Sweden’s Stina Nilsson (center) won gold in the classic sprint at the 2018 Olympics, with Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla (left) taking silver and Russia’s Yulia Belorukova bronze. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
After winning the sprint qualifier by 0.39 seconds over defending gold medalist Maiken Caspersen Falla and then besting the Norwegian by 0.03 seconds in her semifinal, Sweden’s Stina Nilsson captured Olympic gold in a dominating performance in the classic sprint final, ultimately besting Falla by 3.03 seconds.
Falla had to fight to even keep silver, as Olympic Athlete of Russia Yulia Belorukova pushed the pace on the final uphill and came close to outsprinting Falla in the finishing straight. However, the 23-year-old Russian couldn’t quite sneak past and settled for bronze, 0.34 seconds behind Falla.
Jessie Diggins of the United States after finishing sixth in the classic sprint in PyeongChang. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Her teammate Natalia Nepryaeva finished fourth (+9.14 in the final), Sweden’s Hanna Falk fifth (+11.16), and the United States’ Jessie Diggins sixth (+11.23).
Diggins’s teammate Sophie Caldwell finished unlucky number eight, and based on time was the last woman not to make the final after finishing a close fourth behind Nilsson, Falla, and Falk in her semifinal. Both semifinal heats were fast, with one lucky loser coming from each, and Caldwell was 0.18 seconds off that time.
Also for the United States, Sadie Bjornsen finished third in her quarterfinal heat, 2.46 seconds behind Belorukova and also behind Norway’s Heidi Weng. That put her 14th on the day.
In the men’s final, it was a fight to the final uphill when 21-year-old Norwegian phenom Johannes Høsflot Klæbo ran away from the field over the top of the climb and sailed to the finish to become the youngest ever gold medalist in cross-country skiing at the Olympics. Alexander Bolshunov of Russia had matched Klæbo for most of the race but ran out of steam at the top, allowing Italy’s Federico Pellegrino to catch onto his tails before the downhill. While Klæbo widened his lead, Bolshunov and Pellegrino battled to the finish line and Pellegrino ultimately won in a photo finish, securing silver (+1.34) while Bolshunov took bronze (+1.36).
Johannes Høsflot Klæbo won the men’s Olympic sprint in dominating fashion while Federico Pellegrino just edged Alexander Bolshunov for silver. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Norway’s Pål Golberg finished fourth (+3.81 in the final) and Sweden’s Oskar Svensson fifth (+7.73). Top qualifier Ristomatti Hakola of Finland didn’t have it in the final, finishing sixth (+20.72).
Canada’s Len Valjas finished third in his semifinal, but well off the pace (3.98 seconds behind Hakola) and did not advance as a lucky loser to the final. That put him seventh overall, Canada’s best result in two Olympic cycles.
Both American men, Erik Bjornsen and Simi Hamilton, were eliminated in the quarterfinals. Hamilton’s quarterfinal was marred by a crash involving nearly the entire group, and he ended up fourth with a slow time as a result, and landed 20th on the day. Bjornsen finished fifth in his heat, 1.63 seconds behind Klæbo in one of the tightest quarterfinals of the day, good for 25th overall.
Norway has now won both men’s gold medals in cross-country skiing, while Sweden has swept the women’s gold medals.
Sprint racing at the PyeongChang Olympics kicked off on Tuesday, with Sweden’s Stina Nilsson setting the pace in the women’s qualifier just 0.39 seconds ahead of defending Olympic champion Maiken Caspersen Falla of Norway.
The rest of the field couldn’t touch those two. Krista Parmakoski of Finland, the bronze medalist in the 30 k skiathlon, came closest, notching a time 3.56 seconds slower. Sweden’s Hanna Falk qualified fourth (+3.80), Slovenia’s KatjaVisnar fifth (+6.50), Olympic Athlete of Russia Natalia Nepryaeva sixth (+6.91), American Jessie Diggins seventh (+7.02), Sweden’s Ida Ingemarsdotter eighth (+7.32), American Sadie Bjornsen ninth (+7.38), and Norway’s Heidi Weng tenth (+7.54).
For the United States, Sophie Caldwell also qualified for the quarterfinals in 12th position (+8.32). Ida Sargent, who recently had surgery on her thumb, did not, notching the 33rd-best time of the day – 17.06 seconds off the pace and 1.78 seconds out of the heats.
For Canada, Emily Nishikawa led the team in 34th, 2.73 seconds out of quarterfinals. Dahria Beatty finished 42nd (+21.03) and Cendrine Browne 51st (+25.56).
CU student Petra Hyncicova of the Czech Republic finished 45th (+23.29). APU’s Jessica Yeaton, racing for Australia, finished 48th (+24.27), and Aussie teammate Casey Wright (University of Alaska Anchorage) 63rd (+41.06). Canada-based Mathilde Petitjean of Togo finished 59th (+37.19).
In the men’s sprint qualifier, Ristomatti Hakola of Finland turned heads by posting a time that last year’s Sprint Cup champion Johannes Høsflot Klæbo of Norway could not beat. The Norwegian posted a time 0.19 seconds slower than the Finn.
The men’s field was much closer than the women’s, with just 9.51 seconds separating the top 30 finishers who would move on to the quarterfinals. The third qualifier was young Olympic Athlete of Russia AlexanderBolshunov (+1.66), with Italy’s MaicolRastelli a surprise fourth-place finisher (+2.78). Sweden’s Teodor Peterson qualified fifth (+3.01), Olympic Athlete of Russia Alexander Panzhinsky sixth (+3.09), Sweden’s OskarSvensson and Viktor Thorn seventh (+3.48) and eighth (+3.65), and Italy’s FedericoPellegrino ninth +4.64. Calle Halfvarsson notched the tenth-best time (+4.73) and gave Sweden four qualifiers in the top ten, while Klæbo was the lone Norwegian in the top ten.
For the United States, Simi Hamilton and Erik Bjornsen made the quarterfinals, qualifying in 19th (+7.59) and 29th (+9.15) respectively. Bjornsen actually tied for 29th with France’s Richard Jouve, making him the last man to make the cut, so to speak. Canada’s Len Valjas will be the lone representative of his country in either the men’s or women’s heats after qualifying 26th (+8.57).
Alex Harvey just missed the quarterfinals in a tie for 32nd (+9.41), with Canadian teammate Jesse Cockney close behind in 35th (+10.00). Russell Kennedy rounded out the Canadian team in 54th (+14.83).
For the U.S., Andy Newell was also on the outside looking in, placing 37th in the qualifier (+10.82). So was Logan Hanneman in 42nd (+12.20).
The Chugach Mountains as seen from the Lekisch Loop, part of the course for the weekend’s races, at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Adam Verrier)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — So how cold was it at Kincaid Park Sunday morning for the last of four Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association (RMISA) races held in the Anchorage area this week?
“It’s f—ing cold,” said women’s winner Merete Myrseth of the University of Utah. “It was cold,” said men’s winner Moritz Madlener of the University of Denver. “Now we fly back to Denver and get warm.” [Unavailable for comment] were the two skiers who required an ambulance for cold-related injuries following the women’s race.
For the record, temperatures were consistently at or above zero degrees Fahrenheit all morning, so readily FIS-legal. (The International Ski Federation, which sanctioned all of this week’s races, has a temperature cutoff of -20° C, or -4° F, in order for a race to be held.) The real problem was the wind, which blew steadily from the north at around 10mph all morning.
Unless the real problem was the humidity. The city of Anchorage is, well, a natural anchorage, bordered by Cook Inlet to the north and Turnagain Arm to the south. The Kincaid stadium is well under a kilometer away from the shores of the ice-choked Pacific Ocean; athletes were within 150 meters of the Turnagain Arm beach at one point on Sunday’s race course. Humidity was over 90% all morning. By any measure, conditions were somewhere between “raw” and “brutal.”
At least atmospherically speaking. The ski trails were in superb shape following 30″ of snow in the month of January, if slow due to temperatures below zero Saturday night into Sunday morning.
The first race of the day, the men’s 20-kilometer freestyle mass start, saw its start moved one hour later due to cold conditions. In that time the temperature rose from -2° F to zero.
Denver’s Moritz Madlener (2) leads Dag Frode Trollebø of Denver (12) and Kevin Bolger of Utah (4) in the men’s 20 k skate at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Adam Verrier)
When the race started, Denver’s Madlener quickly moved near the front as the field of 42 racers headed north out of the stadium to make their way up Elliott’s Climb. (For Anchorage readers, or anyone else familiar with Kincaid: the course went up Elliott’s and down Rollercoaster; up and down the Gong Hill; through the lower tunnel out to Mize’s Folly; take the first right onto Hairpin; take the first left at the top of Hairpin onto the 2.9 k Lekisch. Men did two laps of this, for 15 k, then a final 5 k lap that cut out Elliott’s. Women did two laps of the 7.5 k course for 15 k total.)
“I was in the front pack pretty much the whole race,” Madlener recounted in an in-person interview with FasterSkier. “Tried to, you know, set the pace every now and then to get rid of people. Which worked pretty well; I think four of us got away after maybe 12 [kilometers]. And then we stayed together for the rest of the race, and then the last couple hills we kind of separated.”
Madlener ultimately crossed the line in 52:39.2, edging teammate Dag Frode Trollebø by 2.6 seconds. Martin Bergström of the University of Utah followed in third (+10.4). “That’s a great feeling” to share the podium with a teammate, Madlener told FasterSkier.
Madlener recalled that he had “a really good start” to his season at U.S. nationals – he earned two podiums there, second in the classic sprint and third in the 15 k skate – before he got sick “and had to catch up. And the races so far here in Alaska weren’t that great,” he continued, “so I was very happy to win today.”
This week marked Madlener’s second time racing in Alaska; he previously competed in the last RMISA race series held in Anchorage, in early 2015. That week was marked by warm weather, rain, and shortened courses.
Madlener is a fan, of Alaska in general and particularly the full courses that athletes got to race on this year.
“I think it’s beautiful,” Madlener said of Alaska. “It’s like – I would say it’s like a big theme park; people are surfing and flying around and fishing. I really enjoy it. And the courses – again, two years ago, were not so great, but this year there’s a lot of snow, they’re pretty amazing courses. Like a rollercoaster.”
Merete Myrseth of Utah enters the stadium approaching the finish in the women’s 15 k skate at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Adam Verrier)
Sunday’s race course featured a total of eight A-climbs for the men in 20 k, and six A-climbs for the women in 15 k. There was an average of 34 meters of climbing per kilometer on the main 7.5 k loop.
Four racers, roughly a tenth of the field, were DNFs in the men’s race, likely due to a combination of the hills and the cold. Two skiers did not finish the women’s race. An additional eight opted not to start.
The first words out of Madlener’s mouth when asked about his race were, “It was – first of all it was cold, obviously.” Myrseth, the women’s winner who skis for Utah, voiced similar sentiments: “It was cold, really cold,” she began her race summary. (By the time of the women’s race start at 12:30 p.m., temperatures had climbed to 1.6° F.)
“I was unsure if I would start the whole race because it was so cold, actually too cold for me,” Myrseth told FasterSkier in a brief in-person interview while shivering in the windy stadium soon after her finish. “But it went really easy in the first half of the lap,” she continued, and she felt good. “So I decided to speed up when I came to hills”; there Myrseth created a gap that she kept all the way to the finish.
But not without difficulty. “I didn’t feel good,” Myrseth said. “My feet, I couldn’t feel my feet, it was so cold. So I had to just, like, double pole over the hills, I was so tight in my feet and lost my balance, it was just so hard to keep balancing. But I made it to the finish line. And I am so happy that Guro took the second place.”
Merete Myrseth of Utah (l) in the finishing chute en route to the narrow victory over Guro Jordheim of Utah (106) and Christina Rolandsen of Colorado (109) at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Adam Verrier)
Myrseth crossed the finish line in 46:28.3 for 15 k, double poling the last few meters to the finish. As she noted, she was followed by teammate Guro Jordheim in a close second (+0.5). Christina Rolandsen of the University of Colorado was not far back in third (+1.8). There was then a 30-second gap to a chase pack containing places fourth through sixth. 32 skiers finished the women’s race.
This week marked Myrseth’s first time racing in Anchorage or even visiting Alaska. So what did she think? “I love it,” said the native of Øverbygd, Norway. “It’s f—ing cold, but it reminds me of Norway, my home. I’m used to it. But it’s so nice; I really like it here.”
Sunday’s race marked the fourth race of the week in the Anchorage area for RMISA athletes. Recaps of the first three races follow below.
On Tuesday, February 7, RMISA athletes, plus a handful of skiers from Alaska Pacific University (APU) with sterling sprint credentials, raced a 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint at Kincaid. Conditions were impeccable, with pure blue skies, temperatures in the high teens, and last month’s fresh snow mixed in with the base of manmade snow covering the sprint loop.
In the women’s race, Merete Myrseth of Utah posted the fastest time in qualifying, 3:25.77, followed by Becca Rorabaugh of APU (+2.14) and Utah’s Guro Jordheim (+3.65). All three skiers made the A-Final, where Myrseth took her first victory of the week. The overall podium, which was also the college podium, was Jordheim in second and Anika Miller (Montana State) in third. Casey Wright (UAA), Rorabaugh, and Jasmi Joensuu (Denver) were fourth through sixth.
Times were not available for any of the heats.
In the men’s race, Dag Frode Trollebø (Utah) set the pace in qualifying in 2:48.80. He was followed by APU’s Logan Hanneman (+1.52) and Utah’s Martin Bergström (+3.33).
Three of the six skiers in the men’s A-Final were locals (in the broad sense of being from Alaska; the Hanneman brothers are from Fairbanks, not Anchorage). And it was the Hanneman show in the final, as the elder Reese Hanneman took the victory over his younger brother Logan. Trollebø was third. Kevin Bolger of Utah, last seen winning the classic sprint national championship at Soldier Hollow, Bergström, and APU’s Forrest Mahlen rounded out the final finisher spots in that order.
The collegiate podium for the men’s race was Trollebø, Bolger, and Bergström. (APU is not an NCAA-affiliated athletic program.)
While sprinting may be on the horizon for NCAA skiing in general, it had yet to make an appearance on the RMISA circuit.
“This was the first sprint that I know of in my, what – 10 years of RMISA coaching now and we’ve never had just a straight invitational sprint,” University of Alaska Anchorage Head Nordic Coach Andrew Kastning told FasterSkier in person following Sunday’s distance skate races.
Kastning said that the addition of a sprint in Anchorage stemmed from a desire for a change of pace, and to avoid repetition in a single week with four races. “So when we sat down last spring and were deciding the schedule,” he said, “we’d been hearing for a few years now from our athletes that the fives, 10s, 15s, and 20s [kilometer race format] every weekend just kind of got boring, and we wanted to mix it up. So we counted the qualifying round as an invite at U.S. Nationals, and then we ran the full sprint [this week] and counted that. … So we just wanted to mix it up a little up here. Especially with four races in a short period of time, you don’t want to be doing all the same distances and the same courses.”
So did the college athletes appreciate the chance to contest a sprint race in the middle of the RMISA race season? “Some of them do,” Kastning said. “There’s always a sprint specialist in the crowd who gets to shine. And I know there were kids on the podium, or in the top-10 at least, that aren’t normally in a distance race. So it allows some athletes to play to their strengths and shine a bit when they maybe wouldn‘t in a 20 k race, they can in a sprint.”
On the non-collegiate side, APU skier Reese Hanneman, a sprint specialist, was thrilled to have a mid-season sprint race with high-level competition on his adopted home course. “I wish there were more sprint races in the middle of the season,” Hanneman told the Alaska Dispatch News.
Utah’s Martin Bergström (402) leads Denver’s Dag Frode Trollebø (right) and APU’s Reese Hanneman (center) at the start of the mixed-gender classic relay in Girdwood, Alaska. (Photo: Adam Verrier)
The next day, Wednesday, February 8, skiers made the 45-minute drive down Turnagain Arm from Anchorage to Girdwood for a classic relay race. Girdwood is perhaps best known in ski circles as home to the Alyeska Resort alpine area, which boasts an average annual snowfall of 669″ and (when it’s clear) sweeping views of the mountains and glaciers overlooking Turnagain Arm. Publications as diverse as Powder magazine and National Geographic have lauded Girdwood as a quintessential locals ski town (“Best For: Off-the-beaten-path powder hounds with an aversion to glamour”).
Girdwood also has a proud nordic heritage, though you have to look a little harder to find it. It is home to APU skier Chelsea Holmes, who will be competing at World Champs in Lahti later this month. And it hosted the 1969 Junior Nationals, on trails cleared from the continent’s northernmost coastal rainforest for this purpose.
As discussed in more detail on former U.S. Ski Team member Tim Kelley’s invaluable blog, Alaska Lost Ski Areas Project, the trails faded back into the woods at some point during the 1970s. High-level nordic skiing in Girdwood then languished for over thirty years, until the early part of this decade, when the Girdwood Nordic Ski Club oversaw construction of a new 5 k loop. The reborn nordic trails have since hosted a handful of local high school races in periods of poor snow conditions in Anchorage, but it is safe to say that Wednesday’s relay was the most significant cross-country ski race held in Girdwood since 1969.
APU (1st), Colorado (2nd), and Utah (3rd) make up the podium for the mixed-gender classic relay in Girdwood, Alaska. (Photo: Adam Verrier)
Athletes raced in a mixed-gender 4 x 5-kilometer classic relay in the epochal event, man/woman/man/woman. It was once again APU leading the way, as the team of Reese Hanneman, Rosie Frankowski, Logan Hanneman, and Rorabaugh crossed the finish line for the victory in 57:33.7. Second overall, and first among collegiate teams, was Colorado (Mads Ek Strøm, Jesse Knori, Petter Reistad, Christina Rolandsen), 25.6 seconds back. They were followed by Utah (Bergström, Jordheim, Bolger, Myrseth) (+1:02.6). Fourth overall, and third for the NCAA podium, was Denver (Trollebø, Linn Eriksen, Moritz Madlener, Joensuu) (+1:25.4).
“Everybody was psyched on a new format and a new trail in a beautiful location,” Kastning told FasterSkier of Wednesday’s race.
Kastning added that the relay, like the previous day’s sprint, was new territory for RMISA racing. “We’ve never had a relay that’s counted for anything,” he said. “I think the relay captures college skiing well, with the mixed gender and the team aspect, men and women working together to try and reach the podium.”
Three days later, Saturday, February 11, skiers were back in Anchorage for individual start distance classic races, 5 k for the women and 10 k for the men. Race time was moved forward from 10 a.m. to noon, which allowed temperatures to rise from 2° F up to 8°.
Saturday’s course was by some measures the hilliest of the week, clocking in at a healthy 39 meters of climbing per kilometer of distance. The upper limit for FIS homologation is 40 m/km. (The course covered the final two-thirds of Sunday’s 7.5 k course – notably Gong Hill, Mize’s Folly, Lekisch.)
Merete Myrseth of Utah (103) leads Denver’s Jasmi Joensuu (126) and Taeler McCrerey (108) in the women’s 15 k skate at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Adam Verrier)
Rorabaugh started near the end of the field in the women’s 5 k classic, which had 39 starters. Two A-Climbs later she crossed the finish line in 15:47.0, which held up as the fastest time of the day. Colorado skier Knori was second (+4.2), followed by her teammate Rolandsen in third (+8.2). Jordheim of Utah (+13.8) was fourth overall to round out the collegiate podium, just ahead of APU’s Frankowski in fifth (+15.0).
It was Rorabaugh’s first 5 k classic FIS race in this country in over five years.
The men raced two laps of the same course for a 10 k classic. Denver’s Trollebø was again on the podium, posting the day’s fastest time of 26:51.60. He was followed by Utah’s Bolger in second (+15.0) and Colorado’s Reistad in third (+19.3). Utah skier Bergström (+29.2), immediately followed by Denver skier Madlener (+29.4), rounded out the top five.
The week’s four races were technically scored as parts of two college invitational race series. In the Seawolf Invitational, encompassing the sprint and relay from the first part of the week, plus two alpine races held at Alyeska in January, the University of Utah took the overall team title with 665 points. The University of Denver (569 points) and the University of Colorado (549 points) followed. The order was the same if the standings are broken out by exclusively nordic results: Utah, Denver, Colorado.
The weekend’s distance races combined with two other January alpine races to make up the week’s second race series, the UAA Invitational. Combined standings were unchanged here, as Utah (661 points) took the victory over Denver (636 points) and Colorado (544 points). On nordic results alone the ranking was the same: Utah, Denver, Colorado.
RMISA racing continues with the RMISA Championships/NCAA West Regional in Colorado in late February, then (for qualifying skiers) NCAA Championships in New Hampshire in March. Nordic races will be held at Jackson Ski Touring Center.
Kastning explained that RMISA schools take their biennial trip to Alaska in years when NCAA Championships are set for the East Coast, “because it’s lower elevation. So other teams like to get some sea-level racing,” he said. “And so it helps our whole region do better I think at NCAAs, because you get some tempo racing, a different kind or style of racing than you do when you’re racing at 9,000 feet.”
From left, Dag Frode Trollebø of Denver, Moritz Madlener of Denver, Kevin Bolger of Utah, and Martin Bergström of Utah enter the stadium in the men’s 20 k skate at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Adam Verrier)
Paddy Caldwell (SMS/USST) racing to a career-best ninth in the men’s 15 k freestyle individual start on Thursday at U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, while his dad, Tim Caldwell, cheers him on. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Paddy Caldwell.)
Three years ago, American Patrick “Paddy” Caldwell made his debut at Junior World Championships, racing to 10th in the 20-kilometer skiathlon in Val di Fiemme, Italy. It was the first time he had ever done a skiathlon; he was 19 years old and a college freshman at the time.
Now a 22-year-old Dartmouth sophomore, who continues to train with the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) as a member of the U.S. Ski Team’s development “D” team, Caldwell (son of four-time Olympic cross-country skier Tim Caldwell and cousin of current U.S. Ski Team standout Sophie Caldwell) is in his third U23 World Championships. The skiathlon distance has increased to 30 k, yet that classic-to-skate race remained his main focus for this year’s U23 Worlds at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
Earlier this week, he broke through with his best-ever sprint result at the championships, reaching the quarterfinals and placing 18th overall in the classic sprint. Then, on Thursday in the men’s 15 k freestyle, he cracked the top 10 for the first time in his U23/Junior Worlds career.
“I was really excited going into today’s race,” Caldwell wrote in an email on Friday morning. “15km FS is one of my favorite race formats. I have been targeting this week of races all year and was really looking forward to this race in particular.”
While the sprint was a primer for Caldwell, he said it also boosted his confidence leading into the two individual distance races at U23s.
“I have been working on my sprinting a lot this year and I am psyched to be mixing it up in the heats!” he wrote.
He described the conditions on Thursday as hard-packed with a fair amount of moisture, “which made for some fast skiing.”
It was overcast — grey and spitting rain at times — a stark contrast from the preceding bluebird days. But with temperatures just below freezing, the course remained firm.
“My strategy for the day was to pin it from the start and hold on,” said Caldwell, who started 44th of 53 in the men’s three-lap, individual start race, in a post-race interview with the U.S. Ski Team. “It was a really tight race and I definitely paid for my first lap, but I am happy to have put it all out there.”
After being passed by Russia’s eventual winner Alexander Bolshunov, who started 30 seconds behind him in bib 45, Caldwell initially finished sixth, 1:03.6 minutes behind Bolshunov. Three later starters ultimately bumped the American to ninth, including Russia’s Alexey Chervotkin, who took second at the finish, 21.8 seconds behind Bolshunov (who won in 32:55.7).
“I started off with a fast first lap and was getting splits between 1st and 4th for the first five or six kilometers,” Caldwell recalled in an email. “Bolshunov caught me around 7 kms into the race… I skied with him for about 1.5km but on the big downhill halfway through the 5km loop another skier slotted in between us and Bolshunov ended up gapping us before I could get around the other skier — it would have been sweet to ski with him some more but who knows how long I could have stuck with him. I could see him for the rest of the race which was a good gauge and kept me pushing to make up time on him.
“In the end I am really excited to be in the top ten overall and to have left it all out there,” Caldwell added. “It was a tight race and I was a bit disappointed to be at the tail end of a close group of times but in the end I am really happy with the result. I want to be the best all around skier I can be and I am really excited to be making progress in both sprint and distance racing.”
The all-Russian podium in the men’s 15 k freestyle at 2017 U23 World Championships, with Alexander Bolshunov (c), who won by nearly 22 seconds over Alexey Chervotkin (l) in second, and was 28.2 seconds ahead of Denis Spitsov (r) in third. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
For the second-straight day of 2017 Junior/U23 World Championships, Russia claimed all of the medals in the men’s race, with Denis Spitsov placing third (+28.2).
“It’s very, very cool,” Bolshunov, the silver medalist in Tuesday’s classic sprint, told the U.S. Ski Team media. “I couldn’t explain my emotions now, it’s really cool.”
“I was really excited to be in the mix with the top guys today,” Caldwell told the U.S. Ski Team. “U23s have been my focus all year and I am psyched to have improved on my results from past U23 and World Junior races.”
Next up for Caldwell, Saturday’s skiathlon, which will be his first since placing 20th in the 2015 skiathlon in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
“I have only done two skiathlons (Val de Fiemme and Almaty) but both were really fun and exciting races,” he wrote. “Mass start races are always a blast!”
Adam Martin (Northern Michigan University) racing to 22nd in the men’s 15 k freestyle at 2017 U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
Four American men raced the 15 k, with Adam Martin (Northern Michigan University) placing 22nd (+2:22.4), Jack Hegman (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation) 24th (+2:25.2), and Cal Deline (Dartmouth Ski Team) 37th (+3:48.6). For Martin, 22nd was his best at U23 Worlds by one place, and Hegman and Deline also notched personal bests at their first U23 Worlds.
Evan Palmer-Charrette (NTDC Thunder Bay) led Canadian men in 34th (+3:20.2) for his best result at his U23 Worlds debut as well. Alexis Dumas, of the Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre (CNEPH) followed in 38th (+3:52.9), tying his U23 best. Julien Lamoureux (CNEPH) was 43rd (+4:16.7) in his first race of U23 Worlds, and Scott James Hill (Team Hardwood) 49th (+6:15.2).
Second-Straight Win for Dyvik; Beatty 16th
Dahria Beatty (AWCA/Canadian U25 Team) racing to 16th in the women’s 10 k freestyle on Thursday at 2017 U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
In the women’s 10 k freestyle, Dahria Beatty (Alberta World Cup Academy/Canadian National U25 Team) notched her second top 20 of the week in 16th, after placing 12th in Tuesday’s classic sprint.
She finished the two-lap 10 k in 27:39.8, more than a minute faster than her 10 k freestyle time at 2017 U.S. nationals last month (where she finished 17th. Beatty went on to place fourth in the classic sprint and win the freestyle prologue at U.S. nationals).
On Thursday, she was 1:25.8 minutes back from the winner, Sweden’s Anna Dyvik, who racked up her second-straight gold of the championships with the best time of the day in 26:14.0.
“Today’s race played out fairly similarly to the 10k skate at US Nationals, but not on an extreme of scale,” Beatty wrote in an email, referring to the conditions. “I was skiing where I wanted to be for the first two thirds of the race but then I really struggled at the end.
“Today’s race was extremely hard,” she added. “The courses here are really tough by any standard and the altitude makes it even harder. I tried to go out fairly conservatively by my standards today as I like starting fast. I was able to start smooth and build through the first lap into the second and was sitting in a good position just in the top 10.”
Despite trying to pace her race, Beatty described “blowing up” in the last 2.5 k.
“The last big climb was a very painful one today,” she wrote. “I haven’t quite figured out the 5k course here at Soldier Hollow yet and how to save something in my legs for the end but I was happy with my effort. I raced hard and used the tactics that I thought would give me the best result possible. I was hoping to be able to be in the top 12 but am still pleased to have skied at that pace for part of the race.”
Sweden’s Anna Dyvik racing to her second-straight gold medal of 2017 U23 World Championships on Thursday in the women’s 10 k freestyle at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
Beatty started 32nd (of 44) and Dyvik in bib 33 passed her around 5 k.
“I only skied with her for a few hundred meters, she was moving fast and I knew if I tried to stay with her I would end of blowing up and really paying for it later in the race,” Beatty wrote.
The top Canadian in the last two U23 races, Beatty planned to race Saturday’s 15 k skiathlon.
“I’m looking forward to the Skiathlon with hopes of being able to put together a bit stronger of a performance all the way to the finish line not just for part of the race,” Beatty wrote. “Mass starts are always exciting and I am looking forward to doing some pack skiing, it was pretty windy out there today.”
Dyvik outlasted four Norwegians for the win, which she took by 16.8 seconds over Norway’s Tiril Udnes Weng (Heidi Weng’s cousin) in second. Norway claimed second through fourth place, with Lovise Heimdal in third (+23.0), and Lotta Udnes Weng (Weng’s twin sister) just 0.1 seconds off the podium in fourth (+23.1).
Half a second behind Beatty, the Czech Republic’s Petra Hyncicova (University of Colorado-Boulder Ski Team) finished 17th (+1:26.3) for her first top 20 at her second U23 Worlds.
Canada’s Frédérique Vézina (CNEPH) finished 25th (+1:58.8) for a career best at her second U23 Worlds as well, Katherine Stewart-Jones (NTDC Thunder Bay/NST U25 Team) was 27th (+2:07.8), and Jenn Jackson (Lappe Nordic/Team Hardwood) 37th (+3:31.8).
Kelsey Phinney (SVSEF) led the Americans in 30th (+2:24.6), Jesse Knori (University of Colorado-Boulder) was 32nd (+2:36.4), Alayna Sonnesyn (University of Vermont) 33rd (+2:51.4) in her first U23 Worlds race, and Nichole Bathe (University of Alaska Fairbanks) 39th (+4:19.8).
Australia’s Casey Wright (University of Alaska Anchorage Ski Team) followed in 40th (+4:22.0).
American Patrick “Paddy” Caldwell chasing Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov during the men’s 15 k freestyle individual start on Thursday at U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. Bolshunov went on to win and Caldwell placed ninth for a career best. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
FIS Nordic U23 World Championships (Midway, Utah): 10/15 k freestyle
Paddy Caldwell, of the Stratton Mountain School and U.S. Ski Team D-team, raced to the first top 10 of his career at a U23 World Championship on Thursday, placing ninth in the men’s 15-kilometer freestyle individual start at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
Caldwell started 44th (of 53) and crossed the finish in sixth before being bumped down three places to ninth. Upon being passed by the eventual winner, Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov, who started 30 seconds behind him in bib 45, Caldwell worked to keep pace with the Russian and ended up 1:03.6 minutes off his winning time. The silver medalist in Tuesday’s classic sprint, Bolshunov took the victory in 32:55.7 minutes, and Russia swept the men’s podium for the second-straight day at U23/Junior World Championships with Alexey Chervotkin in second (+21.8) and Denis Spitsov in third (+28.2).
Also for the U.S., Adam Martin (Northern Michigan University) placed 22nd (+2:22.4), Jack Hegman (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation) was 24th (+2:25.2), and Cal Deline (Dartmouth Ski Team) 37th (+3:48.6).
Evan Palmer-Charrette (NTDC Thunder Bay) led Canadian men in 34th (+3:20.2), Alexis Dumas (CNEPH) was 38th (+3:52.9), Julien Lamoureux (CNEPH) 43rd (+4:16.7), and Scott James Hill (Team Hardwood) 49th (+6:15.2).
In the women’s 10 k freestyle Thursday morning, Sweden’s Anna Dyvik won her second-straight race of the championships, finishing in 26:14.0 minutes. Norway took second through fourth with Tiril Udnes Weng in second (+16.8), Lovise Heimdal in third (+23.0), and Lotta Udnes Weng (Weng’s twin sister) just 0.1 seconds off the podium in fourth (+23.1).
Dahria Beatty (AWCA/Canadian U25 Team) was the top Canadian in 16th (+1:25.8), and Petra Hyncicova (a University of Colorado-Boulder Ski Team member who’s skiing for her native Czech Republic) followed in 17th (+1:26.3).
Canada’s Frédérique Vezina (CNEPH) placed 25th (+1:58.8) for a career best at her second U23 Worlds, Katherine Stewart-Jones (NTDC Thunder Bay/NST U25 Team) was 27th (+2:07.8), and Jenn Jackson (Lappe Nordic/Team Hardwood) 37th (+3:31.8).
Kelsey Phinney (SVSEF) led the Americans in 30th (+2:24.6), Jesse Knori (University of Colorado-Boulder) was 32nd (+2:36.4), Alayna Sonnesyn (University of Vermont) 33rd (+2:51.4), and Nichole Bathe (University of Alaska Fairbanks) 39th (+4:19.8).
Australia’s Casey Wright (University of Alaska Anchorage Ski Team) followed in 40th (+4:22.0).
FIS Nordic Combined Junior World Championships: 4 x 5 k team event
[UPDATED] In the lone nordic-combined team event of Junior World Championships, Austria took the win in 46:17.3 with Samuel Mraz, Marc Luis Rainer, Florian Dagn, and Mika Vermeulen. The team ranked fourth after the jumping portion and started 23 seconds behind Japan in first, but captured the 9.7-second victory over France (Lilian Vaxelaire, Laurent Muhlethaler, Theo Rochat,Mael Tyrode), the third-ranked team after the jump.
The Czech Republic started the relay in fifth and reached the podium in third (+15.3), with Ondrej Payout, David Zemek, Jan Vytrval, and Lukas Danek.
The U.S. (Elijah Vargas, Grant Andrews, Ben Loomis, Stephen Schumann) finished seventh (+2:10.8) out of nine teams after starting sixth. Last year, the U.S. squad placed sixth at 2016 Junior Worlds in Rasnov, Romania, and in 2015 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, they were seventh.
Japan slipped from first at the start of the relay to eighth at the finish (+2:46.4).
Canada’s Dahria Beatty (8) chasing Norway’s Thea Krokan Murud (3) in the fifth quarterfinal of the women’s classic sprint on Tuesday at U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. Beatty finished 12th on the day while Murud went on to place second in the final. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
A year ago, Canada’s Dahria Beatty had eight World Cup starts to her name. Not too shabby considering she was 21, but now another year older, the Whitehorse, Yukon, native has more than doubled that amount with a grand total of 21 World Cup starts — one of which included her 15th-place breakthrough at the Ski Tour Canada classic sprint in Canmore, Alberta.
Beatty lives and trains in Canmore as a member of both the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) and Canadian National U25 Team. She led the NorAm (Continental Cup) standings at the end of last season, reiterating her position as one of Canada’s top talents. Just under a month ago, she won the freestyle sprint prologue at U.S. nationals at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
Then on Tuesday, on the same 1.3-kilometer sprint course at Soldier Hollow, Beatty notched a career-best individual result at her second U23 World Championships, placing 12th in the classic sprint. She started the day by qualifying in eighth, 3.85 seconds back from the fastest qualifier, Sweden’s Anna Dyvik, who rounded the course in 3:39.4 minutes.
“My qualifier was pretty solid. I skied well, I made one small tactical mistake on the last climb but the rest of the race went smoothly,” Beatty reflected in an email. “This is a really taxing course and by the finish shoot my legs were pretty exhausted … it was a fight to get across that line. I was happy to qualify 8th and to post another consistent qualifier. Overall my qualifying speed has improved this year which I am very happy with.”
She was one of three Canadian women to qualify in the top 30, with Jenn Jackson (Lappe Nordic/Team Hardwood) posting the 22nd-ranked time (+12.99) and Katherine Stewart-Jones (NTDC Thunder Bay/NST U25 Team) qualifying in 28th (+16.61).
Maya MacIsaac-Jones, Beatty’s teammate on the AWCA and national U25 Team, missed advancing to the heats in 32nd (+20.68), 3.7 seconds out of 30th.
American Kelsey Phinney (6) racing alongside Norway’s Lotta Udnes Weng (5) during their quarterfinal of the women’s classic sprint on Tuesday at U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
All four of the U.S. women qualified, with Kelsey Phinney (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation) leading them in sixth (+2.77), followed by Nichole Bathe (University of Alaska-Fairbanks) in 14th (+8.8), Jesse Knori (University of Colorado-Boulder) in 19th (+12.07), and Corey Stock (Bridger Ski Foundation) in 26th (+15.11).
Out of those seven North Americans, Beatty was the lone woman to advance to the semifinals, which had been her “base” goal to start the day. She finished third in her quarterfinal (the fifth and final quarterfinal) and advanced as a lucky loser with a fast-enough time.
“My quarterfinal was going well, but I had a stumble cresting the last hill and l lost contact with the top 2 women,” Beatty reflected in an email. “My heat was really fast and I was able to recover from the stumble and move onto the semis as lucky loser. When I finished I had a feeling it was a fast heat but you always have to wait and see.”
Norway’s Thea Krokan Murud won her quarterfinal in 3:35.2, which would hold up as the fastest time of the day until the final. Germany’s Pia Fink took second in that heat (+1.25) and Beatty was third (+2.45), ahead of Russia’s Yana Kirpichenko in fourth (+7.13) and Stewart-Jones in fifth (+12.63).
Without much time to recover before the second semifinal, Beatty explained that she was still pretty tired by the start of it. She ended up sixth in that semifinal, 8.04 seconds behind Murud, who won it in 3:37.42.
“Overall it was great to be in the semi finals and I learned a lot about tactics and where my weaknesses lie,” Beatty wrote. “I just didn’t have enough in the tank today to contend for the final but I am happy to have race my first international semi final and am looking forward to the 10k skate Thursday.”
With a previous U23 best result of 20th in the 2015 classic sprint in Almaty, Kazakhstan (and 15th in the 5 k classic at 2014 Junior Worlds the year before), 12th was Beatty’s best ever at a world championship.
“Racing well on the World Cup had definitely helped my confidence in myself and race knowledge. I feel I am right in the mix with these top women and on the perfect day I could be on that podium,” she wrote. “Going into today I had set base goal (I would be happy with the day if I achieved this) at making the semi finals. My target goal was making the final and my dream goal was being on the podium. My goals will stay pretty similar for the distance races. There are two more races and we’re at altitude so you never know what can happen.”
Jesse Knori (University of Colorado-Boulder) leading Estonia’s Anette Veerpalu during their quarterfinal of the women’s classic sprint at U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. Knori finished third in that heat (while Veerpalu was sixth). While she didn’t advance to the semifinals, Knori was the top U.S. woman in 15th on the day. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
While Beatty reached the semifinals, the two other Canadians and four Americans were eliminated in the quarterfinals. Knori led three U.S. women in the top 20 overall, placing 15th on the day after finishing third in her heat, 7.18 seconds behind Norway’s Tiril Udnes Weng (who won that heat by 1.07 seconds over another Norwegian Lovise Heimdal).
Canada’s Jackson raced in that same quarterfinal and finished fifth (+8.72), behind Italy’s Caterina Ganz in fourth (+7.56), for 21st overall.
Both fourth in their quarterfinals, Phinney ended up 16th and Bathe 18th overall. Phinney finished 3.81 seconds behind Weng’s twin sister, Lotta Udnes Weng, in first. Bathe finished 7.14 seconds behind the winner of her quarterfinal, Germany’s Sofie Krehl.
American Corey Stock (Bridger Ski Foundation) leads Australia’s Casey Wright (University of Alaska Anchorage) in the third quarterfinal of the women’s classic sprint at U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. They finished fifth and sixth, respectively, in that heat. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com).
Stock ended up 22nd after finishing fifth in Phinney’s quarterfinal, 10.08 seconds behind Lotta Weng. Also in that quarterfinal, Australia’s Casey Wright, of the University of Alaska Anchorage Ski Team, finished sixth (+12.37). Wright qualified in 25th and ultimately placed 29th overall.
Canada’s third woman, Stewart-Jones placed 24th after finishing fifth in the same quarterfinal as Beatty.
In the first quarterfinal, the Czech Republic’s Petra Hyncicova (Knori’s teammate at the University of Colorado-Boulder) finished fourth, 4.33 seconds behind Sweden’s Maja Dahlqvist in first. Hyncicova qualified in 21st and ended up 20th overall.
Sweden’s 22-year-old Anna Dyvik celebrates her win in the U23 World Championships women’s classic sprint on Tuesday, nearly 3 1/2 seconds clear of second place. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
Dahlqvist and Murud won the first and second semifinals, respectively, then took a back seat to Dyvik — the qualifying winner who finished second in both her quarterfinal and semi — in the final. Dyvik took control early and avoided a crash near the back to win the final in 3:32.40, the fastest time of the day. She won by more than three seconds for her first U23 Worlds medal, after earning gold in the relay and bronze in the skiathlon at 2014 Junior Worlds.
Behind her, Murud claimed silver (+3.42), edging Dahlqvist, the second Swede on the podium in third (+3.76).
Norway’s Heimdal took fourth (+6.03), while Krehl and Lotta Weng, who fell, finished fifth (+33.34) and sixth (+1:13.17), respectively.
Junior Worlds racing continues on Wednesday with the 5/10 k freestyle individual starts.
The women’s classic sprint podium on Tuesday at U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, with Sweden’s Anna Dyvik (c) in first, Norway’s Thea Krokan Murud (l) in second, and Sweden’s Maja Dahlqvist (r) in third. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
University of Alaska Anchorage freshman Hailey Swirbul races through the stadium at Birch Hill Ski Area in Fairbanks, Alaska, in the Alaska Nordic Cup on Nov 19. (Photo: Zachary Hall/UAA Athletics)
FAIRBANKS, Alaska – Scott Patterson is on a roll. The Alaska Pacific University (APU) skier has now won all of the ski races he entered this year – and over half the ski races held in this country in the 2016/2017 winter to date– after picking up wins on both days of racing in the Alaska Nordic Cup at Birch Hill Ski Area in Fairbanks, Alaska, this past weekend, Nov. 19-20.
APU’s Jessica Yeaton was also a double winner on the weekend. And in the collegiate ranks, the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) maintained its hold on the Alaska Nordic Cup against the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA).
Skiers from both universities competed with a new lease on athletic life, after learning earlier this month that the ski programs would not be cut at either UAA or UAF.
The Alaska Nordic Cup is an early season, relatively low-key (but nonetheless International Ski Federation (FIS) sanctioned) competition between Alaska’s only two NCAA nordic programs. Prior to this season, in which UAF switched its conference affiliation from the Central Collegiate Ski Association to the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association (RMISA), it marked the only time outside U.S. nationals that Alaska’s college skiers might compete head to head until, potentially, NCAA Skiing Championships in March.
The Nordic Cup is held each year in November, alternating between the Fairbanks and Anchorage areas. 2016 marked the 13th annual Nordic Cup competition. The UAF Nanooks enjoy a healthy historical advantage over their southern rivals, the UAA Seawolves, entering the weekend with an 8-3-1 all-time record (eight wins, three losses, and one tie) in the first 12 years of the dual meet. Scoring is typically based on an individual race on Saturday plus a relay on Sunday. Lowest combined time wins.
But despite a strong team showing from UAF that carried the Nanooks to victory, and some standout individual performances from UAA, it was APU that owned the top steps of the podium throughout the weekend.
APU’s Becca Rorabaugh (l) and Jessica Yeaton (r) at U.S. SuperTour Spring Series in March 2016. (Photo: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)
In the women’s race, Jessica Yeaton, an Australian national-team member who competes for Australia internationally but lives in Anchorage and trains with APU, finished Saturday’s 6 kilometer freestyle interval start in 16:52.1, skiing smoothly in relatively cold and slow conditions. APU’s other entrant, Fairbanks native Becca Rorabaugh, finished second, 34.1 seconds back. Third went to Hailey Swirbul, 1:27 back, in the UAA freshman’s college racing debut. UAF skiers swept the next four spots, led by senior Nichole Bathe, the day’s final starter, in fourth.
Yeaton appreciated the early season racing opportunity. “It was awesome to race up here on good snow,” she wrote to FasterSkier. Yeaton added, “The conditions were thin but still provided a really good opportunity for a race effort. We are lucky to have these early races to help prepare for the Supertour in a couple weeks – the [Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks] did a great job making them happen despite the lack of snow!”
Swirbul, a Colorado native, echoed Yeaton’s praise for the venue and host club: “Thanks to Fairbanks for using their limited snow and delivering excellent (all things considered) courses and conditions for us to open our season this past weekend,” she wrote in a Sunday email to FasterSkier.
Swirbul added, reflecting on the sensation of putting on a race bib once more: “As usual, it’s an interesting feeling to return to an on-snow race scene after long summer months without one… nerves, waxing, morning jogs and stretching, race strategy, etc. I sure enjoyed being back at it this weekend! I was satisfied with my and my team’s skiing this weekend, considering it is only November, and think we have great things ahead of us. We are all revving our engines preparing for a long winter ahead, ready to establish a new name for our team with many young skiers, and meanwhile prove to the president of our university that we are more than worthy of being part of a long lasting ski team at UAA! I am very excited for what the season has to bring for UAA.”
Bathe, originally from Madison, Wis., was likewise pleased by the strong first-day showing of the UAF team. “I thought today went well especially for our whole women’s team,” she wrote in an email on Saturday. “To have four women right in there is always awesome and makes us excited for the season! It’s nice to see all the summer training pay off and start getting back into race mode again.”
On the men’s side, the top-seeded Patterson took advantage of his position as the final starter to ski to the victory over several of his APU teammates, including David Norris in second.
“Snow instead of ice made coming to Fairbanks [from Anchorage] for races an easy decision,” Patterson wrote. “Although I hadn’t raced here since high school, I have always enjoyed the Birch Hill trails. During the race, I had to remember how to race a little after getting some early splits that I was even with David and knowing his fitness through the summer and fall. Overall it was a great chance to chase out some early season rust and get ready for important races.”
APU teammates and brothers Logan Hanneman (7) and Reese Hanneman (4) lead teammate Tyler Kornfield (17) during their quarterfinal of the men’s 1.5 k classic sprint at 2016 U.S. nationals in Houghton, Mich.
Patterson completed the 8.25 k skate race in 19:36.3. Norris finished 16.7 seconds behind him. Tyler Kornfield rounded out the APU podium, finishing 1:03 back of Patterson.
Patterson and Kornfield grew up in Anchorage. Norris is a Fairbanks native. Their good-natured geographic rivalry stretches back a decade or more, to when they were all competing in Alaska high school skiing. (“We hated the Anchorage guys,” Fairbanks skier Reese Hanneman told the Alaska Dispatch News “with more amusement than venom” in a summer profile. “We were like the rednecks from Fairbanks, out skiing in the woods, going up against the city boys.”)
APU skiers took the top five spots on the day, with Anchorage skier Thomas O’Harra in fourth and Fairbanks local Logan Hanneman in fifth.
The top college skier was UAF junior Max Donaldson, another Fairbanks product, in sixth, 1:37 back of Patterson. The top UAA skier was sophomore Toomas Kollo, from Estonia, 2:35 back in ninth.
At the end of the first day of racing, the combined times of the top three UAA women put them just 23.5 seconds behind the top three UAF skiers. On the men’s side, UAF created a larger gap of 2:14.2 over UAA’s combined times, giving UAF an advantage of roughly 2:38 heading into Sunday’s relays.
Sunday saw more of the same: APU took the easy win, Swirbul shined for UAA, and UAF used its depth and balanced performances to take the overall victory.
APU entered only one team in the relay, but it included the top two finishers from each of Saturday’s individual races. Unsurprisingly, the team of Patterson, Rorabaugh, Norris, and Yeaton posted the fastest time in all four legs of the 4 x 4 k skate relay, finishing in 46:57.4.
UAA skiers Hailey Swirbul (l) and Casey Wright (r), on the UAA campus in October 2016. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)
The top college team was Nanooks A (Donaldson, Sarissa Lammers, Michael Fehrenbach, and Bathe), finishing just over three minutes behind APU in 50:10.1. Donaldson and Fehrenbach posted the fastest male collegiate times of the day in their legs. Seawolves ‘A’ (Kollo, Swirbul, Marcus Deuling, and Casey Wright) was less than eight seconds behind the Nanooks in 50:18. Swirbul was again the fastest collegiate woman on the day, while Wright similarly recorded the day’s fastest anchor leg.
Nanooks ‘B’ was next, followed by Seawolves ‘B’. Ultimately, the time gaps from day one grew, and UAF finished with a 4:08 cumulative advantage over UAA, taking home its ninth Nordic Cup overall and second in a row.
UAF nordic coach Nick Crawford said in a Sunday press release, “The Seawolves had a good day today and it was very exciting to watch the race unfold. The margin between our two teams was much smaller today, so it made it that every skier had to race hard which isn’t always the case in relays. The victory was for sure a team effort today with both the men and the women putting together good races. We really enjoy the collaboration we have with our Anchorage rivals.”
UAF skier Anna Darnell expressed similar sentiments, telling the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, in light of the recent political rollercoaster of threatened cuts to both schools’ ski programs, “We feel a lot closer to the UAA team after this.”
Meanwhile, at the top of the results sheet, Patterson’s brace of victories on the weekend, combined with his easy victory at the Race to the Outhouse #1 outside Palmer, Alaska, earlier this month, meant that the APU skier has now won every single race he has entered this winter, as well as 60 percent of all the ski races held in this country this year. (The Mat-Su Ski Club held a pair of 5 k skate and classic races at Hatcher Pass on Nov. 19 and 20.)
“I’ll have to get a time turner for the coming weekends,” Patterson wrote in an email as he reflected on his current track record, “so I can continue to win every single race in the U.S.”
This particular race was slightly more competitive than the Race to the Outhouse. FasterSkier unofficially calculates the USSA race penalty (a measure of the strength of the field) for Saturday’s men’s race as an impressive 29.03, well below the USSA minimum penalty of 35 for a College Event or Regional Scored Event. (The penalty for the women’s race was unofficially a higher, but still respectable, 60.52.)
Reflecting the cosmopolitan nature of NCAA skiing, competitors in the 45-racer FIS/USSA field hailed from at least eight foreign countries, including Canada, Norway, Germany, Australia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Estonia. They were joined by roughly 200 more skiers in the day’s other races, ranging from kindergartners in snowsuits who skied a 500 meter course without poles to the 60- and 70-year-old age brackets in the community 4 k race.
The strong community support, and college athletes who had finished their race but stayed to cheer on their teammates, combined to make the atmosphere as electric as can be found for American cross-country skiing. Dozens of spectators lined a late-race climb back up to the stadium, where racers were met by an even larger, frenzied crowd cheering them on.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks ski team poses with the trophy for the Alaska Nordic Cup at Birch Hill Ski Area in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 20, 2016. (Photo: Nick Crawford/UAF Athletics)
Conditions were, as the athletes acknowledged, undeniably snow rather than ice (as on the Anchorage trails these days), but unfortunately not that much of it. Fairbanks has seen approximately five inches of total snowfall so far this winter. The impeccably maintained trails at Birch Hill meant that racers found a base of roughly two inches of compacted snow, with some leaves and sporadic dirt showing through, but no rocks. Most skiers in the FIS race competed on their prior-generation race skis.
Although the official high for the day at the Fairbanks airport was a barely FIS-legal 1° F (-17 degrees Celsius), temperatures at the relatively elevated Birch Hill were comparably temperate, hovering around 10° F (-12 C) throughout the afternoon.
At least in the sunlit stadium. Racing at Birch Hill on clear and cool winter days can be an oddly hellish experience. Not because it is unenjoyable – far from it; the trails are a delight to ski, and the snowy birch forest is sublimely beautiful– but because it evokes the sensation of voyaging into the underworld and back again. The stadium is in the sun, and elevated, and relatively warm; many trails drop down leaving the stadium, sending the skier into the realm of dark and cold. And so one goes from light to dark, sun to shade, warmth to cold, and back again with each new trail, the stadium become a modern-day Cumae (entrance to the underworld in classical mythology) and the skier Heracles or Odysseus, re-enacting the journey between worlds.
RMISA college racing resumes early next year with the Utah Invitational at Soldier Hollow on Jan. 7.
University of Alaska Anchorage skier Casey Wright skis in the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 20, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
Alaska Pacific University skier Jessica Yeaton skis the anchor leg of the winning relay team in the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 20, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
University of Alaska Fairbanks skier Alex Eckert skis in the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 20, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
University of Alaska Fairbanks skier Alex Eckert skis in the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 19, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
University of Alaska Fairbanks skiers Sarissa Lammers (464) and Hannah Rowland (462) ski in the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 19, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
Second-place finisher Alaska Pacific University skier Becca Rorabaugh approaches the finish line of the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 19, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
First-place finisher Alaska Pacific University skier Scott Patterson approaches the finish line of the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 19, 2016, ahead of UAF skier Max Donaldson (494). (Photo: Max Kaufman)
Alaska Pacific University skier David Norris skis the third leg of the winning relay team in the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 20, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
A supporter holds an updated sign at the #savealaskaskiing rally in Anchorage, Alaska, on Nov. 10. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Thursday morning, University of Alaska (UA) President Jim Johnsen announced that the NCAA had declined to reach the school’s waiver request that could have led to the end of NCAA skiing in both Anchorage and Fairbanks. Thursday afternoon, the UA Board of Regents officially voted to support the president’s recommendation to leave both schools’ athletics teams intact.
Thursday evening, it was time to celebrate. The previously scheduled #savealaskaskiing rally in Midtown Anchorage quickly became rebranded as something more jubilant. The food trucks were still there, the DJ was still there, and the supporters were still there, a cross section of the Alaska skiing community past and present. But the mood was suddenly upbeat rather than funereal.
The Alaska Dispatch News reported that a crowd of “about 250” gathered on the lawn outside the Anchorage public library. FasterSkier estimates the crowd size as closer to one third of that. But no matter their numbers, they were there, and they were happy.
“This is a huge relief for all of us [on the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) ski team],” said Charley Field, a junior alpine skier from Pemberton, B.C., addressing the rally. “I’ve never felt so relieved.”
Field recounted that she had applied to only a single school, UAA, when making a college choice, and was thrilled to be able to continue there. “I’ve always wanted to graduate as a Seawolf,” Field said.
UAA skiers Hailey Swirbul (l) and Casey Wright (r), photographed on the UAA campus in Anchorage, Alaska, in October 2016. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)
Another athlete, nordic skier Casey Wright, also spoke. The junior skier and Australian national had been defiant even in the face of adversity, telling FasterSkier two weeks ago – the day after news first broke of the ski team’s apparent demise – that “we’re going to rally together, and we’re going to have a memorable season.”
Wright was happier at the rally, but no less confident. “We’re all going to try our absolute best to kick some butt” this year, she told the crowd, “and show everyone what it means to be a Skiwolf.”
A common theme among all the speakers was heartfelt gratitude at the groundswell of support from across the state and around the world.
“I can’t say thank you enough to all the people who wrote letters and signed the petition,” Field said. “We’re so blessed.”
The UAA ski team released a video earlier Thursday thanking supporters for their help.
André Horton, an Anchorage native, former member of the U.S. Alpine Ski Team and one of the guiding forces behind the formal #savealaskaskiing movement, expressed similar sentiments.
“At one point yesterday,” Horton said, “the Board of Regents was getting one email [from #savealaskaskiing supporters] every two minutes. … I think if I were them, I would be uninstalling Outlook right now.”
Horton audibly choked up as he addressed the assembled crowd. “They say there’s a rivalry,” Horton said, in reference to perhaps exaggerated antagonism between Anchorage and Fairbanks, “but when someone threatens our sport, we all pull together.”
(A contemporaneous march in Fairbanks also featured strong turnout, including at least one marcher dressed as a polar bear in homage to the University of Alaska Fairbanks mascot, the Nanooks.)
Another speaker, Anchorage’s Holly Brooks, echoed Horton’s reaction to the rapid rise of #savealaskaskiing.
“It’s amazing how fast this community came together,” Brooks said from stage. The sheer numbers of people who signed the petition (over 5,000 as of Thursday evening) show “how amazing this small ski team is.”
Former Whitman College and USST skier Holly Brooks addresses the crowd at the #savealaskaskiing rally. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)
Brooks attended Whitman College in the early 2000s, and skied collegiately there. But the Whitman ski program was cut a few years after she graduated. “That pulled at my heartstrings,” Brooks recounted, “and I wanted that not to happen again.”
Brooks recounted that if she hadn’t skied in college, she wouldn’t have come to Alaska, wouldn’t have coached high school skiing, let alone for Alaska Pacific University, and never would have made two Olympic teams. NCAA skiing was very important to her in her journey to the Olympics, Brooks said, her relatively lackluster results as a college racer notwithstanding.
“It was a really important time for me, even though it was not my fastest time as a skier.”
Current UAA skier Hannah Rudd, a freshman from Plymouth, Minn., is working on becoming a faster skier right now.
“Right now, we’re just really focusing,” Rudd told FasterSkier in an in-person interview when asked about the current priorities of the nordic team. “We’re getting into a lot of intensity right now. For sure, we’re going to keep on fighting for the team, but we are really focusing on our skiing and trying to have the best year that we can possibly have, so we can really prove ourselves.”
Recounting recent events, Rudd said, “This whole last week has been quite, like, an emotional rollercoaster. But we woke up this morning, just thinking it was a regular day. We went to practice, and we could see, like, a big smile on our coach’s face, and he was like, ‘We have been saved!’ And it was one of the most exciting things that has happened.”
Rudd said that it had been “amazing” to see 5,000 people sign a petition and stand up for college skiing in Alaska. “I come from Minnesota,” Rudd said, “where it’s a pretty big ski community, but Alaska – the ski community is just phenomenal. It’s been just so good to hear everyone’s responses and support. It feels good to have someone behind us.”
Charlie Renfro, a lifelong Alaskan and former UAA skier, helped to organize the #savealaskaskiing movement and provide an avenue for that support. He was unapologetic about doing all this work even when college skiing – even in Alaska – typically suffers from a low profile within the American ski community.
“I think it’s just really important to this community to have skiing be really visible,” Renfro told FasterSkier in person. “We’re a winter city, Fairbanks is a winter city, we believe in skiing. I think as long as there’s snow on the ground here, and as long as people are recreating outside, I think skiing needs to be represented at the university.”
Renfro was optimistic about the next steps for this cause.
“I think just figuring out how to harness this momentum that we’ve got going [will be the next challenge],” Renfro said, “and to be able to really get this group of people that’s supporting skiing to be able to reach out and fund the cause monetarily. And we’re not totally sure how we’re going to do it yet, but we’re just really happy that we’ve been able to unify, and hopefully moving forward we’ll be able to mobilize monetarily like we have for this.”
Horton sounded similar notes, in an in-person interview before the rally, when asked what happens next year.
“That is a 50-million dollar question,” Horton said, referring to the total amount cut from UAA’s budget this year alone.
UAA assistant nordic coach Sara Studebaker-Hall (center, white hat) at the #savealaskaskiing rally. Former UAA skier and current USST member Sadie Bjornsen (pink jacket) is to her left. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)
“I think today’s success was very exciting for the community, yes, but I told everyone it should be a scaled success,” Horton said. “Meaning, we know cuts are going to be inevitable in the future. But what this has done is it’s galvanized very disparate communities of skiers all into one group. So I think, going into the future, we’re going to have a unified group of people able to make corrections in our spending, so that we can actually afford skiing the way we should.”
Horton also addressed the question he had occasionally received over the past few weeks – why did someone who didn’t even ski for UAA care about this program?
Horton’s answer was instantly relatable to any nordic skier who has ever pored over a USSA points list or sought out an event with a more favorable race penalty: “I’m very thankful, because I would have never made the national team [without UAA], because I utilized UAA’s points base,” Horton said. “Meaning like, without their rankings, I would not have been able to go to the Lower 48 and actually have a chance. So there are several races I know that were key, where I could ski fast enough against UAA guys that, by the time I got to the Lower 48, my rankings were there.”
From a less utilitarian perspective, Horton also addressed the importance of visible role models. “As a younger kid even,” Horton continued, “you look up to these, like, really fit ex-World Cuppers that are at UAA, and that was pretty cool. And to go further with that even, if UAA goes away, I feel for the younger base of athletes. They won’t have that base I did. And you can’t replace it. If you rebuild a program, it takes years.”
Horton’s views on the role of college skiing in developing American athletes were readily applicable to either nordic or alpine skiing. “I always told people this analogy,” Horton recounted: “For every one college athlete, you have 200 juniors. Just how the funnel works, how the pipeline works. So it’s like a pyramid, you know. You got your World Cuppers, your U.S. Ski Teamers, and your college skiers at the top. So every one of those you lose, you lose that junior base.”
In the rally itself, Adam Verrier, a local longtime volunteer assistant coach for the UAA nordic team, closed by acknowledging future budget cuts and the need for secure funding moving forward. “This isn’t over,” Verrier said.
The rally’s final speaker, Tlisa Northcutt, the development director for UAA Athletics, was glad to share the link to the Annual Fund to support UAA sports. The comparable site for UAF Athletics is here.
Soon after Northcutt finished speaking, the rally dispersed. Junior skiers from local training group Alaska Winter Stars flocked to the waffle truck. Happy Skiwolves danced in front of the stage. The next morning, they would wake up and go to training.
The present faces of the 2016/2017 University of Alaska Anchorage Ski Team (both nordic and alpine) at Kincaid Park in Anchorage. (Photo: Adam Phillips/UAA Athletics)
College skiing in Alaska is on its deathbed. (Or perhaps on its deathbed in Anchorage, and at least in the sick bay in Fairbanks.) FasterSkier previously posted thoughts and reactions from some of the more prominent University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) skiing alumni, including Olympians Brian Gregg and Sadie Bjornsen. But there are other people who stand to be even more immediately affected if the University of Alaska Board of Regents cuts college skiing after this season: the athletes who ski for UAA, and the people who coach them. Here we share some thoughts from those groups, in an attempt to understand the human cost of the proposed elimination of UAA skiing following the 2016/2017 season.
Two Athletes: Hailey Swirbul and Casey Wright
Hailey Swirbul, 18, is a true freshman at UAA. Born and raised in Colorado, she visited Anchorage for the first time on her official recruiting visit to UAA last fall. To her surprise, Anchorage was love at first sight (“I stepped off the plane and I saw those mountains glowing pink, and I was like, Whoa, this is magical. This is nothing like Fairbanks!”), and she happily committed to ski for UAA soon after. Swirbul competed and trained internationally prior to coming to UAA, including anchoring the U.S. women’s relay team at Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in February 2015, and attending International Junior Camp in Norway that summer.
Casey Wright, 21, took a slightly more circuitous path to skiing for the UAA Seawolves (fondly referred to by the team as the “Skiwolves”). Wright, an Australian, was born in Melbourne, and is a member of the Australian National Ski Team. She has raced for her country at several international competitions, including world juniors in 2013 and 2014 and World Championships in Falun, Sweden, in 2015. Wright previously skied in the U.S. for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team in Sun Valley, Idaho. (She is one of at least three Australian national team skiers who currently live and train in Anchorage, including Alaska Pacific University athletes Jessica Yeaton and Paul (PK) Kovacs.)
UAA present: ‘Skiwolves’ Hailey Swirbul (l) and Casey Wright (r), on the UAA campus in Anchorage, Alaska, in October 2016. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)
Both athletes spoke with FasterSkier in an in-person interview on the UAA campus on Oct. 28, slightly more than 24 hours after news came out that their program was slated to be discontinued at the end of this season. Both Wright and Swirbul were surprised and disappointed, but nonetheless impressively buoyant given the circumstances.
And speaking of buoyant, it is not just an orthographic coincidence that you can’t spell “Seawolves” without “love.” Both athletes’ sincere love – for their sport, for each other, for their suddenly endangered ski program – was apparent throughout the interview, in which Wright and Swirbul at times literally finished each others’ sentences.
This particularly came through in each athlete’s overriding concern at this moment: for others and for their team.
“I’ve gone from initial, like, absolute being distraught to kind of angry, and now I’m trying to understand why, and trying to look in the future,” Wright said when asked how she was feeling. “For us at the moment, or for me anyway, it’s just, like, looking for out my team, looking out for my coaches, just trying to make sure everyone’s okay. I think that’s really my main concern at the moment – that everyone is coping as well as they could be.”
Swirbul expressed similar sentiments: “One of the hardest things … that each of us are going to face is breaking up this team, ’cause we have such a young team, and we have so much potential, and it is horrible to see that go right now.”
“We are really close,” Wright added. “I’ve never been on a team where I’ve had this connection with teammates, where it’s like – we’re just like a family, an extended family.”
Indeed, Wright called the Skiwolves “my second family.” “It takes me, like, over 30 hours to get home,” she observed, reflecting the distance between Alaska and the antipodes. “This team is my family,” Wright stated, her voice and syntax breaking, “and – the thought of not being able to see all these people every day – like, after this year – or not even a year, after, what is it, going to be five months, pretty much, six months, is just like – it’s devastating. I can’t even fathom… that’s just heartbreaking.”
Swirbul, discussing the Oct. 27 meeting at which they were told that their program was slated to be cut, continued with the familial theme. “One of our teammates actually paralleled it to a funeral, and it feels like our team is dying,” Swirbul said.
“It feels like a death in the family,” Wright concurred.
UAA present: Casey Wright carries the Seawolves’ team flag at the 2016 NCAA Skiing Championships last March at Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, Colo. (Photo: Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos)
While both athletes underscored that the team was quickly becoming tighter than it ever had been, they admitted that they had begun thinking about what might come next if their program – and college scholarships – come to an end.
(UAA Athletic Director Keith Hackett wrote in his public statement that “UAA will honor our commitment to those Student-Athletes who have been impacted by this decision by keeping them on scholarship through the spring of 2018.” But head nordic coach Andrew Kastning said that he was “a little surprised” to hear that his athletes only had two more years on scholarship (counting the 2016/2017 season), “because at one point when we thought that we were going to be – when the cuts were being talked about, [assistant nordic coach] Sara Studebaker had asked Keith what would happen to our athletes that are here. And he said, ‘Their scholarships will be honored until they graduate.’ But it didn’t sound like that was arranged, at least at this point.”)
“It’s impossible not to think about [next year],” Swirbul, 18, said. “I’ve been thinking about it for the past couple months, unfortunately, especially when [my] parents have been encouraging me to look into that in case that happened, and it did. First off, I need to clear up what this whole situation with the scholarship in the coming years is. And that’s a huge factor in my decision. If that’s the case, then my first option would be to attend school here still, and potentially ski for APU [Alaska Pacific University]. Otherwise, I need to start applying to colleges all over again.” (While athletes who transfer schools are typically required to sit out a year before playing again at their new school, the one-year waiting period is waived when the athlete’s sport was cut at the previous school.)
Swirbul reiterated that she yearned to stay in Anchorage: “I love it here. I don’t want to leave. Taking that away from me, taking that away from all of us, is just heartbreaking.”
Wright, who turns 22 next month, had similar goals, but was still working with the NCAA to gain some clear answers to something as simple as how many years of NCAA eligibility she had remaining before she began the process of seeking out other schools. “I’m in a bit more of a difficult situation, being an international student-athlete,” Wright said.
UAA past: Erik Bjornsen (then UAA, now APU and USST) races in the men’s 15 k classic race at 2011 U.S. Nationals in Rumford, Maine. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
“In order for me to achieve my goals,” she continued, “the best place for me to be, I believe, is in the U.S. It’s just, the calibre of skiing here is fantastic in order for me to develop and reach my goals. Although I don’t have as many years of eligibility left, so that would be a difficult one to try and convince another team to take me on.” Wright also hoped to stay in Anchorage if at all possible.
Wright recounted her self-initiated “recruitment” into the UAA program (she had been skiing with the SVSEF before she began reaching out to American NCAA ski teams), and how it led to the current team at UAA. “Andrew was the only one that responded to an Australian girl contacting him saying that I was a skier,” Wright said. “I don’t think anyone else believed me.”
UAA originally didn’t have scholarship space for her, but a space then opened up on short notice. “So I pretty much just jumped on a plane and came here. … It was the best decision I could have made. It’s just been incredible,” she said.
Wright recounted the process by which this year’s team – which, she pointed out, skews young and blonde – was assembled soon after she came on board. “Andrew was talking about all these freshman girls we’ve got coming in. He was like, ‘We’ve got a lot of 18-year-olds.’ It was like, ‘Oh boy, we’re going to have a lot of Justin Bieber [Swirbul cracks up], and teeny-bopping around’ – but it’s been nothing like that.”
Swirbul: “Wow, thank God.”
Wright: “He just kept signing girls.”
Swirbul: “And they’re all blonde and they’re all freshman.” (This is almost literally true.)
Wright: “Andrew has dubbed us The Blondetourage. That pretty much sums us up.”
On a more serious note, and discussing the process that led to the ski team being cut, both athletes were quick to reject a reporter’s suggestion that they might feel betrayed.
“I absolutely would not say betrayed,” Swirbul said. “And I think that’s how the coaches feel. They feel like they betrayed us – I think some of them are blaming themselves for this. And that’s the hardest thing for me to see, is thinking about my teammates and my coaches that might not have a clear path of where to go in the next few years. I think that I’ll figure something out, and a new door will open. I just worry – I feel so much for the people that don’t have that clear path.”
Swirbul also disagreed with the premise that skiing had been singled out in some manner. “I I don’t think we were necessarily singled out,” she said. “But I can’t understand why they would cut skiing in Alaska. I don’t understand that. And I don’t think they understand why they cut us. I don’t know. … Were we singled out? No. Are we some of the best academic and hard-working people at UAA? Yes. And I don’t think they would purposefully single out those types of people to remove.”
“Were we singled out? No. Are we some of the best academic and hard-working people at UAA? Yes. And I don’t think they would purposefully single out those types of people to remove.” — Hailey Swirbul, UAA freshman nordic skier
Finally, Swirbul graciously declined an invitation to compare the ski team’s record of success to the consistent mediocrity and decades-long trend of losing seasons that plague the UAA hockey team.
“I would never wish this upon anyone else, and I can’t say that I would rather have the gymnastics be cut, or the hockey be cut – because this sucks. And I don’t want anyone to go through this,” Swirbul said.
At the same time, Swirbul expressed some confusion as to whether it was really money or something else that was driving the decision to submit skiing for proposed elimination.
UAA past: Sadie Bjornsen (then UAA, now APU and USST) skis to a third place finish in the women’s 5 k classic race at the 2009 NCAA Championships in Rumford, Maine. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
“Actually, what the director [Hackett] ended up saying,” Swirbul recalled of the Oct. 27 meeting, “was that it doesn’t even come down to money at this point, it’s more NCAA rules. They’re cutting our teams from 13 to nine. And so they need a 10th team, potentially. And they said, ‘If we do need a 10th team, if that waiver goes through and we need to find a tenth team, they will find the money to do that somehow.’ However, they can’t let us find the money to fund ourselves. I don’t even know what they’re talking about. They said there’s money there if they need to have a 10th team.”
Wright expressed similar sentiments: “We want the opportunity to, if it is down to money, we want the opportunity to fundraise. We were told that Alaska wasn’t a giving state, that people here don’t want to give money, that’s what he told us, which, we don’t believe that’s true, considering that APU is able to fundraise six figures annually.”
The Alaska Dispatch News, or ADN, has reported that the annual budget of the APU program is “about the same amount” as that of the UAA ski team. “With APU always in financial straits,” the ADN wrote, “the team raises most of its own funds.”
While it is hard to quantify the generosity of a state, some indication of Alaskans’ attitudes toward charitable contributions may be gleaned from the success of Pick.Click.Give, a program that allows Alaskans to voluntarily choose to donate a portion of the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), the share of oil revenue that is annually given to most Alaskans. Last year 5.5 percent of Alaskans who filed for a PFD online made a donation through the program, donating an average of $108 per person from a revenue check that this year came out to $1,022 per person.
“If we were given the opportunity to raise funds,” Wright continued, “or to meet a target, or who knows what … we would have done it. We would have been knocking on doors, asking for people to donate, selling cookies like Girl Scouts. We would have had a bake sale. I think that’s what hurts the most, is that we couldn’t do anything, we weren’t given the opportunity to save ourselves; it was basically said, ‘This is out of your hands.’ … That kind of stings as well, when we’re told, ‘You just have to sit back and wait,’ which skiers aren’t good at doing. If there’s something that we can do, we want to do it.”
The Coach: Andrew Kastning
Head coach Kastning, 34, now in his sixth season at UAA, also yearns to take action and find a solution. He and his wife, former Whitman ski coach Calisa Kastning, have a new house in Anchorage and two young girls. “We got another kid on the way, coming in March,” Kastning noted. “So the stakes to figure something out are kinda high.”
Kastning spoke with FasterSkier by phone on Oct. 29, shortly before the lifelong Cubs fan watched Chicago lose Game 4 of the World Series 7-2 to the Cleveland Indians.
Coach Andrew Kastning teaching seventh-grade boys to V2 in Kiana, Alaska, on a Skiku ski outreach trip to rural Alaska. (Photo: Celia Kastning)
Beyond the obvious, there are several aspects of Kastning’s situation that are particularly poignant. The first is that, as he said, “I’ve got the team now that I’ve always wanted. And nothing against the teams I’ve coached before, but since I got to Alaska I’ve been trying to get kids – young, promising Americans combined with experienced international racers. And for the most part, it’s been experienced international racers that I had.”
Until, Kastning continued, “I turned the corner when Hailey signed a year ago. She signed early, and that opened the door, opened the eyes of other American recruits coming out of high school to look at Alaska. And this is the team that I’ve always wanted to coach. Because we have so much talent and they’re so young, and so moldable, and they’re getting along so well … it’s been awesome to do that. It makes the sting of it a little bit extra, because there are eight freshmen on my team and four sophomores. And so we’re set up well to be stronger and stronger.”
But this is cross-country skiing, a sport where your speed this season is largely determined by how much you were training the year before (and the year before that, etc.). And it appears that Kastning will only have one season in which to help his athletes achieve their best. “We’re just trying to get the best peak performance that they have within them,” Kastning said, “and I know they’ll ski their hearts out.”
Kastning remains clear-eyed about the artificial limitations of taking what should be a four-year progression and compressing it down into one season. “It would be a Disney story to win the NCAAs this year,” Kastning said. “However, looking ahead in the next two to four years, given this group of kids, I don’t think that’s out of the question. The way they’re working together, and the talent level that they have.”
“It would be a Disney story to win the NCAAs this year. However, looking ahead in the next two to four years, given this group of kids, I don’t think that’s out of the question.” — Andrew Kastning, UAA head nordic coach
The other reason this is especially poignant for the Kastning family is that together they’ve been through this drill before. Twice. Kastning was assistant nordic coach at the University of Nevada, Reno, in the late 2000s, until he saw the writing on the wall and left for a more secure coaching job elsewhere. A year later, the Nevada athletic director – a man named Keith Hackett – announced that skiing was going to be cut at Nevada.
UAF past: David Norris (now APU) racing at U.S. nationals in Rumford, Maine. (Photo: Kris Dobie)
(Hackett would take the same job at UAA in 2012. His official UAA bio notes, “UAA’s skiing, men’s basketball, women’s basketball and men’s cross country [running] teams have all produced top-four national finishes since 2008.”)
Kastning’s then-girlfriend, now-wife, Calisa (Schouweiler) Kastning, was coaching at Whitman at the time. Until, Andrew says, “Calisa called me at the conclusion of the 2009 NCAA mass start races – I was still in my ski boots – and she was in tears, telling me that her program had just ended. … And it was a shocking announcement. And they had no chance to fight it, and no ability to fundraise to keep it going, and even a few donors there came through with a big chunk of money that wanted to keep the team, but the athletic department stood their ground and said ‘no.’ ”
Andrew happened to visit Calisa in time to attend the final team gathering for the Whitman College Blues ski team (most famous skiing alumnae: Holly Brooks ’04 and Laura Valaas ’06).
“And it was heartbreaking.”
“I wasn’t even involved with that program at all,” Andrew said. “But then through my girlfriend at the time, to see those kids trying to cope with the last team gathering – which we’ll have to go through too if this decision stands – it was really hard. And I was just kind of a bystander in that situation. So I’ve already been through one final gathering for that team. And it was a little bit by happenstance, but I know what it’s like and I know what the emotional rollercoaster is that we’re going to have to go through until the end of the spring semester.”
Andrew continued, looking ahead to a year full of lasts: “We’ll have Athlete of the Year banquets, with the whole athletic department, and it’s going to weigh on everybody’s mind there. And we’ll have our final team barbecue gathering where we name our most valuable players and our most improved, and all that. And normally we give framed pictures to our seniors, and talk about each senior athlete and what they’ve contributed to the program and say goodbye to them. And now we’ll probably have to make framed pictures of everybody, and try and talk about everybody. Which will take all night, because they’re all such awesome kids.”
UAA breakfast present: Local skiers show their support for #savealaskaskiing. (Photo: Holly Brooks)
Despite Andrew’s shared history with Hackett and shuttered ski teams, he hesitates to blame Hackett for the current decision at UAA: “I wish the president [UA President Jim Johnsen] had been there [at the meeting to make the announcement], because he’s the one that’s really pulling all these micromanagement strings above, and unfortunately Keith is having to, for lack of a better word, be his puppet, and take orders from the top. Because even though Keith cut skiing once [before], I don’t – at least I don’t want to believe that that was his first choice. It seemed like it was just a fait accompli, like it was agreed upon on both campuses that the ski team was an easy target. And that was going to be the first tree to fall.”
(Many symbolic trees are falling on the UAA campus these days. A survey of faculty and staff released earlier this week showed that “more than half” of current staff members “feel that morale [at UAA] is the lowest they have ever seen.”)
As a small silver lining, Kastning appreciates that at least someone else had to give his athletes the bad news: “In a sense I was glad that Keith had to be the one to look them in the eye and tell them that their hopes and dreams were going to be crushed in Alaska.”
A final season to remember
It is clear from coach and athletes alike that, while news like this could potentially cleave some teams apart before the season even began, it is instead leading the 2016/2017 Skiwolves to cleave together even stronger than before. Here’s the final word from the athletes:
Swirbul: “It’s quite bizarre that they’re cutting out this part of Alaskan culture in Anchorage. … And we’re hosting nordic U.S. Nationals in two years – Anchorage is hosting that – and there won’t be a college team here. That’s ridiculous. That’s outrageous.”
Wright: “It’s almost comical to think that we won’t be there in green and gold on the start line. It’s really heartbreaking. It’s just sad.
“But we’re going to rally together, and we’re going to have a memorable season. And people are going to remember the Seawolves. It’s not that we’re just gonna hang our heads low, and walk out from our last race. We’re going to go out there, and people are going to know that we’re there. We’re going to be there loud and proud. And I think that’s going to be – that’s the thing I’m looking forward to most this season, is that we’re going to make it one that people are… next season they’re going to miss us, because we’re not on the start line with them.”
Swirbul: “Nice. That makes me hyped.”
Wright: “I think that makes everyone hyped right now. We’re going to make this season count.”
Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Gold Team members Kelsey Phinney, Annie Pokorny, Mary Rose, and Deedra Irwin skiing at Falls Creek Resort in Victoria, Australia, earlier this month. (Photo: Mary Rose)
Getting there means 24 hours are lost somewhere in limbo and layovers that are more than cause for lethargy. But even with a disappearing day and assured hours of drowsy adjustment, traveling to the Land Down Under presents a unique opportunity for any western traveler, especially those who nordic ski. That’s because in the state of Victoria in southeastern Australia, nearly a four-hour drive north of the country’s second-most populated city, Melbourne, Falls Creek boasts accommodations, trails and most importantly, a winter season with snow.
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the months of June, July and August often bring heat waves rising off the blacktop, but in Falls Creek, this the season for a mixture of snow flurries and sun.
SVSEF Gold Team members (right to left) Annie Pokorny, Mary Rose and Kelsey Phinney classic skiing at Falls Creek Resort in Victoria, Australia. (Photo: Colin Rodgers)
With the promise of the latter from early June to late September — the peak season taking place in July and August — and a decent deal on plane tickets, several Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team members decided that when it came to the month of August, Falls Creek was where they wanted be.
“The team has never been here before, but one of our SVSEF coaches, Tom Smith, spent a summer coaching down here and told us how great the training was,” Colin Rodgers, SVSEF Gold Team head coach, wrote in an email from Australia. “We decided we had a great opportunity to come here and train this year because the airline tickets were quite inexpensive from the Western USA. Overall the skiing has been great so far!”
Along with Rogers, five Gold Team skiers made the trek to Falls Creek on Aug. 1, including Annie Pokorny, Kelsey Phinney, Mary Rose, Deedra Irwin, and Matt Gelso. The crew planned to remain in Australia for on-snow training until the end of the month, returning to the U.S. on Aug. 29.
This past weekend, the Sun Valley women swept the freestyle-sprint podium at Australian Cross-Country Ski Championships on Saturday, with Phinney winning the International Ski Federation (FIS) Australia/New Zealand Cup race, Rose placing second and Irwin taking third. Norway’s Nora Ulvang finished fourth just ahead of Pokorny in fifth.
The women’s skate sprint podium at 2016 Australian Cross-country Ski Championships on Saturday, Aug. 20, in Falls Creek, Victoria. Kelsey Phinney (1) placed first, Mary Rose (2) took second, Deedra Irwin (5) was third, and Norway’s Nora Ulvang (7) was fourth. (Photo: XCGoldTeam/Instagram)
“The races this past weekend were a very unique experience,” Rose wrote in an email. “Not often do you have a chance to race in the middle of August. The conditions were very challenging for everyone. I took this weekend as a great opportunity to practice skiing through all the sprint heats as well as learning to deal with less than ideal race conditions. Living in the West, I don’t get much opportunity to race in the pouring rain. This was a great learning experience!”
The men’s freestyle sprint and 15 k classic results were not available at press time. Due to a cold, Gelso did not race this past weekend.
While much of the Gold Team’s camp revolved around logging hours and kilometers on snow, Rodgers also anticipated his group would jump into a few races, including the Kangaroo Hoppet 42 k skate marathon on Aug. 27.
According to him, the opportunity to travel to Australia and compete was largely due to the international relationships the SVSEF has fostered.
“Our club has hosted several Australian skiers over the past few seasons (Kat Paul, Casey Wright, Mark Pollock- to name a few) so we have established a good relationship with many of the athletes,” Rodgers wrote. “They have all always told us we should come to Australia to ski. It seemed like a far off dream, but then we started looking at the details and all of a sudden we realized we could make it happen without breaking the bank. The Australian Jr and U23 team is coming to prepare for the Soldier Hollow World Jr/ U23 World Championships in Sun Valley this winter. They will be in Ketchum for about 8 weeks leading into those Championships so we have a nice partnership growing.”
“This is not spending a week on a glacier in summer. This is turning August into February.” — SVSEF Gold Team memberMatt Gelso on training on snow in Australia
New to the SVSEF Gold Team, Pokorny reflected that the chance to travel to Australia to train has been somewhat surreal. This year marked one of her first summer snow-skiing experiences.
“This year, with support from SVSEF and the Australian race organizers, I’m able to get my first summer skis AND do it during one of the biggest training blocks of the year,” Pokorny wrote in an email. “I’ve gotten to work on technique and put in big hours while exploring a part of the world I’d never thought I would get to visit, which has made this trip incredibly valuable to me both athletically and personally.”
Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Gold Team member Matt Gelso takes in the view during a ski at Falls Creek Resort in Victoria Australia in August. (Photo: Colin Rodgers)
“This is not spending a week on a glacier in summer, this is turning August into February, and it is a new experience for me, but a very positive one for ski training,” Gelso wrote in an email. “Not only getting on snow and getting the feel for skis, but being here for long enough that I can actually make gains is huge.”
Both Pokorny and Gelso pointed out that spending a month skiing in Australia is a memory they won’t forget.
“I have been wrapping my head around the sun being in the northern sky, and the north slopes being the warm, sunny side…. Pretty different,” Gelso wrote. “Also the trees, they have these Snowgum trees that don’t lose their leaves, it feels like the coast, it has taken some time to get used to it all.”
“My favorite part, by far, has been the landscapes we see on our long skis,” Porkorny wrote. “Snow capped mountains over green jungles, burned and growing gum trees, and violently changing weather have kept every training session interesting.”
Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Gold Team member Matt Gelso during a ski at Falls Creek Resort in Victoria Australia in August. (Photo: Mary Rose)
Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Gold Team members skiing at Falls Creek Resort in Victoria Australia in August. (Photo: Mary Rose)
Left to right: Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Gold Team members Annie Pokorny, Mary Rose, Matt Gelso, and Kelsey Phinney during some dry land training in Falls Creek, Victoria, Australia (Photo: Colin Rogers)
Two skiers from the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Gold Team skiing at Falls Creek Resort in Victoria Australia in August. (Photo: Mary Rose)
The women’s skate sprint podium at Australian national championships in Falls Creek, Victoria. 1st Kelsey Phinney (center), 2nd Mary Rose (r), 3rd Deedra Irwin (not shown), 4th Nora Ulvang (Norway). (Photo: Mary Rose)
Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Gold Team member Annie Pokorny during a classic ski at Falls Creek Resort in Victoria Australia in August. (Photo: Colin Rogers)
Seventeen-year-old Chi Chunxue (c) celebrates her qualifying win on Wednesday in the women’s 10 k freestyle, which advanced her along with the top 10 to the remaining distance races at 2015 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun, Sweden. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Tanja Karisk (l) placed second (+49.3) and Australia’s Casey Wright was third (+1:07.5).
By Colin Abbott
FasterSkier’s coverage of the 2015 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun, Sweden, is brought to you by the generous support of L.L. Bean, now featuring a complete line of Kikkan Randall training wear.
FALUN, Sweden — The buzz is building at the 2015 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships with the completion of the first races in Falun. Wednesday saw the individual-start distance qualification races take place with 45 women and 69 men and women skiing 5 kilometers and 10 k, respectively.
These initial races did not crown world champions, but they have another purpose that is just as important to the athletes racing. These races offer the opportunity for skiers that have not in the past year made the minimum International Ski Federation (FIS) point standard for men (90 points) and women (120 points). The top-10 men and women in these races qualify for the remaining distance races at World Championships (the skiathlon, individual start and mass start).
Athletes selected with these races are part of a nations quota of starts. Most countries with a regular presence on the World Cup have athletes with low FIS points and select teams long before the start of the World Championships. This leads to lesser-known ski nations concentrating on these races as an opportunity for athletes to qualify and participate in World Championships.
Mark Rajak (19) racing for Trinidad and Tobago in Wednesday’s 10 k freestyle individual start qualification race on the first day of 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden.
After the races on Wednesday, FasterSkier caught up with skiers hailing from countries where many citizens will never see snow. Trinidad and Tobago, Iran, Australia, and Brazil offered us a glimpse into the role of skiing in their nations.
The Australian ski program has grown into a World Championships team that includes 11 athletes and six support staff. Central to their success as a nation is a development program termed the “Victorian squad” — an inclusive, tiered learn-to-ski program focused on teaching children how to ski and supporting athletes who want to race. Those young racers have athletes such as Callum Watson and PK Kovacs to look up to now which, according to 22-year-old skier Mark Pollock, is key to motivating and developing high-performance skiers.
At a certain point, the lack of snow makes it difficult to progress as an athlete in Australia. Their best skiers are seeking out options to continue skiing in other places. Last summer, Pollock trained with the Bridger Ski Foundation in Bozeman, Mont., while his teammate Jessica Yeaton trained with Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage, Alaska. These training initiatives taken by Australian athletes have allowed them to improve their depth and competitiveness internationally, with Yeaton qualifying for the nation’s full-fledged World Championships team outright.
Fabrizio Bourguignon racing for Brazil in Wednesday’s 10 k freestyle individual start qualification race on the first day of 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden.
Brazil was represented by three national team members on Wednesday: one woman, Mirlene Picin, and two men. Leandro Lutz, 33, and Fabrizio Bourguignon, 38, have both been skiing for a number of years. Like Yeaton and Pollock, Lutz decided that in order to optimize his training, an on-snow location was necessary for part of the year. Lutz chose to spend the first half of this winter in Denver, Colo., to train on snow in order to prep for three months of racing in Europe. And like Australia, Brazil is experiencing a growth in the popularity in skiing. According to Lutz, there are seven Brazilian junior racers currently in Europe — three racing the IBU Youth/Junior World Championships in Belarus and the remainder racing FIS junior races in Scandinavia.
Racing the sprint on Thursday is another Brazilian, Leandro Rubella. Two years ago, Rubella started a social project in Sao Paulo to help children from impoverished families escape violence and poverty and establish the skills needed to live a good life. This project took the unlikely form of a learn-to-rollerski program. A key message of this initiative is that “anything is possible.” The hope is that a citizen from a country with no snow can make it to the Nordic World Championships, a child born into poor circumstances will see that it is possible to overcome the most difficult challenges.
The birth of a similar program may soon occur in another tropical country, Trinidad and Tobago. Mark Rajack, 33, toed the start line Wednesday afternoon in Falun to compete for the Caribbean island nation in his first international race. Even though Rajack, who has lived in Ottawa, Ontario, since a young age, has only been skiing for two years, he sees the potential for skiing to bring positive changes to his native country.
Rajack sees benefits similar to those envisioned by Rubella in Brazil. In addition to teaching important life skills, Rajack sees a rollerski program as a way to teach citizens a skill that would allow immigrants from Trinidad and Tobago to easily integrate with societies in the Northern Hemisphere, should they choose to leave their country. This vision originated with the positive experience Rajack has had with the ski community in Ottawa.
Seyed Sattar Seyd of Iran (l) with his coach after the men’s 10 k freestyle individual start qualification race on the first day of 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. He placed eighth to qualify for the remaining distance races at the championships.
Seyed Sattar Seyd posted one of the best Iranian cross-country skiing results ever on Wednesday after finishing eighth in the men’s qualifying race. Seyed, 27, is an experienced racer, having competed in both the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics.
Iran now has a FIS-homologated race site at Knoor, approximately 60 k outside its capital of Tehran. Much of the training done by Iranian athletes happens within the borders of Iran and it appears that the current government will assist in keeping it that way. The addition of a biathlon range is planned for the Knoor facility in the near future and the Iranian contingent here in Falun sees a bright future for the sport.
Below are the top-10 competitors that qualified for the remaining distance races at 2015 World Championships. Those who did not qualify have the opportunity to race Thursday’s 1.4-kilometer classic sprint qualifier.
OFFICIAL RESULTS
Women’s 5 k freestyle
1. CHI Chunxue 1998 CHN 13:33.8
2. KARISIK Tanja 1991 BIH +49.3
3. WRIGHT Casey 1994 AUS +1:07.5
4. TRNKA Anna 1994 AUS +1:07.8
5. MUIZHNIECE Anda 1991 LAT +1:09.7
6. PASHKOVSKA Inga 1992 LAT +1:37.3
7. PAPP Ildiko 1982 HUN +1:39.1
8. KIROSKA Rosana 1991 MKD +1:44.9
9. KLAUZA Laima 1969 LAT +1:47.0
10. GALSTYAN Katya 1993 ARM +1:49.2
About the Author: Colin Abbott hails from the Yukon Territory where he learned to ski and race from a young age. Years later his life mostly revolves around skiing. At the moment, Colin is racing for the Yukon Elite Squad and the Carleton Ravens university team. He sits on the board of directors for Cross Country Canada and is involved in the education and womens committees there. He has also started writing ski-related articles for XCOttawa and FasterSkier and for the next week is supporting the Trinidad and Tobago team at FIS Nordic World Ski Championships.
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