U16) around in the lobby of the old Telemark Lodge and said, “there’s proof you can be an All-American caliber skier and have a 4.0 GPA too,” pointing to Martin as the example.

That stuck with me as I watched him as a US skiing fan for years. Martin was giving it everything he could in everything he did, and the juxtapositions that produced were inspiring in their absurdity.

He would run a combined bike/run hill climb and beat all but one of the cyclists. He would win a local 5 k while pushing for pro runner–caliber paces (seriously, he ran a 14:34). He would compete on the World Cup, and his best result would consistently come at its longest and hardest race – the Holmenkollen 50 k.  

That pattern strung along almost a decade from his high school career to its final, most striking juxtaposition: Martin had his best season ever in 2021/2022, and now he will retire from professional skiing.

The pattern held all the way through. He gave it all, in every way, and at everything the ski world had to offer.

It was exemplary of his philosophy of inclusiveness, of an and; a persistence in bringing in others’ ideas, their accomplishments, their experiences in skiing, learning what he could, and channeling it all into his performance out on the course.

That stance towards thoughtfulness and inclusion could be figured as an essence to Adam Martin the skier. Something that reached all the way back and followed him all the way through. When we spoke a couple weeks after his retirement, that was the timescale he reached for. “I was lucky to grow up in the nordic skiing community that I did, with a lot of great people helping me in the sport, both getting into it and supporting me today,” Martin said.

That nordic community was the one in Martin’s hometown of Wausau, Wisconsin. He first came to skiing as a 10-year-old there – venturing out on skis after the local skating rink shut down and left his then favorite sport, figure skating, an impossibility. “It was a good winter so there was good skiing at 9-mile (Wausau’s trails) for all of March. My mom took me out once or twice a week for a whole month and I think we progressively worked up to 20 k at the end of the ski season. And that was big for me. I didn’t think about figure skating after that.”

It was an understated but persistent start in the sport that matched the ski community that Martin would grow up in. An old timber-boom relic in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, Wausau hums along as a city of 38,000 marked most prominently by Rib Mountain, an erratic that signals that glaciers crept across the land there, carving up knolls and hills under the forests that now surround it. It is as perfect ski terrain as you’ll find in the Midwest. Granite Peak, one of the oldest lift-served ski hills in the country, calls one side of Rib Mountain home. Characteristically of Martin, when I asked him if he skied there as a kid he replied “Never downhill. I used to ski up it after the lifts closed in high school though.” Martin was instead drawn into skiing by the rolling terrain at Nine-Mile County Forest, a network of trails a mile south of Rib Mountain that had already been home to a couple generations of nationally competitive skiers .

Before he joined those ranks though, Martin signed up for the Wausau Night Gliders, the community’s youth program coached by Rachel and Greg Kresse. “We met twice a week, and I was just so excited to see and learn different things in the sport. I remember the first time we learned to skate, and was like thinking, ‘could you V2 in a race?’ Because at that point I was just doing one technique. That was the clincher, I decided I wanted to race. I wasn’t even doing particularly well in the beginning, and getting extremely nervous, but I do remember one race at 9-mile where I had one of my experiences hitting the ‘flow state’ and that was it after that. I was totally hooked on that experience.”

From there, Martin started to look down the road at skiing. Standing there metaphorically, he saw skiers doing what he would one day hope to do. “[In Wausau] the Hugus brothers were three or four years older than me. When I was in 8th grade Ben [Hugus] won the state Championship. One of them was getting top 10s at Junior Nationals, and then I was good friends with Matt and Chris Nichols who were around my age. I had a lot of great competition in Wausau, and in Wisconsin too. I remember Dylan McGarthwrite (from Hayward) making the Scando (Nordic Nations U18) trip when I was a freshman in high school, and I was really hyped up about that.”

After gaining that preview of the Wisconsin nordic world, Martin would chase down each and every one of those goals reached by his role models. By the time he was a freshman in high school, he was qualifying for Junior Nationals. Then, he won the Wisconsin high school state meet, and then qualified for the U18 Scandinavian Cup trip with US Ski & Snowboard. With dreams realized and only good things ahead, Martin decided to go all in on skiing.

His time, and his place in Wausau, were serendipitous in presenting a ready-made opportunity in his own backyard. In the early 2010s, the Midwest was home to a grouping of skiers who would go on to define their generation of American skiing. Martin headed to the CXC Elite Team, where an orbit of skiers that included Jessie Diggins and Kevin Bolger, along with coaches like Jason Cork, Igor Badamshin and Bryan Fish, were all forging the philosophies and approaches to skiing that would eventually influence the direction of US skiing for years to come.

That it was happening was almost hidden by the shabby surroundings in which they were pushing forward. After joining up with CXC, Martin split his time between Wausau, and CXC’s main training site at the Telemark Lodge in Cable, WI. The training environment was spartan, but the facilities couldn’t even strive for that aesthetic – they were just run down. The VO2Max-fitted treadmill hung out in what used to be a shop floor in the Lodge’s old mall, most athlete accommodations still donned the dull color tones of the 1970s, and the old Telemark World Cup trails were overgrown and uncut.

It was out of the way, but it was also all about skiing, which let Martin fully lean into his developing thoughtfulness towards his technique and his training. “I took a lot of cues from Igor [Badamshin] there. The thing that stood out for me was that he was so joyful about skiing, and that joy could extend to looking at every little aspect of things. He’d point out a little thing in technique, and would get incredibly excited about it, and that was contagious.” (Badamshin passed away in 2014; read a FasterSkier tribute to him here). 

That attitude extended to new areas of interest too for Martin, who began to take an amateur’s interest in the sports science behind cross-country skiing. “I just bought a standard exercise physiology textbook and think I like read it cover-to-cover. … I started reading all sorts of exercise physiology, and still do.”

Martin’s post-grad year was a fruition and a starting point. Going into a year at CXC, Martin was a skier whose results indicated a huge amount of physical talent and mental intelligence. Then, somewhere in the Wisconsin Northwoods, they melded together, and Martin formed a full-on focused approach to skiing.

But there was a paradox at play too. In developing this holistic approach to skiing, Martin realized he had let go of fitting skiing into his holistic approach to life. “Just focusing on skiing and putting all that pressure on one avenue of my life did not work for me. I really needed to challenge myself mentally and take the pressure off skiing after that post-grad year.”

That led Martin to another natural stopping point in his skiing career, college skiing at Northern Michigan University (NMU) under coach Sten Fjeldheim. “I really fell in love with the sport again under the tutelage of Sten, and with the incredible team environment there.” NMU had long been a waypoint for talented Midwestern juniors – the path that stemmed from JNQ wins to Marquette seemed almost ubiquitous. That meant Martin joined up with a group of teammates that could help him push and be pushed by him.

Like he had when he was a young skier in Wausau, he looked ahead to see what and where his teammates were achieving results, and found cues he could take, saying that “When I was a sophomore, Kyle Bratrud won the 15 k skate at Nationals in Houghton. He was a year older than me and that really opened my eyes to say ‘ok, we can do this. That level is achievable.’”

With that long view of what he wanted to accomplish, Martin also found in Sten Fjeldheim a coach perfectly matched to the detailed approach to skiing he had formed. Fjeldheim at the time was somewhere between elder statesmen and guru in his career, which meant that the years that Martin was beyond in his skiing knowledge had found a home. “Oftentimes, before a workout, [Sten] would explain exactly why we were doing it, why we needed to execute it a certain way, and what the physiological effect would be for doing that. That was exciting to me, and it worked really well with how I looked at ski training.”

As important as his coach was the skiers that Martin called teammates during his time at NMU. “That was a rare team environment, we were all super competitive with each other but in a super constructive manner.” During his four years, Martin was part of teams that included former, present, and future US ski team members with Ian Torchia, Zak Ketterson, Kyle Bratud, and biathlete Jake Brown. At the NCAA Championships in 2016, he, Torchia, and Brown combined to put NMU at the top of the team scoring – all earning All-American status in the process. Across both the 10 k Classic and 20 k Skate races, he and Torchia were the top American-born athletes in collegiate skiing. 

When Martin graduated in 2017, it was also with a distinction that marked a whole other focus during his time at NMU. He had two degrees  – one in mathematics and one in computer engineering. He had taken what he learned about himself during those post-grad days in Wisconsin, moved on up to the U.P., and nailed it.

With a 23rd in the 2016 U23 World Championships 30 k Freestyle, there were plenty of professional clubs that were interested in seeing Martin continue his skiing career. And he was up for it, if he could continue to take the holistic approach that had seen skiing not be “the only thing” in his life. From a far-flung corner of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, a call came in from Pepa Miloucheva, the coach at Craftsbury Outdoor Center’s Green Racing Project. The GRP was a top-level, proven club, and also one uniquely structured to have its athletes take an active role in the sustainability and outdoor recreation–focused activism of the Outdoor Center. “It just made sense,” said Martin on his decision to head to Vermont after graduating. “I was getting into a program that was more than just training…I was able to work with them, take the GRE, take grad school classes, and make it feel like NMU where I was very challenged.”

Again, Martin had put himself in a place where skiing was the thing. A small pocket of rolling hills that were a little bigger than the ones he started out on in Wausau, but rolling, nonetheless.

On the skiing front, things continued to progress for Martin after joining the CGRP. He made his World Cup debut at the 2018 opener in Ruka, where he placed 51st in the 15 k Classic. That season he also notched a pair of 2nd places at US Nationals in the 15 k Classic and the 50 k Classic, while earning consistent World Cup starts throughout that 2018-19 season. Those World Cup appearances culminated in a season-high 31st place at the Holmenkollen 50k marathon in March 2019. It was Holmenkollen that year which provided another one of Martin’s realizations about himself as a skier. “I started to learn that my strength as a cross country skier is that my physiology is really geared towards distance – it’s definitely not speed or transitions. Holmenkollen specifically has these grinding features that make you get to your VO2 max and have to stay there for a long time. It’s almost a perfect physiological stress for me.”

That further stuck out to Martin especially when he returned to the Holmenkollen race the next season, in 2020. “In 2020, it was a low snow year, so we had to do a different course than the traditional 8 k, and it was more focused on transitions. I just learned again, in one race, a lot about myself as a skier. I was just happy to finish.”

That Holmenkollen marathon also marked the end of normalcy in skiing for the next couple of seasons to come. “That was my last race on the World Cup before the pandemic, and then I came home to do the SuperTour in Minneapolis right before the World Cup, and I won. It was my first SuperTour win, and then the pandemic happened.”

Martin was in a weird spot. The markers that he had traditionally used to gauge and reach for new heights in his skiing career would suddenly disappear over the course of the next season. He was making progress, but the road didn’t have as many markers as it did before.

“[The pandemic] was something everyone dealt with differently, right? But I think for me, the big challenge was that the Craftsbury program is traditionally very communal and very close knit. It’s a big group of athletes – like 30 between our skiers and rowers – and traditionally we’re eating in a dining hall, working together, working out together, and sharing the same gym. That was a super vulnerable situation to COVID, so we went from super communal to basically not going into public buildings for that first year.”

It was as if someone flipped a switch on the type of training environment that Martin had been in since his days at CXC. His training grounds had always been out of the way geographically, but always included the ability to bounce ideas off his teammates and coaches, to try out new things, and to get feedback then and there. They also had always included a full race schedule, which due to a combination of the COVID situation locally in Craftsbury and Vermont state safety policies, became an impossibility the next season.

When Martin could race, it was internationally. “I was lucky to get a start on the World Cup at Davos in December, but while I was gone, the state of Vermont changed the rules around COVID travel. (At the time, COVID cases were undergoing a spike.) I got back and I couldn’t be on the ski trails in Craftsbury while I quarantined unless it was like before 7am or after 6pm at night. I knew I was lucky to be getting racing in, but it brought restraints that forced you to adapt your training.”

Martin credits the imperatives surrounding COVID compliance with giving him a new adaptability to his training approach, even if the changes he made were more informed by what they always had been – his coaches, his intuition, and his constant searching for knowledge that would lead to improvement. “I think there was some changes in those two years that helped me make some big improvements that were probably independent of COVID, but came about because I felt like the pressure was off again for the first time in a while.”

That intermittent COVID season’s lessons would all come to a fruition in Martin’s skiing at the start of the 2021-22 season. Martin started his season on the US SuperTour circuit, and the SuperTour circuit was to begin in the Midwest. That, for Martin, brought back an extra level of familiarity to the return of a regular racing schedule in 2022. “I was so happy to win that first SuperTour in Cable (in the 15 k Classic).”

The early part of the season also saw him call to mind some of the moments that he had once seen teammates achieve back when he was based in his home region. When he came out of the first SuperTour period in 2nd place overall, behind former teammate Zak Ketterson and barely missing out on the automatic World Cup start Ketterson earned, Martin turned towards US Nationals in Soldier Hollow in January.

There, on a sunny Utah day, he won the 15 k Classic, a moment that was “particularly awesome, since it was what I watched Kyle Bratrud do at Houghton.” Over seven years, Martin had had the revelation about who he skied with, and then chased down that moment for himself.

His National Championship and SuperTour results would, in nearly any other season, have seen him shortly to the start line of a World Cup. But for a second winter in a row, COVID was surging (this time as part of the Omicron wave). A slate of World Cups were canceled in January, and the Olympics in February took out any flexibility in the US Ski Team’s lineup. In the Olympic qualifying period, Martin was just behind Scott Patterson for 2nd place in the standings. With a more competitive field than ever before, Martin just missed out on qualifying for the 2022 Beijing team.

From there, he would continue to race the SuperTour, with his consistency throughout the whole season earning that series’ overall title, which he capped off with a win in the 15 k classic at SuperTour finals in Whistler. He also would get the nod to race the final World Cup period in March. A period that included, once again, the Holmenkollen marathon.

Martin had a memory and a goal. “I had been 31st there my first time, so I wanted to notch a top-30 finish. I looked at the points list and my bib and knew it was going to be a challenge, but the way the race went out I felt like I could hang onto the pack a little longer than I had before, and with the course being one I knew I liked, I just skied with a confidence that I might not otherwise of had.” That effort and that approach, as it had throughout his career, saw him through to accomplishing his goal. Martin finished in 26th.

Martin could continue like that – setting goals that, through the constant refinement of his approach to skiing, he would surely accomplish. But that’s where the paradox of his approach comes in again. In powering his skiing through a fine-tuned balance between focus on skiing and focus on other aspects of life, there came a time when the balance would shift towards life. For Martin, that moment is one he says has come:

“What was important to me in professional skiing is giving it everything I have, and that requires a lot of sacrifices. It’s important to me that I’m giving my best effort, and now I give that to other things in my life. I had so much fun this season, and don’t have to step away with any bitter taste in my mouth. Skiing will always be there – I’ll be doing the Birkie or the Noquemanon next year I’m sure, but I’m ready to push myself in a different sense.”

For those unfamiliar with the OPA Cup, it is an international race series featuring predominantly European athletes racing just below the World Cup level. The US Ski & Snowboard development program typically facilitates a trip to OPA Cup Finals to provide athletes who may not have earned World Cup starts the opportunity to experience high level competition overseas. Qualification is based on national rankings, beginning with those racing on the World Cup, and proceeding through the top domestic racers, depending on declines. Often, there is overlap between the teams for the FIS Junior/U23 World Ski Championship teams and the OPA Cup teams, which may conveniently allow some athletes to prolong their stay in Europe and attend both events. 

“Generally the trip is geared toward athletes that are a bit older, who either have had World Cup starts or on track for that,” explained US Ski Team Development Team coach Greta Anderson.

Identifying it on its list of “Pillar Projects”, the National Nordic Foundation (NNF) helps subsidize the cost of the trip for the qualified athletes. The trip can accommodate up to 16 skiers, who are generally kept to an approximately even male to female ratio through the qualification criteria. This year, due to conflicting schedules and a number of declines, thirteen athletes attended, with nine women and four men. 

In alphabetical order, the senior men included: Braden Becker (CGRP), Logan Diekmann (BSF Pro), Finn O’Connell (BSF Pro), Karl Schultz (SVSEF). Senior women included: Mariah Bredal (BSF Pro), Margie Freed (CGRP), Alex Lawson (CGRP), Hannah Rudd (BSF Pro), Becca Rorabaugh (APU), Lina Sutro (SMS T2), and Alayna Sonnesyn (SMS T2). 

This year, two U20 athletes headed from World Juniors in Lygna, NOR to Italy along with D-Team coaches Anderson and Bryan Fish: Kate Oldham (Aspen Valley Ski Club) and Annie McColgan (UVM). 

“It’s pretty cool that we have more racers that are racing professionally or post collegiately than, I think, ever in the US, and they have more clubs and places to choose from,” said Anderson. “There were several athletes that, especially because racing was shut down on the East Coast last year and I happened to be in Alaska and wasn’t wasn’t traveling very much before I took this job, it was kind of the first time I’ve gotten to work with them, or the first time I’ve gotten to work with them in three or four years. So it was really cool to get to know Alayna Sonnesyn a little better and Lina Sutro a little better, and Margie Freed and Alex Lawson, who I’ve seen race many times, but it was the first time I’ve gotten to really work with them and get to know them. The same with Braden Becker and Karl Schultz… So it was a pleasure on the trip to get to work with some new athletes that have come through different development systems and are excited about and ready to make that next step. And this racing circuit is a really good opportunity for that.”

Anderson took the lead with organizing the trip and supporting athletes, working alongside US Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Sport Development Manager and long-time OPA Finals trip lead coach Bryan Fish. The wax support staff included BSF Pro Team head coach Andy Newell, former APU athlete and current staff member Peter Kling, and Jackson Hole comp team coach Jon Filardo. 

Anderson identified the OPA Finals trip as a key development opportunity for a number of reasons: though perhaps lower pressure than World Cup, it’s a professional race circuit with small but competitively dense fields, athletes race aggressively and tactically in a style younger athletes who have not yet raced at this level may not have experienced, and it offers the opportunity for an athlete to dial in some of the small but significant factors details that support success adapting to a new and different environment following long international travel.

“Bryan’s been doing [the OPA Cup Finals] trip for a long time,” Anderson said. “So Peter Kling, who was on a coaching staff, and Becca Rorabaugh, they were like, ‘I’m pretty sure that we were on Bryan’s first ever OPA Cup trip.’ And it used to be that we started at the bottom of the results sheet and started looking upward for names. And right now we’re starting at the top and we don’t have to look very far down.”

In two days of racing, the US had seven top-10 finishes, with another set of athletes finishing well-within the top-20. Highlighting the US team was SMS T2’s Sonnesyn, who took third in the 10 k classic on Saturday the 12th, and won the 10 k skate the following day. 

“It’s pretty special,” Anderson said of the performances in Sappada. “It’s awesome to get to see that. For Alayna to start a race and say like, ‘What’s my plan to try to win this?’ It’s not just, ‘Hey, we’re here to participate and learn,’ but ‘Hey, we’re here to participate and learn but also we’re going to try to win.’ And I think, with that comes — not only from staff but from racers — this level of professionalism. Okay, we’re going to select skis. We’re going to make sure we’re organized and in a good place. Where can we be? Where can we do feeds? How can we set you up to have the success you need to have? 

“It just feels like a really good time to be an American ski racer.”

After winning two of the first five SuperTour races this season, and finishing on the podium in each of the others, Sonnesyn was offered starts at the Tour de Ski, where she hoped she could achieve strong enough international results to qualify for the Olympic Team. But these goals did not come to fruition; Sonnesyn struggled to find the same race sensations while on the World Cup and tap into the fitness she knew was still there, which was reflected in results below her expectations. She shared her disappointment openly on her blog and social media, providing a relatable and important example to her followers that the pro-skier journey is not immune to bumps in the road. 

“My experience on the World Cup this year – it was quite demoralizing, to be honest,” said Sonnesyn in a call from the airport as she was on her way to SuperTour Finals in Whistler. “And then, after the Tour de Ski, I got COVID. And it just really put a damper on the whole winter for me. And I started questioning like, ‘Okay, am I fit? And I like, can I race? Well, like, what have I been training for? This is really bad timing with COVID, too.’ So I was just pretty down. But then I was able to have really great SuperTour races, back in January and February, and then to be able to race internationally again in Italy. It wasn’t a World Cup, but it was still very high level of racing. So to have it go so well kind of reaffirmed to me that I belong on the international stage. And I definitely needed that, a little bit, just to give myself more confidence moving forward and motivation as well. So I’m really excited about the races and how they went and what I did to prepare for them and kind of my mental attitude around them, too.”

As she reflected on the trip and her experiences racing internationally over the last few seasons, Sonnesyn echoed Anderson’s sentiments about the progression of the American team at the event.

“Compared to my first OPA Cup trip, which was in 2018, I think there were maybe two or three top 10 performances. And they were exciting, but for the most part, it was kind of like, ‘We’re just here to get the experience. We’re not really sure what we’re doing.’ And I think that the way the US is developing right now, the way that new courses are being built in Cable or Duluth, or wherever it is – they are preparing us better for racing internationally. And I think that was shown in the results that we had in Sappada. And it was just so exciting during that 10 k skate on Sunday to cross the finish line in first, and then turn around and see a ton of my other US teammates come in right behind me. That’s not something that was happening four years ago. So I think we are really developing and that is a huge thanks to so many different people and so many reasons, but it’s exciting to see.”

Sonnesyn also spoke to the importance these international opportunities have provided her specifically, speaking from the perspective of what she dubbed a “bubble athlete” who has oscillated between World Cup and domestic racing over the last four seasons. She got her first World Cup starts in Quebec in March, 2019, and has been offered starts beginning in Period 2 each season since. Though this is a key stepping stone in the process toward consistent World Cup racing, she expressed that bubble athletes can have a challenging time planning seasons in advance and need to be prepared to adapt quickly to more frequent overseas travel.

“I think that every single experience that an athlete has going and racing internationally, and traveling, and competing at that higher level, it all adds up to be super beneficial and a great learning experience. For example, I have gotten really great at overcoming jet lag, which the first couple of international trips I went on, I had no idea how to handle. I tried my best to do what I could, but it’s hard. And also to know what little things you want from home, like after being in Europe for four or five weeks, what do you really want from the US? 

“And then also, how do you work in a new environment? A lot of times, if you’re going over to the World Cup, sometimes you’re provided a wax tech or sometimes not, or you have to bring your own, but you have to be willing to work with whoever you get.” 

Sonnesyn explained that on the Sappada trip, she had worked with each of the techs before, but on her first trip in 2018, it was her first experience working with those wax staff members. Given the importance of ski choice and wax, working together effectively is imperative to an athlete’s success, but it requires dialogue and practice. 

“Being ready to communicate effectively with the staff, what do you need? How do you want your skis prepared? What do you need from a hotel? All those things seem like such small little details, but they really add up with the more experiences you have.”

She also spoke to the differences in the style of racing between the US and her international experiences, and how a trip like Sappada better athletes for what they might encounter should they be offered a World Cup start down the line. 

“When it comes to racing: the courses in Europe are very challenging and very technical. Downhills, uphills, flats – whatever it is, there’s a lot of it, and you have to be ready to go for it. And then the competitors are fierce. They know how to be aggressive in a race, and you have to know how to hold your own. So it just helps to have that experience to understand how you approach the race. How aggressive are you going to be? How are you going to pace the race? How are you going to handle others around you?”

With the highest levels of competition for our sport happening across the pond, it is easy to understand why opportunities like the OPA Cup trip provide an essential bridge for developing athletes. But it is not simply the facilitation of this trip that has led to marked improvement for the American team.

“I think we’re open to change right now,” Anderson said as she reflected on her key takeaways from the experience in Italy and her first season coaching the D-Team. “I think the US, in a year with COVID, and lots of challenges logistically and politically in the world, we handle those changes better than almost any other country does. And I think that’s really shown here.” 

While the OPA Cup crew was putting together a very solid day in the 10/15 k skate, the team of Rosie Brennan, Zak Ketterson, Scott Patterson, and Jessie Diggins had taken the win in the thrilling 4 x 5 k mixed relay in Falun. As the team in Sappada mingled near the finish to support the final racers as they skied through, Anderson said that a Swiss national team coach walked over and showed them the World Cup result on the phone. 

Layered on top of the broader success at the OPA Cup Finals, Anderson expressed that this opened her athletes’ eyes to what might be possible for them in the years to come also. In particular, the Falun results of Zak Ketterson, a newcomer to the World Cup who ended his debut season with a 15th place finish in the 15 k skate and a mixed relay win.

“[The guys racing at OPA Cup] are like, ‘Oh, man, I beat Zak sometimes’, or ‘I’m right with him’, ‘I trained with him in college.’ The level of confidence that brings… ‘Maybe maybe I can do that too.’”

Moreover, Anderson expressed that this relay gold medal speaks to the equity of skiing in the US. “That we have good female athletes, and we have good male athletes, and we have a good balance of the two, and teams that are mutually supportive of each other,” she said. “Not every country has that.” 

Boiling down the experience and her feelings as the season wraps up, Anderson concluded, “I have nothing but good things to say about our athletes right now. I’m really impressed with them. They handle the change better than anyone, and I think as a staff and from an organizational perspective, we’re trying to keep up, remove barriers, make sure they’re supported. And we’re open to trying new things, and it seems that we’re excelling in places where we’re willing to experiment and get our feet wet.”

Providing additional insights from the perspective of an OPA Cup Finals first-timer, FasterSkier also heard from U20 athlete Kate Oldham, who trains with the Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club (AVSC) and competes for Middlebury College. Oldham took 11th place in both the 10 k classic and skate in the junior women’s category. 

“Sappada was incredible,” Oldham wrote. “In congruence with the pre-camp in Toblach, the OPA Cup trip was unforgettable… My favorite ski to-date was on a long ski over the pass from Cortina to Toblach, stopping midway for trail side pastries and cappuccinos! Being with a group of older athletes was a valuable change from the World Junior trip because each team member brought new energy and experience to the group. Between that and the gelato shop next door to our hotel, the trip couldn’t have gotten much better!  

“One of the things I think are most valuable about training and racing camps is the exposure to coaches and athletes outside one’s home team. For years I have been seeking out opportunities to attend regional and national camps that would bring new perspectives, training groups, and social dynamics to push me and help me adapt my own training method while making friends from schools and clubs all over the country. This winter I was lucky enough to have both my club coach and a group of skilled and passionate wax technicians/trip leaders selected from all around the US to lead the trips to Junior World Championships and OPA Cup finals. I know that over the six years I’ve been skiing competitively I have developed the competence to independently navigate high-level skiing events, but having techs to guide me through the process at the international level was extremely helpful, particularly when one of them I had worked closely with for those six years of training and racing.

“With new coaches come new perspectives. Another set of eyes, a different experience, or a new phrase can be all it takes for the pieces of new advice to click into place. Or maybe a coach has a different perspective on the bigger picture of skiing that resonates with you unlike the philosophy you previously knew… which of the infinitely wide range of mindsets in ski racing works best for you? Which one reminds you why you love ski racing? Which one helps you stay motivated through the hardest parts of the season when the last thing you want to do is get out the door for training? Which one eases the heartbreak of coming so close to a goal but falling short despite your hardest effort? Without a doubt, cross country skiing is a delicate balance of internal and external factors, but having great teammates and coaches like the ones I got to know and work with in Europe this winter is certainly a key ingredient to the recipe for success in the lifelong pursuit of excellence on the race course and off.” 

Full Results for OPA Cup Finals

We’ve arrived at the final act, the culmination of a week of racing in Canada and a season of international racing before that. Piloting a gender-equal distance, both men and women raced a 45 k mass start skate on Sunday, completing six laps of a 7.5 k loop at the Whistler Olympic Park. Continuing a pattern of challenging weather conditions, the day started with temperatures around 37° F with rain, making for soft and wet skiing. 

Open Men

The open men went first, with a field of 99 starters heading off the line at 8:30 local time. With 107 on the start list, some notable names among the athletes who did not start include Gus Schumacher (Alaska Winter Stars), Tyler Kornfield (APU) and Xavier McKeever (Foothills Nordic), who took his first national title in the sprint race earlier this week. 

Relying on live-timing to provide a picture as the race unfolded, it appeared that the first three laps saw steady skiing with a big pack together at the front. Between 22.5 – 30 k that group splintered with ten athletes breaking +31 seconds or more clear of the rest of the field. Among those ten, the Canadians were represented by Russell Kennedy (Canmore Nordic), Rémi Drolet (Team Black Jack), Philippe Boucher (CNEPH), Antoine Cyr (CNEPH), Graham Ritchie (Thunder Bay Nordic) and Olivier Léveillé (CNEPH). Up front for the Americans was Luke Jager (University of Utah), Scott Patterson (APU), Adam Martin (CRGP) and Finn O’Connell (BSF Pro). 

Beginning the final lap, that group of ten lost a member as Léveillé (CNEPH) dropped off the pace, drifting into no-man’s land, still a minute clear of chaser Johnny Hagenbuch (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation). At the next split, Boucher (CNEPH) too had dropped, leaving eight men at the front, all within 5.5 seconds. With just a few kilometers to go, the fight was on. 

Creating a gap in the final stages, Graham Ritchie (Thunder Bay Nordic) claimed the victory and earned his first national title. Ritchie finished in a time of 1:40:32.5. 

“I’m not sure how this happened,” said Ritchie to Nordiq Canada, “I haven’t raced this long of a race in a couple of years, so I had no game plan going into it. I just said I’m going to stick with the lead pack as long as I can.” This strategy worked in his favor. 

“I was able to stick with the lead pack and being in the top three with one kilometer left,” continued Ritchie, “I knew I had a little jam left to go for it in the last few hundred meters. I had a good day and really fast skis. The techs killed the boards so I’m super stoked.”

Concluding a strong week of racing, Jager (University of Utah) topped the American podium, coming in +6.8 seconds behind Ritchie. Speaking to the conditions, Jager said, “it was good, the news that they were salting last night was music to my ears because it would have been so different if they hadn’t. It was really firm and fast and even where it was getting mushy it was pretty firm underneath so it was fast out there.”

Displaying consistency, Jager has been on the Super Tour podium in every event this past week. He was the first American in the 10 k interval skate, the third American in the 15 k interval classic, the first American in the classic sprint, and he and his teammate Noel Keeffe finished first overall in Friday’s team sprint event. Asked about how the tactics played out within the group, Jager said, “it was kind of going back and forth, I mean Russ [Kennedy] was pushing a little bit and so was Scott but there wasn’t quite enough work from the bottom of the stadium to the top to get rid of everyone, so it would string out and then come back together on the downhills a little bit which was playing to my advantage for sure.”

Coming down to a sprint finish, Ritchie made an early move to gain the advantage. “I didn’t even know who was in the group anymore,” said Jager, “I was kind of in the front going into the last climb and [Ritchie] came ripping by me and he was really strong so even if I had the foresight of that coming I don’t know if I would have been able to hold him off because he was so strong coming into that hill.”

Cyr (CNEPH) finished third overall and was the second Canadian (+7.8). Completing the Canadian podium, Kennedy (Canmore Nordic) finished fourth overall (+8.1). 

Patterson (APU) was the second American finisher, coming in fifth overall (+9.6), while Martin (CRGP) was the third American and sixth overall (+12.6). 

Open Women

Following the conclusion of the men’s race, the open women got underway at 10:30 local time. At the crack of the gun, fifty-six racers set off to complete their six laps. Although there were 72 athletes registered, sixteen did not start, including Rosie Brennan (APU), Katherine Stewart-Jones (Nakkertok Nordique), Novie McCabe (University of Utah) and Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt (Foundeurs-Laurentides).

This is the first time the women raced 45 k at a national championship event, a new event stemming from the push for equal distance racing. When asked about this distance after the race, Julia Kern (SMS T2) told Nordiq Canada, “I think it’s a really interesting format. For me personally I like the shorter distance but recently I’ve had really good experiences with 30 k and today was a great day so, I think whatever makes ski racing exciting for both men and women should be what pushes the sport forward.”

Regarding whether this should become a permanent feature, or be introduced to the World Cup, Kern said, “potentially, or just shortening the men’s race so that everything is short and exciting because there are marathon circuits out there as well.”

With the race under way, the first 7.5 k saw the pack at the front was a slightly strung-out group of twelve. Just a few kilometers later, that number was cut in half as six athletes pulled twenty seconds clear. Of that group, Cendrine Browne (Foundeurs-Laurentides) was the lone Canadian, skiing with Sophia Laukli (University of Utah), Kern (SMS T2), Rosie Frankowski (APU), Caitlin Patterson (CGRP), and Sydney Palmer-Leger (University of Utah). 

For the next four laps, those first six women skied together, alternating leads and staying within ~5 seconds at each split. As they set out for the final lap, Browne (Foundeurs-Laurentides) dropped slightly, +10 seconds behind the pack. “I just wanted to be in the lead pack today and I was until the last lap, I bonked. It was tough conditions today, but it was a really fun way to go out,” said Browne. 

From there, the splinters in the group became larger cracks as Kern (SMS T2) applied pressure at the front. Next to drop was Palmer-Leger (UU) who was +6 seconds back at the first split on the final lap. A few moments later, Kern had made a full break. 

“My tactic was just hang on, conserve energy for as long as possible,” shared Kern, “I didn’t really want to suffer for 45 k and it was fun to ski in a pack and work together. So for me it was just being patient and seeing how I was feeling and evaluating my plan from there. What I ended up doing was skiing with the pack, alternating leads and in the last lap I was feeling good so I decided to send it. 7.5 k to suffer isn’t too hard.”

At the final time split before the finish, Kern was 27.5 seconds ahead of runner-up Patterson (CGRP). Reaching the finish line, she had widened this lead to 34 seconds, finishing in a time of 1:58:55.6. This victory was Kern’s fourth of the week, having topped every race save for the 5 k individual skate where she finished second behind teammate Jessie Diggins (SMS T2). Commenting on the conditions Kern said, “the first few laps held up pretty well and the last few laps got really deep and slushy, you just had to make sure you didn’t catch a tip or fall and look for the less skied in areas. But it made it exciting, good spring skiing, classic slush conditions.”

Patterson (CGRP) finished second overall, +34 seconds back. Behind her came Laukli (UU), completing the American podium and finishing third overall (+1:00.9). 

Browne (Foundeurs-Laurentides), for whom this race was her final as a professional athlete, held sixth position overall, and was the first Canadian (+2:41.5). “It feels really good to end my career this way. I love distance racing and it is a great way to go out as National Champ,” said Browne to Nordiq Canada. “Thank you to everyone in the ski community who has believed in me and cheered for me over the last 10 years.”

Dahria Beatty (Whitehorse Ski Club) was the next Canadian in twelfth overall, +9:39.8 behind Kern. Completing the Canadian podium, Laura Leclair (Club Chelsea Nordiq) came in sixteenth overall (+12:08.8). 

This race concludes the 2022 Canadian Ski Championships and US SuperTour Finals as the athletes now get to enjoy a break after a long season. 

Complete Results

Team Birkie is now accepting applications for the 2022-23 training year as well as for their summer collegiate training programs. Applications will be due by end of day April 10 and decisions will be made by April 15.

Based in the Twin Cities, Team Birkie trains and lives throughout the Midwest. We are excited to be hosting multiple World Cup races in our region in 2024, with events at both Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis and at the Birkie Trailhead in Cable, WI. We want to help athletes reach the podium at the World Cup, World Championship, and the Olympics. The Twin Cities offer endless opportunities for career advancement, education, and entertainment. Our goal is to develop balanced athletes who can put in the time to be successful in the most challenging sport in the world. The training opportunities are world class. Travel is convenient with an international airport within 20 minutes of your door and multiple Super Tour events within driving distance. We also have 3 ski areas with reliable 5K+ of snowmaking loops from Dec. 1-March 15th. 

Read more about the team at their website: www.teambirkie.com and https://www.birkie.com/teambirkie/  under the Team Birkie tab on the American Birkebeiner website . The application is available here for year-round training and race support. Any remaining questions may be addressed to Caitlin Gregg: caitlin.gregg@birkie.com and Leo Hipp: leohipp97@gmail.com.

You know, just in case you needed a reminder that this is Canadian Nationals.

Alongside his legacy as one of hockey’s greatest players of all time, leaving his mark on the sport as an indomitable force with both his goal scoring and dynamism on the ice,   Howe was known as an — ahem — impassioned athlete. One achieves a “Gordie Howe hat trick” by scoring a goal, making an assist, and engaging in a fight within one game. In short, he was a bit of a wild card, and he wasn’t going to let someone else stand in his way en route to the net.

In watching the Team Sprint livestream, you can see why a similar need to protect one’s space was relevant. The wet and variable spring weather in Whistler created a tricky mix of fast, wet, and mushy snow conditions that combined with fast mass start sprinting to produce racing that tested a skiers balance and “feel” as much as their lungs and muscles. Or more succinctly, racing that was fun, and a little bit chaotic. Staying upright and not losing your own footing or being taken out by another skier might be more important than technique or tactics.

Adding another layer to the challenge, the Team Sprint was raced “Dresden-style”, where two partners took turns on a 750 m lap until the pair of them had completed eight total laps. The Nordic skiing equivalent of a short-track skating relay, and with the same flow to the action.

Early attacks could fizzle out through all or any of factors like a bad transition, fatigue, or a tangle up with another skier. All those factors had the equal and opposite effect as well; no team was truly out of it until they crossed the finish line. A late surge between two teammates could pull together a race, and often did when the fields of 15 teams were unleashed on the course today.

The 750 m course was an abbreviated version of the sprint course seen on Wednesday. Each lap left the stadium and shot up a steep but short climb which lengthened into a false flat where the mushy snow on course saw some skiers muscle out a V2 while others kept to a light-footed hop-skate. Then skiers shot down a sweeping downhill where the course widened to allow for two different lines, before doing a long left turn into the finishing straight.

Every skier completed an individual lap of this course in the morning, which when combined with their team partner, yielded a seeding time. With no semi-final, the top 15 fastest combined teams qualified for the Open A finals.

Open Women’s

In the women’s qualifier, Julia Kern (SMS T2) completed the course in the fastest time, 1:21.70. That combined with 8th place Alayna Sonneysn (+3.45 seconds) to give their SMS T2 team the top seed for the women’s A final (combined time 2:46.85). Second seed (combined, +3.73) was earned by Nakkerertok 32’s Hannah Shields (7th, +3.12) and Zoё Williams (13th, +4.01), with third seed (combined, +4.12) going to the University Utah I team of Karianne Dengerud (2nd, +2.34) and Sydney Palmer-Leger (23rd, +5.23).

When the top-15 teams started in the A final, Alayna Sonneysn shot off the front for SMS T2, which stretched the field out immediately and may have helped avoid the pile ups that had been a feature of the Challengers and College Cup heats earlier in the day. Sonneysn was covered by Yukon Team 7 (Whitehorse), with Sonjaa Schmidt catching Sonnesyn as they rounded the corner into the first exchange. Schmidt also pulled back the entire group, and so the racing was extremely tight as they handed off to their teammates. SMS T2 and the Yukon Team continued to push the pace at the front, with the University of Utah I (UU I, Palmer-Leger and Dengerud) and University of Utah II (UU II, Novie McCabe and Julia Richter) teams bridging the gap to form a four-team group leading the race.

From there, as the teams swapped partners through laps three, four, five, and six, a strategy of attrition started to emerge from the SMS T2 team of Kern and Sonnesyn. At each exchange, they jumped off the handoff, hopped up the hill, and continuously pushed the pace. Their gap slowly opened at the front, until, like looking up after being taken by a riptide, the mass of racing behind them was unexpectedly distant. By Sonnesyn’s final trip around the course at lap seven, their win was all but secured.

Sonnesyn said that the goal from SMS T2 was to remain consistent throughout the race, saying in an interview with Nordiq Canada that “I just wanted to be patient. I was a little surprised at the pace we went out [in] because I knew four laps on this course was going to catch up to us quick, but I kept telling myself ‘be patient, go the same pace.”

In the push for the overall podium behind, a new player had entered the scene. On lap five, Craftsbury’s Caitlin Patterson pushed across the gap to the UU I, UU II, and Team Yukon group. On lap six, her partner Alexandra Lawson held there. As the scrambling partners went out for their final lap on lap seven, UU I and UU II had formed a gap, but when the skiers handed off for the final exchange, a four-team pack came back together with UU I, UU II, Team Yukon, and Craftsbury I.

Then, it split once again.

Team Yukon’s Dahria Beatty came off the downhill on course wide to try and take an inside line into the final turn. UU I’s Karianne Dengerud took the downhill corner more inside, and tried to beat Beatty to the inside on the final turn. In the end, Beatty won, and then closed in the final stretch to take Team Yukon (Schmidt & Beatty) to second place (+11.99) behind the first place SMS T2 (12:22.16). UU I (Palmer-Leger & Dengerud) took third (+12.78). 

The resounding win for the pairing of Kern and Sonneysn punctuated a tremendous week for Stratton Mountain School, and in particular for Kern. Apart from a second place behind teammate Jessie Diggins (SMS T2) in the 10 k skate on Monday, she has won every race at these SuperTour finals, despite tricky and variable conditions. 

Team Yukon’s (Whitehorse) second place overall gives the pairing of Dahria Beatty and Sonjaa Schmidt top Canadian honors, adding to Beatty’s accumulation of National Championships this week.

Open Men

The men’s top individual qualifier was Logan Diekmann (BSF), with a time of 1:12.83, who combined with his BSF Pro I teammate Finn O’Connell (51st, +5.93) to take 5th seed (+4.44). They ran behind the top seeded (2:27.15) University of Utah I (UU I) pairing of Noel Keefe (4th, +0.67) and Luke Jager (5th, +0.82). Second seed (+2.42) went to the SMS T2 team of Finegan Bailey (6th, +1.01) and Bill Harmeyer (14th, +2.91), and third seed went to the Team Brew-ski Canmore (+3.43) pair of Russell Kennedy (3rd, +0.57) and Reed Godfrey (27th, +4.35).

With qualifying times extremely tight across the board, the A final promised to stay close throughout the whole 8 laps.

Noel Keefe mirrored Alayna Sonnesyn’s move from the women’s final, looking to get ahead of any tangles by pushing the pace from the start for UU I. Once the field was out of the stadium, Keefe tucked in behind Orford’s Leo Granbois, and Orford and UU I went into the first exchange with a slight gap.

Keefe handed off to Luke Jager, who looked relaxed as he allowed the field to come back together again. Animating the move that closed the gap was Northern Michigan University (NMU) skier Kristoffer Karsrud, who alongside his partner Kjetil Bånerud ducked and weaved at the front of the pack throughout the duration of the race.

On the 5th lap, another UU team, UU II, moved to the front of the pack, as Brian Bushey put in a surge. When Bushey and Keefe handed off to Bjørn Riksåsen and Jager, the race looked like it may turn into a UU team practice for the last couple of laps. That was, until Scott Patterson flew in from Alaska Pacific University (APU) in his last time around the course on lap seven. Following Patterson’s move was Bånerud from NMU, and as the four team pack of UU I, UU II, APU, and NMU went into the final exchange, it became clear; the Team Sprint would well and truly live up to the sprint moniker.

Jager for UU I came out of the exchange with a slight advantage over the field. APU’s Logan Hanneman countered that by exploding up the climb leaving the stadium. Jager used the downhill to catch Hanneman, with Rikssasen (UU II) and Karsrud (NMU) in tow. Jager, the youngest of the bunch but with plenty of sprint experience, got the inside edge into the final turn. He exploded off of that corner into the final stretch, lifting a ski and two poles as he came across the line to take the win for UU I (11:15.32).

Hanneman finished in second (+1.39) for APU, and the NMU team finished third with Karsrud crossing the line (+1.45) right behind.

Outside of the mix for most of the race, the Foothills I team of Xavier McKeever and Tom Stephen deftly moved through the pack to come in fifth overall and claim the Canadian title on the day.

The University of Utah pairing of Jager and Keefe were especially happy to win this edition of the Team Relays, saying to Nordiq Canada that “It’s a mix-up [in these relays]. Since the race got canceled at SuperTour finals two years ago, we had this race in our scopes. The qualifier went well, we had good skis, and the race turned out great.”

Full Results:

Qualifiers | Finals

Racing at the joint Canadian Nationals/US SuperTour Finals resumed on Wednesday, showcasing some of the best racers in North America facing off for a classic sprint. 

As the Whistler Olympic Park was home for cross country skiing during the 2010 Vancouver Games, the classic sprint course on Wednesday was one that played host to an important stepping stone in North American skiing history. In that competition, both American and Canadian skiers solidified the inroads they had made into the top echelons of the sport through the burgeoning discipline of sprinting. Names like Kikkan Randall (USA), Daria Gaiazova (CAN), Chandra Crawford (CAN), Devon Kershaw (CAN), and Simi Hamilton (USA) all qualified for heats, while gracing the television screens of many athletes who now, twelve years later, carried momentum from those inspiring performances onto today’s start line in Whistler.

If my waxing nostalgia about those 2010 Olympics is making you open a new tab to see if they’re available to revisit on YouTube, let me help you: they are! But before you go, let me send you an assignment: watch how Marit Bjørgen and Justyna Kowalczyk race the final on the 1.2 k course (the men raced a 1.4 k course). Ok, here’s the link (46:16 for the final, and yes, the genders are flipped in the title).

What you’ll have seen if you completed this FasterSkier sidequest (trademark pending) is that the rolling course at Whistler presented two distinct tactical options for the skiers who made it into the heats on Wednesday. One: the Kowalczyk – attack on the steep climb that left the stadium to try and create a gap on the field that would hold as you went into the first downhill and leave you with an advantage on the second (and final) climb, or two: the Bjørgen –  hold onto the pace-setter until the second hill, when a punchy attack could leave a skier with a distinct advantage going into the mostly downhill approach to the stadium and subsequent final stretch. The latter approach worked in 2010 for Bjørgen, but 2022 was twelve years on and a different field with the SuperTour.

Before we got to the heats, however, we, and the skiers, had to go through qualifying. 

The Classic Sprint started off with the women’s champion in the 10 k Classic yesterday, Julia Kern (SMS T2). And after every racer in the women’s field completed the course, Kern finished in first too (3:11.14). Her qualifier was commanding, with second place Dahria Beatty (Whitehorse) +6.58 seconds back. In third place was Alayna Sonnesyn (SMS T2) (+7.54), in a field that otherwise was tight all the way through to the last heat qualifier, 30th place Mariah Bredal (BSF) (+21.37).

The men’s field that followed proved to be an even tighter affair. At the top of the field, less than a second split first place Andreas Kirkeng (Denver University) (3:09.82), second place Luke Jager (University of Utah) (+0.41) and third place Logan Hanneman (APU) (+0.88). It was only +11.97 seconds back to the last heat qualifier in 30th place, Montana State’s Reed Godfrey.

Women’s Open

In the women’s open quarterfinals, the top qualifiers were able to win their heats handily. Julia Kern turned in the fastest quarterfinal in the field, finishing first in a time of 3:29.93, ahead of Novie McCabe (+1.93), who advanced to the semifinals by taking second place. Kern’s fast pace-setting in heat one proved to animate the field from the gun, and third place Zoë Williams (Nakkertok) was rewarded for keeping pace with one of the lucky loser spots (+3.56).

That pattern held in the 2nd heat, when a pack loaded with talent including Caitlin Patterson (Craftsbury), Alexandra Lawson (Craftsbury), Sydney Palmer-Leger (University of Utah), Sophia Laukli (University of Utah) and Cendrine Brown (Fondeurs-Laurentides) set a furious pace from the start and held it all the way through. In a five-person sprint, Patterson took first (3:32.13), and Lawson second (+0.55), to take the automatic semi-final bids. In third place, Sydney Palmer-Leger (+1.47) took the other lucky loser spot.

When the first semi-final took to the start-line, it was filled with five skiers from those first two quarterfinals, with the sixth, 16-year-old Samantha Smith (Sun Valley), having won the third quarterfinal (3:36.43). It was no surprise then, when the “fast from the gun” tactics of those quarterfinals followed into the semis. Julia Kern (SMS T2) again attacked as soon as they hit the first incline out of the stadium, and held her lead throughout. The only skier that proved to be able to match her pace through the course was Caitlin Patterson (Craftsbury), and it would be those two who took the automatic advancement places to the finals; Kern in first (3:34.27) and Patterson second (+3:35.27).

Behind them, two of the youngest bright stars of US women’s skiing had shown their intrepid ability to match their older counterparts, with Palmer-Leger (UU) taking third place (+3.47) and Novie McCabe (UU)  taking fourth (+3.74) in a sprint ahead of Samantha Smith (Sun Valley) (+4.03). For their efforts, the third and fourth place pairing advanced to the finals.

In the second semi-final, previous Canadian Sprint National Champion Dahria Beatty (Whitehorse) was able to take first place (3:38.39) ahead of second place Laurence Dumais (Fondeurs-Laurentides) (+0.34) for the second heat in a row. They finished strong in a pack that otherwise remained tight throughout, and created separation in the last stretch to finish ahead of third place Alayna Sonnesyn (SMS T2) (+1.18) and fourth place Katharine Ogden (SMS T2) (+3.45).

The final field then, was set. For the overall win, four US women – Julia Kern (SMS T2), Caitlin Patterson (Craftsbury), Sydney Palmer-Leger (UU), and Novie McCabe (UU) – and two Canadian women – Dahria Beatty (Whitehorse) and Laurence Dumais (Fondeurs-Laurentides) – would compete. That latter pairing also made the matter of the Canadian Sprint National title on the line simple; a duel between Beatty and Dumais.

Kern, spurred on by her success racing hard from the gun all day, went for it again. In an interview with Nordiq Canada she said, “All day I just wanted to ‘send it’ – practice skiing hard and not taking any chances out there. My form and fitness is really good so I wanted to try and not leave it until the end.”

The whole field was tasked with matching her confidence…and her speed. As in the semi-finals before, just one was up to the task the whole 1.2 k through; Caitlin Patterson. Behind her, Dahria Beatty led a charge to try and keep pace, but as she said in an interview with Nordiq Canada “I was confident in my finish but trying not to lose time on the uphills today. Unfortunately, [in the final], I let a gap open up to Caitlin [Patterson] and wasn’t able to close back on that.”

And “send it” Kern did in the final. Kern took the pace out hot from the start. With a look over her shoulder, she saw that she had gapped the field by the top of the long striding climb, a position which she held, despite a bobble on the tight left hand curve on the subsequent descent, comfortably through the finish to win by several seconds.

Patterson having lead the chase group after a gap throughout the heat, found herself sprinting with a powerful doublepole into the stadium to hold her ground in second place.

Behind them, the race for the last podium spot coalesced around Beatty, Palmer-Leger and McCabe. As they entered the stadium together, Beatty stuck to a strategy that her coach pointed out earlier in the day, “it was working really well to try and go in the outside in the finish chute because people hadn’t skied there in the qualifier.”

With that bit of tactical maneuvering, she opened up a gap on the two UU teammates behind her, and came across the line in third place overall (+6.16). In doing so, she also came across with a Canadian National title – her second Canadian Sprint title (and first classic). Following her in the Canadian Nationals race was second place Laurence Dumais (Fondeurs-Laurentide), who finished the finals heat in 6th place (+21.57). Based on her time in the semi-final, Zoë Williams (Nakkertok) took third place.

Kern’s win marked her second in a row at SuperTour finals this week, which have been marked by all sorts of varying conditions that she has used to her advantage, saying to Nordiq Canada:

“I love variable conditions. Everyone says if it’s a rainy day, it’s a Julia Kern day – I’ve thrived under those conditions before…it makes you have to adjust your skiing and that makes you a better athlete.”

Men’s Open

The men’s quarterfinals saw a similar pattern to the women’s, with experienced sprinters grouping together in heats, attacking early, and producing fast times that punctuated the number of racers they sent to the semi-finals. For the men that happened in quarterfinal two, with Graham Ritchie (Georgian Nordic), Antoine Cyr (Skinouk), Kjetil Bånerud (Northern Michigan), Bill Harmeyer (SMS T2), and Étienne Hébert (Montériski) all pushing each other to the line. When the five skiers came into the final stretch, it ended up being Ritchie (3:23.11) and Cyr (+0.32) who took the first and second spots, respectively. Both lucky losers came from the heat, with Bånerud in third (+0.95) and Harmeyer fourth (+1.73).

Ritchie, Cyr, and Harmeyer would all meet again in the first semi-final. There, they were joined by Andreas Kirkeng (DU), Logan Diekmann (BSF), and Magnus Bøe (CU). With tight racing throughout, Kirkeng was able to gain an advantage and hold off all challengers as he advanced to the final in first place (3:22.97) ahead of second place Antoine Cyr (+0.83). The aggressive tactics of Ritchie and Cyr again proved to push the entire field forward, with Ritchie the benefactor when his third place finish (+1.47) secured him a lucky loser spot alongside fourth place Logan Diekmann (+2.76).

The second semi-final, meanwhile, was a duel between the young stars from both sides of the 49th parallel. American Luke Jager (UU) and Canadian Xavier McKeever battled to a sprint finish in which Jager took first place (3:23.34) and McKeever took second (+0.50) to advance to the finals.

Jager and McKeever stepped up alongside Antoine Cyr (Skinouk), Andreas Kirkeng (DU), Graham Ritchie (Georgian Nordic), Magnus Bøe (CU) and Logan Diekmann (BSF). The two young skiers showed no signs of timidness against their older competitors. Jager launched an attack on the first hill that opened a gap as the field rounded the corner leading into the final climb. McKeever was back in the field, looking to “limit damage, if I’m honest” as he said in an interview with Nordiq Canada.

He followed Graham Ritchie, who was leading the charge to try and catch up to Jager. When they crested the hill, Ritchie, McKeever, and Kirkeng had all managed that feat – joining up with Jager as they went into the downhill leading to the stadium.

McKeever was still at a disadvantage though, back in the pack, when the curious mix of rain, ice, and sunshine that had worked the snow at Whistler park all day became a factor. As McKeever said to Nordiq Canada, “going into the downhill I had insane boards, and was able to glide back up to the leaders and double-pole from a good position.”

When he found himself in that good position he could hardly believe it, “I was just stoked to be in the final and top-three in Canada. Going into that finish was insane, and I knew I had to get to the finish line as quickly as possible to try and steal [the National title].”

What he categorized as stealing, we’ll categorize as earned. The 18 year-old out-sprinted North America’s best head-to-head, winning the overall race, and his first Canadian National title in a time of 3:19.72. Behind him in second place was fellow Canadian Antoine Cyr (+1.38), with Luke Jager rewarded for his long-range attack with a third place overall (+1.99). Graham Ritchie, finishing fifth overall, rounded out the Canadian Nationals podium (+4.13) after a day of leading out attacks in every heat he raced.

It a promising indicator for Canada’s young up-and-comers with McKeever taking on a field of North America’s best and eeking out a win. For McKeever though, the race was only a preparation for bigger things to come, saying post-race that, “I’ve had some really good sprints this year, so I just wanted to try and challenge myself [racing up] since this is the course that we’ll be racing at World Juniors next year.”

Racing continues Friday with a freestyle team sprint, which can be live-streamed here.

Full Results:

Qualifiers  | Open and U20 Heats

Adding a springtime layer of complexity to remind us that we are officially past the equinox, temperatures in Whistler hovered above freezing while a mix of precipitation fell off and on throughout the day. Webcams of the venue showed the spectacular mountain backdrop hidden amongst dense clouds and conifers still laden with the week’s snow.

It’s a humidity-temperature combo that makes classic waxing tricky. Consequently, many athlete chose to use “hairies”, which are known as “rub skis” in Canada, essentially foregoing kick wax and opting instead for a sandpapered kick zone. For those with strong striding technique, this achieves grip without as significant a risk of icing issues, as klisters can be known create in such conditions. 

Top Canadian U20 racer Xavier McKeever (Foothills Nordic), who was 13th overall today, explained how this changes the game for those who haven’t had the experience: “You have to be a bit more careful with your kicks and a bit more gentle, because they can slip out really easily. That was the biggest focus for me [today], just to try and ski technically well.”

Following 10 k sitting and standing events contested by Nordiq Canada’s Para Nordic athletes, the open men’s category headed out for the three 5 k loops. In a close race for the top podium spot, Craftsbury’s Adam Martin took the win with a time of 40:29.3. Martin was chased by today’s Canadian National Champion, Antoine Cyr (Skinouk) who hunted his times from 19 bibs behind.  

Though Cyr led through the first 10 k, a strong closing lap from Martin moved the American to the lead in the splits, with Cyr skiing the third fastest final lap to take second (+1.3). Canmore’s Russell Kennedy was third overall (+13.1) for the second spot on the Canadian podium, while fellow Canmore athlete Sam Hendry, who now trains with the University of Utah, was third for Canada in fifth overall (+48.0). Both Cyr and Kennedy had also raced onto the podium in yesterday’s 10 k free. 

“I felt really good today,” Martin wrote to FasterSkier after the race. “Particularly in the second half, I started to figure out how to best race this course and these conditions, and I found a good place mentally to push. I’m really happy with the outcome – that was a dream to win.”

A successful season of SuperTour racing has Martin ranked at the top of the rankings, and earned him starts in post-Olympic World Cup events. After taking third at the American Birkie, Martin headed to Norway to race the 50 k classic at Holmenkollen, where he finished 26th. The following weekend, he skied to 44th in the 15 k free in Falun, Sweden. A week later, Martin is back with his Craftsbury team and standing atop the US SuperTour podium. 

“It’s nice to return from the World Cup and still feel in good shape. After two 50 k’s, and travel, and a season that I’m really happy with, everything is a bonus at this point. I think it’s great that we are able to combine with Canada for these races. There are a lot of guys at a similar level, so it makes for some tight, fun racing.”

A 23-year-old Quebec native, Cyr’s best results have been in classic this season, namely an 11th place finish in the opening World Cup 15 k classic in Ruka, Finland, and racing with Graham Ritchie to put the Canadian team in fifth during the Olympic classic team sprint in Zhangjiakou. After the team sprint, he was praised by both his teammate and coach Erik Bråten, along with armchair quarterback Devon Kershaw, for his classic technique.

“Classic is always good for me and is a race I love,” Cyr said of today’s 15 k in a post-race interview with Nordiq Canada. “It was tough conditions this morning, and a good skier normally comes out on top in hard conditions. I was able to ski well, focus on the race, and came second overall, which is a little bittersweet because it was a really tight battle in the end. But it was really fun, the track is amazing. It’s an Olympic standard track, so it’s just really good.”

In his second lap, Cyr had caught yesterday’s winner, Rémi Drolet (Team Black Jack), whom Cyr credited in supporting his strong result today.

“When I saw was closing the gap on him on the first lap, I decided to go a little harder than I planned to catch up with him. [I then tried] to relax behind him for a lap or half of a lap.. In the end, I was missing a little bit on the last lap. I think that that helped for sure, skiing with someone strong like Rémi.”

Finally, Cyr spoke to the importance of an international field featuring all age groups coming together this week, particularly on the heels of a two-year hiatus due to pandemic restrictions.

“It is so good for the young kids — us older guys, we’ve been racing on the World Cup, but like the juvenile and junior, they almost have no races in Canada. To have a big event like this is just amazing and we’ve been looking at the younger guys’ results for an hour yesterday, seeing who’s in good form, and who’s coming up, and you are the next guys to be like taking over. So for them, it is awesome, and for us too, racing with the US is always — it should always be like this.”

Joining Martin for the SuperTour podium, BSF Pro Team athlete Finn O’Connell was 7th overall (+1:06.4) and second American, with University of Utah’s Luke Jager half a second behind in 8th overall (+1:06.9).

In the women’s 10 k, SMS T2’s Julia Kern skied a strong second lap to take the win in her second consecutive day on the podium, stopping the clock at 29:54.3. Her club and national teammate, Jessie Diggins, took the second step finishing +18.3 back, while University of Utah’s Sophia Laukli skied to third (+1:03.2).

Looking at tough conditions, Kern explained she raced by trial and error today, exploring which techniques were most efficient on different sections.

“I kind of had an open mindset going in today,” she told Nordiq Canada after the race. “I knew that the tracks might be a little bit punchy or washed out in sections, and so I was double pulling wide or double polling narrow or just like power striding on the flats if it was getting too punchy out there. So just trying it all.”

She continued that she was looking to “have fun, send it from the start, and see if I could hold that pace the whole time,” which she ultimately proved able to do. It’s the time of year where the hay is in the barn training-wise, and athletes have had a long season, leaving them in varying states heading into the last hurrah. On whether she was looking to just have fun at these races, or whether it was a serious quest for the podium, Kern said “both”.

“I think the end of the season is always really fun. It’s so cool to have this many athletes here. And I’ve been feeling really good the last few weeks and so enjoying racing when it does feel good and when I’m able to push really hard. We’re all really tired at the end of the season, but also, when the body’s in form you might as well take advantage of it and send it on the course.” 

Winning back-to-back Canadian National titles, Katherine Stewart-Jones (Nakkertok Nordique) was again on top for the Canucks, finishing sixth overall (+1:17.5). Finishing in the same order as yesterday, Dahria Beatty (Whitehorse Ski Club) was second for Canada in eighth overall (+1:55.0), while Cendrine Browne (Fondeurs-Laurentides) rounded out the podium in ninth overall (+2:14.5). 

“I went out really hard knowing that that’s what I had to do if I wanted to make the podium,” Stewart-Jones said of her race. “I had a good first lap, and I definitely slowed down a lot on the first part of the second lap. I was just tired and was having a hard time staying in the zone and keeping the rhythm, but I was able to pull it together a bit for the second half of the second lap. So I was really happy with that. And I was happy with how hard I pushed. I just didn’t have it quite in me today, and sometimes that happens.”

On the importance of focusing on her technique on this type of course with sub-optimal conditions, she continued, “It’s really important, especially on the climbs. The grip isn’t always perfect in these conditions, so you really have to make sure to stay on top of your skis. If you get tired and you start leaning forward, then it makes it even harder to kick… And then on the flatter sections, it was a bit awkward, and you had to expect that. Either you’re striding awkwardly or you’re doing a kick double pool, but your poles are sinking. You have to just really focus on committing to whatever you decide to do and not like trying to switch too much between.”

Speaking to already standing atop two podiums, Stewart-Jones responded with pride, while also acknowledging that the overall win would be sweeter.

“Oh, it’s definitely nice to be winning the national championship title… because we’re racing against the Americans, I obviously care about the overall too, so maybe it feels a little less exciting, but for sure, I’m proud of that.”

In order to get closer to the overall podium, she said he would focus on resting as much as possible and maintaining the head space to perform her best. “It’s been a long season and I haven’t raced this much in a long time. I think everyone’s pretty tired. But also just being able to also be mentally strong [over the next races]. And yeah, you never know what’s gonna happen.”

Racing continues Wednesday with individual classic sprints, which will be live-streamed by the Black Tusk Nordic Events Society. If you’re looking for additional video updates, follow along on the Nordiq Canada and Black Tusk Instagram pages. 

Full Results

GRPSki & Biathlon are now accepting applications for the 2022-23 training year as well as for their summer U23 training programs. Applications will be due by end of day April 10 and decisions will be made by April 17.

In exchange for coaching, use of training facilities and travel support, GRP year-round and summer U23 athletes are asked to do work that contributes to the mission and operation of the Center. Projects include: coaching youth and masters in skiing, biathlon and mountain biking; managing and improving the trail system; growing vegetables for the Dining Hall; organizing events and programs at the Center; assisting the Communications Team with writing, blogging and social media.

New this year, there will be both on-campus and off-campus program options for year-round GRP team members. The off-campus option will allow more flexibility for an athlete who wishes to find their own housing near the Center, and work a remote or in-person job that’s not at the Center. Off Campus athletes are expected to be present at team training and meet the same expectations as residential athletes:  be a part of the team, Center and greater Craftsbury community.

If this sounds like work you would enjoy, while taking your skiing and/or biathlon to the next level, then you may be a good fit.

Read more about the team at their website: www.greenracingproject.com. The application is available here for year-round, residential training and you will find FAQs for biathlon and skiing. Any remaining questions may be addressed to grpski@craftsbury.com and grpbiathlon@craftsbury.com.

Find information and application here for the summer GRPSki U23 program.

Athletes applying, or thinking of applying, should email and schedule Facetime or a Zoom call with Pepa or Mike. Contact Pepa at the grpski@craftsbury.com address, or call 802-586-7767 ext 33.

Biathletes may address questions to Coach Mike Gibson at grpbiathlon@craftsbry.com.