Katharine Ogden (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com) and Léo Grandbois (Photo: IBU) are FasterSkier’s 2017 Juniors of the Year.
With the 2016/2017 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to outstanding North American junior athletes across all nordic disciplines.
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Katharine Ogden, Stratton Mountain School/U.S. Ski Team
Yes, Stratton’s Katharine Ogden has earned our “Junior of the Year” honors before. But this season, the 19-year-old Vermont skier rose to even greater heights. Early in the season, she snagged second-place honors in the senior fields at a SuperTour (the 10 k classic in West Yellowstone), a NorAm (the 10 k freestyle at Sovereign Lake), and U.S. National Championships (the 20 k classic mass start).
American Katharine Ogden (SMS/USST) and her dad John celebrate her bronze medal in the women’s 10 k skiathlon on Friday at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: U.S. Ski Team/Tom Kelly)
“This week at worlds has been amazing,” Ogden, wrote in an email to FasterSkier at the time. “Wonderful skiing and good weather and unprecedented results for the whole team.”
And she told the U.S. Ski Team for a press release: “It was really incredible to stand up at the medals ceremony the other night [after the skiathlon]. The only thing I can think of that would be better is standing up there with my friends.”
17-year-old Léo Grandbois of Lennoxville, Québec, just made one international racing trip this season. But on the very first race of the trip, he made a splash.
The youth men’s 12.5 k individual podium after the first race of 2017 IBU Youth/Junior World Championships in Osrblie, Slovakia, with Canada’s Léo Grandbois in first (c), Russia’s Said Karimulla Khalili (l) in second, and Germany’s Danilo Riethmüller (r) in third. (Photo: Airat Aitniakov)
Grandbois had traveled to Brezno-Osrblie, Slovakia, to represent Canada in the youth division at the International Biathlon Union’s World Youth and Junior Championships. The previous season he had competed at the Youth Olympic Games, with a top finish of 22nd, but this was his first time at the bigger event.
In the 12.5 k individual, Grandbois hit every target – the only competitor in the field to go 20-for-20 – and picked up a gold medal, by an impressive minute and 14 seconds over Said Khalili of Russia.
“I am probably the most happy man on earth today!” he wrote in an email to FasterSkier after his win.
Grandbois went on to be one of Canada’s most consistent performers at the Championships, finishing 14th in the sprint and 22nd in the pursuit. The sprint result came despite three penalties.
“I think it just says that I am quite strong even [during] a bad race,” Grandbois said at the time.
“I’m missing 15 days of school to be here, and my teachers/professors are probably thinking, ‘This guy is not doing the right thing,’ but I know that I am doing the right thing,” he wrote in his 20-for-20 interview.
And even then, he wasn’t done yet – Grandbois had proven his speed in that sprint, where he had the tenth-fastest course time in the field. Come the end of the season, he went to Cross Country Canada Ski Nationals for the first time and picked up junior national titles in the 10 k freestyle and the 15 k mass start.
Honorable Mention: Julia Kern, SMS Elite Team/Dartmouth College/U.S. Ski Team
Julia Kern, another Stratton skier with a U.S. Ski Team “D” team affiliation, joined Ogden on the relay podium at Soldier Hollow – and Kern’s efforts brought the team into sixth place at the halfway point of the race.
Julia Kern (U.S. Ski Team D-team/SMS) racing to 29th in the women’s 1.5 k freestyle sprint qualifier on Friday at World Cup Finals in Quebec City. In her first World Cup race, Kern ended up 24th on the day. (Photo: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)
“There is no one I would rather be on the podium with than my best friends and teammates,” Kern, 19, wrote at the time. “Not only did I share the experience with my best friends, but on home soil with all my family and friends there to celebrate with us!”
Six weeks later, Kern got the first World Cup start of her career. It was a skate sprint in Québec City as part of World Cup Finals – and not only did she qualify for the heats, but she finished 24th and scored World Cup points in her first try.
Coming off a clean sweep of the Junior Nationals races in Lake Placid, New York, Kern was confident, and at the same time unsure where she would stack up against the best skiers in the world.
“At the start line it almost felt like a dream because there I was at the start line next to some of the best skiers in the world, skiers who I have looked up to and watched race after race on my computer screen to learn and gain inspiration from,” she wrote. “This is a huge confidence booster for me because it is easy to make a goal and have my teammates and coaches who believe in me tell me results like this are possible. But it is another thing to actually live up to it and believe it yourself, too.”
Honorable Mention: Gareth Williams, Telemark Racers/Canadian Junior National Ski Team
Gareth Williams (Telemark Race Team) on his way to a personal-best 11th in the men’s 20 k skiathlon at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
Where hasn’t Gareth Williams raced this season? The Kelowna cross-country skier started out in Canada, where he snagged a top-10 in the senior NorAm field at Sovereign Lake. At U.S. National Championships, he took third in the junior 10 k classic mass start. And then back in the U.S. for World Junior Championships, he turned in some of Canada’s best results, placing 11th in the 20 k skiathlon and 20th in the 10 k freestyle.
“It is exciting to see that I have the speed to ski with the best juniors in the world,” Williams wrote after the skiathlon. “Being so close to to the top 10 is my only disappointment.”
He headed for more junior racing after that, touring Switzerland and Germany and picking up finishes of second, sixth, and sixth in OPA Cup Juniors action.
Finally, Williams returned to Canada and started World Cup Finals, where he finished 71st overall.
“You’ve got a lot of fast guys, and you’re kind of going from being one of the faster guys to obviously to one of the slowest guys around,” Williams wrote of the experience. “That’s a cool feeling, actually.”
The U.S. women’s relay after taking a historic third in the 4 x 3.3 k relay at 2017 Junior World Championships on Sunday at Soldier Hollow in Midway Utah, with (from left to right) Hailey Swirbul, Katharine Ogden, Julia Kern, and Hannah Halvorsen. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
For fans of North American skiing, some of the last races of U23 and Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, proved beyond captivating, surpassing most expectations and previous results.
But for the U.S. junior women’s relay, a group of four that had set a goal two years ago at a U.S. development training camp, the podium was exactly where they had envisioned themselves.
Relay bronze
Hailey Swirbul, Julia Kern, Hannah Halvorsen, and Katharine Ogden went out and achieved that very goal on Sunday, racing to third in the 4 x 3.3-kilometer relay on the final day of Junior Worlds.
According to Ogden, who became the first American to capture an individual bronze two days earlier in the women’s 10 k skiathlon, the foursome were at a camp two years ago in Lake Placid, N.Y., when they walked into a store together. In the 1980 Olympic village, they found red-white-and-blue tube socks — just like the socks the U.S. Ski Team women wear in World Cup team events — on sale. They each bought a pair and made a goal of wearing them together in the relay at World Juniors.
“The four of us have a group message, and it wasn’t unusual to open that message and see a note from someone who just couldn’t contain their excitement for this relay and had to share it with the rest of us… and this was up to two years ago!” Swirbul explained in an email. “We didn’t just think or hope we were capable of this result, I think we all KNEW we could do it deep down. It was kind of surreal to wake up on the morning of the race and think, ‘Today is the day, this is what we have been waiting for for so long! Let’s do this.’ ”
So just by getting to the relay start line on Sunday, they achieved their goal. But they knew they were capable of a top, even best-ever, result.
Hailey Swirbul tucking into the stadium as the first skier on the U.S. women’s 4 x 3.3 k relay team at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
Swirbul started the team off by skiing to eighth in the first classic leg.
“My leg of the race started out fast — exactly what I had expected going into it,” Swirbul wrote. “The first kilometer flew by, and before I knew it, I was cresting the peak of the biggest climb of the course with legs that felt like they were made of lead! I tried to stretch them out on the downhill and hung onto the girls around me through the rolling last kilometer of the race. That 3k was tough!!”
She tagged off to Kern, who moved the team into sixth by the race’s halfway point. Kern came down with a cold last Wednesday and sat out Friday’s skiathlon to rest of for the relay.
“I was feeling a lot better today but definitely not 100% healthy,” Kern wrote in an email. “My goal was to go out and ski the best leg I could and fight hard to the finish because every second counts. I wasn’t really nervous until I was hanging around in the start pen waiting to see Hailey throw down a strong first leg. I was most nervous that I wouldn’t be able to ski well since I am not completely healthy and let the team down.”
She focused on skiing strong over the second half of the course, “since it played my strengths and I knew people would be hurting at the point,” Kern wrote. She tagged Halvorsen in sixth, about 25 seconds out of third and 45.5 seconds behind Italy in first.
Skiing the first skate leg for the U.S., Halvorsen focused on third place. She attacked on the climb known as “Horseshoe Hill”, passing Sweden and France to take that position, but France’s Laura Chamiot-Maitral passed her back on the downhill.
After the race, Halvorsen told the U.S. Ski Team media that she had learned a lot about pacing the 3.3 k after placing 13th in the 5 k freestyle earlier in the week (following Ogden, who fifth).
“I realized I just needed to trust myself and not start so fast — just be calm and slowly catch up,” she said.
The final exchange of the 4 x 3.3 k relay, with Americans Hannah Halvorsen (second from left) before tagging Katharine Ogden (l) in fourth, right behind France (6) in third. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
Halvorsen tagged Ogden in fourth at the final exchange, just 2.1 seconds out of third.
“I knew that no matter what, I needed to catch up to third place,” Ogden reflected in an email. “I honestly didn’t even think about pacing myself and just went hard from the tag.”
On the long, sustained climb on the backside of the 3.3 k loop, Ogden passed France’s Lena Quintin to move into third. As she soared down the other side, within view of her teammates, Ogden continued to push the pace to lock up third.
“I know Katharine’s technique really well so when I spotted a black dot skiing along I knew it could only be Katharine,” wrote Kern, Ogden’s teammate for the last two seasons at the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) in Vermont. Kern, Ogden and Halvorsen are all members of the U.S. Ski Team (USST) development “D” team.
“I waited a few more seconds but still no one came and I knew she had third locked in!” Kern wrote.
“I was crying when I saw her all alone,” Swirbul told the USST.
“I came into the finish and saw the team standing there cheering for me and it was an incredibly special moment,” Ogden reflected.
She finished third, 25.8 seconds behind Russia in first and just 5.2 seconds behind Italy in second. France’s Quintin finished about 40 seconds later in fourth. The bronze was the first for a U.S. women’s relay at Junior Worlds.
The first U.S. women’s team to podium at Junior World Championships: (from left to right) Hailey Swirbul, Katharine Ogden, Hannah Halvorsen, and Julia Kern, after placing third in the 4 x 3.3 k on Sunday at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
“This week at worlds has been amazing,” wrote Ogden, 19, who left the championships with two bronze medals in her final year of Junior Worlds eligibility. “Wonderful skiing and good weather and unprecedented results for the whole team…”
“It was really incredible to stand up at the medals ceremony the other night,” she told the USST. “The only thing I can think of that would be better is standing up there with my friends.”
“This has been a dream for us for more than two years,” Swirbul, and 18-year-old University of Alaska Anchorage freshman, told the USST. “To see that dream come true — I was crying, happy, hugging and screaming — all in one emotion.”
“I was so happy but not in shock — because I knew we could do it,” Halvorsen, 18, of the Sugar Bowl Academy, told the USST.
Halvorsen, of Truckee, Calif., brought her little sister up on the podium with her.
“After having my whole family here: parents, grandparents, four brothers, and baby sister, it was special to bring the littlest one up to the podium,” Halvorsen wrote in an email.
“There is no one I would rather be on the podium with than my best friends and teammates,” Kern, 19, wrote. “Not only did I share the experience with my best friends, but on home soil with all my family and friends there to celebrate with us!
“I am just proud of our team because everyone skied so well and brought their A game today,” Kern continued. “And to have [USST development coach] Bryan Fish there to help us make it happen was amazing because he has worked so hard to help us become the fastest skiers we can be and this has always been a dream of his as well!”
“I am so lucky to be in this generation with these tough competitors that double as amazing teammates, and I think our country is just getting started with more exciting results to come!” Swirbul wrote.
Russia took the lead on the third leg and stayed ahead of Italy for gold, finishing first in 34:45.3 minutes, with Polina Nekrasova, Lidia Durkina, Anna Zherebyateva, and Mariya Istomina. Italy secured second (+20.6) with Martina Bellini, Anna Comarella, Francesca Franchi, and Christina Pittin, while France was fourth (+1:05.0) with Juliette Ducordeau, Flora Dolci, Chamiot-Maitral, and Quintin. Sweden finished fifth (+1:20.3), and Canada placed 12th (+4:41.3) of 12 teams, with Natalie Hynes, Lisle Compton, India McIsaac, and Annika Richardson.
In the junior men’s 4 x 5 k relay that followed, Norway eked out the win over Russia by 0.4 seconds, with Herman Martens Meyer, Jon Rolf Skamo Hope, Harald Østberg Amundsen, and Thomas Helland Larsen, in 49:36.1. After the first leg, which Germany’s classic-sprint winner Janosch Brugger led, the race was a Norway-Russia battle for first, with Russia leading through the second and third exchanges before Larsen outlunged Vladislav Vechkanov at the finish.
Russia took silver with Vechkanov, Egor Kazarinov, Kirill Kilivnyuk, and Yaroslav Rybochkin, ahead of France, which skied most of the race in third in finished in that position (+1:05), with Martin Collet, Camille Laude, Hugo Lapels, and Arnaud Chautemps.
Of 12 teams, the U.S. finished ninth (+4:28.8) with Bill Harmeyer, Kam Husain, Wyatt Gebhardt, and Hunter Wonders, after skiing in sixth during the first two classic legs, then slipping to ninth on the third leg.
Canada followed in 10th (+5:21.6), with Antoine Blais, Ryan Jackson, Philippe Boucher, and Gareth Williams, after skiing in ninth for the first two legs.
Paddy Caldwell switching to skate skis during the halfway point of the men’s 30 k skiathlon on Jan. 4 at 2017 U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
The day before, in the last races of U23 World Championships on Saturday, American Paddy Caldwell matched his personal best from two days earlier in the 15 k freestyle, placing ninth in the men’s 30 k skiathlon.
Caldwell had been 10th at the ski change halfway through the race, following his U.S. teammate Jack Hegman in ninth by half a second.
Paddy Caldwell, of the Stratton Mountain School and U.S. Ski Team, racing to ninth in the men’s 15 k freestyle at 2017 U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: U.S. Ski Team/Tom Kelly)
“Starting off in the classic leg I was trying to stay relaxed and maintain position,” Caldwell wrote in an email. “For the first half of the classic I was at the tail end of the lead group then started to lose some time over the last part of the classic.”
He and Hegman started skiing together about 8 k into the 15 k classic leg, and remained together for most of the rest of the race. At the transition, they were about 44 seconds behind eighth place and 13 seconds ahead of 11th.
“I was really struggling with breathing during the classic leg so I tried to relax for the first part of the skate leg and maintain our position,” Caldwell wrote. “We put in a surge on the second lap of the skate to try to catch the group ahead of us (5th-8th) but they were just out of contact. On the last lap I put in one last push early on to break away from the French skier in 10th and got just far enough ahead to hold him off on the last climb before the long decent into the stadium.”
With the sixth-fastest skate leg, Caldwell (SMS/USST D-team) finished ninth, 9.2 seconds ahead of France’s Jean Tiberghien in 10th. Nearly 20 seconds after Tiberghien, Hegman finished 11th (+1:53.5) for a career best at his first U23 Worlds.
American Jack Hegman (SVSEF) racing to 24th in the men’s 15 k freestyle on Feb. 2 at 2017 U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
“I think I am slightly better at skating, but felt really good about my classic skiing today,” Hegman, of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team, wrote in an email. “ I think I was able to gain some good time on the classic portion and then hold on in the skate. In the skate portion I tried to follow Paddy as long as I could and conserve energy. I lost quite a bit of time in the last 2k but thankfully didn’t lose too many places.”
“For the entire skate leg, when I realized I was in the top 12, all I was thinking about was holding onto that top 12 position,” Hegman wrote.
The two led three U.S. men in the top 15, with Adam Martin (Northern Michigan University) not far behind in 15th (+2:23.3). For Martin, it was his first skiathlon in three years (he finished 40th in the 20 k skiathlon at 2014 Junior Worlds in Val di Fiemme, Italy).
Adam Martin (Northern Michigan University) racing to 15th in the men’s 30 k skiathlon on Saturday at 2017 U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. It was his first top 20 in two U23 Worlds. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
“I wanted to go out hard enough to establish a decent position, but also wanted to conserve sufficient energy to ski a strong back end of the race,” Martin wrote of Saturday’s eight-lap race.
He skied most of it with the Czech Republic’s Petr Knop, who ultimately finished 14th, 1.4 seconds ahead of Martin.
“Sometimes I was following, and sometimes I led and tried to catch up to the skiers in front of us,” Martin wrote.
“I’ve never been top 20 at one of these competitions before, so top 15 is cool,” he added. “I think I’ve had very decent races this week!”
“It is awesome to see three of us in the top 15 today,” Hegman wrote. “I think having the momentum from this week with so many good performances helped us quite a bit today. Also our skis were awesome today (and all week).”
“I am really happy with my results all week,” wrote Caldwell, who notched top 20’s in all three races, including 18th in the classic sprint to start the championships. “It was an amazing week of racing for USA and I was really happy to end on a high note.”
Russia swept the men’s 30 k skiathlon podium with Alexander Bolshunov, Alexey Chervotkin, and Denis Spitsov, respectively, after the three skied together for most of the race, well ahead of France’s Jules Lapierre and Switzerland’s Jason Rueesch in pursuit of them. As the Russians descended down the final hill — clear of any outside contenders for the podium — they locked arms and coasted into the stadium together. Just before the finish line, they stopped to cross as one.
According to a USST press release, the competition jury had to review timing and scoring records, as well as consult photo assets and the finish referee to determine who finished first, second and third. Gold went to Bolshunov, who also won the 15 k freestyle two days earlier, with an official finish time of 1:15:31.5 hours. Chervotkin was listed as second (+0.2) and Spitsov third (+0.5).
Lapierre crossed 11 seconds later in fourth, about three seconds ahead of Rueesch in fifth (+14.3).
Evan Palmer-Charrette (NTDC Thunder Bay) led the Canadian men in 26th (+5:44.6). Alexis Dumas of the Pierre Harvey National Training Centre (CNEPH) finished 33rd (+9:02.7) out of 36 finishers. Several North Americans did not finish, including Canada’s Julien Lamoureux and Julien Smith, and American Cal Deline.
In the U23 women’s 15 k skiathlon earlier on Saturday, Canada had three in the top 30, with Dahria Beatty (Alberta World Cup Academy/Canadian National U25 Team) in 19th (+2:18.1) for her third top 20 of the week. Katherine Stewart-Jones (NTDC Thunder Bay/NST U25 Team) placed 21st (+2:29.3) for her best result at U23 Worlds, and Frederique Vezina (CNEPH) notched a personal-best 29th (+3:36.2). The team’s fourth skier, Jenn Jackson, did not finish.
Jesse Knori, of the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU) led the U.S. women in 30th (+3:40.1). Alayna Sonnesyn (University of Vermont) followed in 31st (+3:42.5), Nichole Bathe (University of Alaska Fairbanks) was 33rd (+4:36.9), and Corey Stock (Bridger Ski Foundation) 36th (+5:42.1).
Another CU skier, Petra Hyncicova, who raced for her native Czech Republic, placed 22nd (+2:30.7) for her second-best result of the week after placing 20th in the classic sprint.
Norway’s 19-year-old Lotta Udnes Weng won the 15 k skiathlon for her first gold of U23 Worlds, finishing in 40:50.9 minutes and besting Finland’s Johanna Matintalo by 3.8 seconds. Russia’s Yana Kirpichenko captured third (+13.9), edging Weng’s twin sister, Tiril Udnes Weng in fourth (+15.6).
“On paper, this is not my best distance,” Lotta Weng, a six-time Junior Worlds medalist, told the USST. “But I knew I could do well in both classic and skate, and that if I had a really good day, I could ski for a gold medal … I knew I would have a good sprint and I was just trusting it.”
American Ben Loomis (10) racing to a career-best ninth in the individual normal hill/5 k competition on Feb. 4 at Nordic Combined Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: U.S. Ski Team/Tom Kelly)
Ninth for Loomis
Also on Saturday, in the last individual competition of nordic-combined Junior Worlds, 18-year-old American Ben Loomis notched his first top 10 in his third Junior Worlds appearance.
Loomis started the day by jumping to 10th on the normal hill at Utah Olympic Park in Park City, his home training base. That put the U.S. Nordic Combined skier 58 seconds out of first and 11 seconds behind Finland’s Arttu Mäkiaho in ninth for the start of the 5 k race at Soldier Hollow. While Loomis didn’t catch Mäkiaho (who raced to second place for his second-straight individual medal after winning the normal hill/10 k to start the week), Loomis picked off one place to finish ninth, 1:22.3 minutes behind the winner, Germany’s Vinzenz Geiger.
“My goals for the 5k competition were to jump into the top ten, and to not lose any ground during the race,” Loomis wrote in an email. “I was able to do this, but was still hoping for a higher finish.”
He explained that a snow flurry during the jumping competition left the last 20 starters on the hill waiting for it to pass. Loomis was the fourth-to-last to jump, out of 49 starters.
“I was able to stay relaxed, focused and have my best competition jump of the week,” he explained. “The home hill advantage made a huge difference in my jumping. Prior to this week, I had little jumps on the hill this winter. Luckily, I know the hill well and was able to get in rhythm with the jump very quickly.”
Considering his starting position in the 5 k, which is half the distance of the usual 10 k in nordic-combined competitions, Loomis said he knew he needed to move up quickly, but do so in a controlled manner.
“5 k really places a big importance on the jumping,” Loomis told the USST. “It’s a lot harder to make up time, and these Europeans are really quick.”
He paced his first 2.5 k, and by the second lap, he worked with Norway’s Lars Ivar Skaarset — who had caught Loomis after starting 12th — to rein in Slovenia’s Matevz Malovrh, who started fourth and was fading. While Skaarset finished 17.4 seconds ahead of Loomis for eighth place, they both beat Malovrh, who placed 10th, 1.8 seconds behind Loomis.
“Overall, I am very happy with my 9th place result. I was hoping for a little more, but to be 9th in the world is very special,” Loomis wrote. “I am already looking forward to next year’s competitions and approaching them with even more experience.”
Earlier in the week, Loomis placed 18th in the normal hill/10 k and skied the third leg of the men’s 4 x 5 k team event, in which the U.S. placed seventh (with Elijah Vargas, Grant Andrews, Loomis, and Stephen Schumann). After Vargas tagged Andrews in 10th, Andrews skied them into ninth, and Loomis brought the U.S. up to seventh, which Schumann held during the final leg.
The U.S. had two in the top 15 on Saturday, with Schumann in 15th (+1:44.3), up from 20th after the jump. Grant Andrews placed 33rd (+2:40.0) and Tucker Hoefler finished 46th (+3:56.9).
Geiger won Saturday’s normal hill/5 k after jumping to first then starting with a 4-second lead over Japan’s Yuto Nakamura in second. Mäkiaho passed seven people to finish second, 22.6 seconds after Geiger, who won in 12:14.9 minutes. France’s Laurent Muhlethaler started fifth and captured third (+23.9), while Nakamura missed the podium in fourth (+42.8).
“It’s great to be on top of the podium today, after the 10k it was so hard for me due to some illness and an injury after I fell at the World Cup in Chaux Neuve,” Geiger said. “It just feels amazing to be Junior World Champion now.”
The women’s 4 x 3.3 k relay podium on the final day of 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, with Russia (c) in first, Italy (l) in second, and the U.S. (with Hailey Swirbul, Julia Kern, Hannah Halvorsen, and Katharine Ogden) in third. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
FIS Nordic Junior World Championships (Midway, Utah): Junior relays
Hailey Swirbul, Julia Kern, Hannah Halvorsen, and Katharine Ogden on the podium. That’s right. Two days after Ogden became the first American to earn an individual medal at Junior World Championships, those four U.S. junior women listed above did the same, placing third in the 4 x 3.3-kilometer relay on the last day of 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
The team credited their lucky socks, similar to the red-white-and-blue striped socks the U.S. women’s World Cup team wears for relays and team events.
“We gave everything we got,” Kern said in a televised post-race interview.
“It’s the dream,” Ogden said.
In fourth at the last exchange, Ogden anchored the team to third, 25.8 seconds behind Russia, which won in 34:45.3 minutes with Polina Nekrasova, Lidia Durkina, Anna Zherebyateva, and Mariya Istomina.
Italy placed second (+20.6) with Martina Bellini, Anna Comarella, Francesca Franchi, and Christina Pittin.
Canada finished 12th (+4:41.3) with Natalie Hynes, Lisle Compton, India McIsaac, and Annika Richardson.
[UPDATED] In the junior men’s 4 x 5 k relay that followed, Norway’s Thomas Helland Larsen outlasted Russia’s Vladislav Vechkanov by 0.4 seconds for the team win in 49:36.1.
Norway’s gold-medal team included Herman Martens Meyer, Jon Rolf Skamo Hope, Harald Østberg Amundsen, and Larsen, while Russia took silver with Egor Kazarinov, Kirill Kilivnyuk, Yaroslav Rybochkin, and Vechkanov.
France rounded out the podium in third (+1:05), with Martin Collet, Camille Laude, Hugo Lapels, and Arnaud Chautemps.
The U.S. finished ninth (+4:28.8) with Bill Harmeyer, Kam Husain, Wyatt Gebhardt, and Hunter Wonders, and Canada followed in 10th (+5:21.6) with Antoine Blais, Ryan Jackson, Philippe Boucher, and Gareth Williams. Twelve teams finished the men’s relay, the final race of 2017 Junior World Championships.
FIS Cross-Country World Cup (PyeongChang, South Korea): Freestyle team sprint
The women’s freestyle team sprint podium at the PyeongChang World Cup on Sunday in South Korea, with Sweden’s Elin Mohlin and Maria Nordström (c) in first, Norway’s Anna Svensen and Silje Øyre Slind (l) in second, and USA I’s Ida Sargent and Sophie Caldwell (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
The U.S. women had one team on the podium and one just 0.35 seconds off of it on Sunday in the World Cup 6 x 1.4-kilometer freestyle team sprint in PyeongChang, South Korea.
USA I, with Sophie Caldwell and Ida Sargent, skied in third for most of the race and ultimately finished third, 6.11 seconds behind Sweden’s Elin Mohlin and Maria Nordström in first (in 20:37.11 minutes). Norway took second, 1.71 seconds back, with Anna Svensen and Silje Øyre Slind, while USA I edged USA II, with Caitlin Patterson and Liz Stephen for third. Patterson and Stephen ended up fourth (+6.46), ahead of Slovenia’s Katja Visnar and Anamarija Lampic in fifth (+14.46).
Fifteen women’s teams competed on Sunday, with 10 of them reaching the final. Canada placed 14th overall with Annika Hicks and Sadie White.
In the men’s 6 x 1.5 k freestyle team sprint, Russia’s Gleb Retivykh picked up his second win in in PyeongChang, after winning Friday’s classic sprint. He teamed up with Andrey Parfenov for the victory in 19:34.11, beating France (Baptiste Gros/Lucas Chanavat) by 0.03 seconds in a photo finish.
Russia had two teams on the podium with Russia II’s Artem Maltsev and Nikita Kriukov in third (+5.52). Andy Newell and Simi Hamilton (USA I) fell off the leaders’ pace to finish fourth (+24.23), 18.71 seconds off the podium.
USA II, with Scott Patterson and Matt Gelso, finished ninth (+54.85) in the final, and Canada’s Jess Cockney and Len Valjas placed 13th of 14 teams.
NorAm Eastern Canadian Championships (Cantley, Quebec): 15/20 k freestyle pursuits
SMS Elite’s Anne Hart catching Nakkertok’s Zoe Williams in the interval start classic, day two of Eastern Championships. (Photo: Ian Austen)
The NorAm mini tour at the Nakkertok Nordic Centre wrapped up with freestyle pursuits.
In the men’s 20 k, AWCA’s Russell Kennedy posted the fastest time of 53:42.68 to move up from third to take the overall victory in 1:33.22. Lappe Nordic’s Andy Shields started first but couldn’t hold off Kennedy, finishing 36 seconds behind with a 6th best time, 1:01.46 slower. AWCA’s Dominique Moncion-Groulx wrapped up a strong weekend with the fourth best time of day, 37.92 back, to take third overall, 58.53 behind Kennedy.
SMS Elite’s Anne Hart won the women’s 15 k pursuit in dominant style, starting first and winning time of day in 47:36.10 for an overall time of 1:17:39. AWCA’s Maya MacIsaac-Jones started third and finished second with the second best time of day, 31.36 seconds back for a combined deficit of 51.39 seconds. CNEPH’s Sophie Carrier-Laforte started second and ended third, 2:14.81 down after a sixth best time of day 2:05.47 back.
Katharine Ogden (l) became the first American to reach the podium in an individual race at Nordic Junior World Championships on Friday after placing third in the women’s 10 k skiathlon. Norway’s Marte Mæhlum Johansen won the race for her first gold of the championships (c) and Sweden’s Ebba Andersson was second (r). (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
Almost exactly two years. That’s how long 19-year-old Katharine Ogden recalled her longing for a medal at Junior World Championships, but she can trace her inspiration back to much earlier as a kid growing up in southern Vermont.
Her father, a ski coach, put her on skis when she was 3, and Ogden joined a youth cross-country ski program in her hometown of Landgrove, Vt., when she was 5. In eighth grade, she began studying and training at the Stratton Mountain School, where she followed in the footsteps of U.S. Ski Team members Sophie Caldwell and Andy Newell.
American Katharine Ogden (SMS/USST) and her dad John celebrate her bronze medal in the women’s 10 k skiathlon on Friday at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: U.S. Ski Team/Tom Kelly)
“When I was really little, I would look up to Sophie and Andy Newell because they were from my home area,” Ogden explained on the phone Friday.
Now a member of the U.S. Ski Team’s development “D” team, Ogden said the entire U.S. team has been an inspiration to her.
“They’re all pretty amazing people and I look up to each and every one of them,” she said.
On Friday, she woke up to the news that U.S. sprinter Ida Sargent (also from Vermont) had placed third in the World Cup classic sprint in PyeongChang, South Korea.
That got Ogden excited for the day, and she went on to navigate her usual pre-race nerves, which were somewhat amplified considering the task ahead of her.
“There was a lot of mostly self-inflicted pressure because it’s been my goal for two years and this was kind of my last chance to achieve that goal,” Ogden said on the phone Friday, after her last individual race at her third Junior World Championships. “It was a little high-stress morning for me. but then the gun goes off and it goes away, and it’s like, ‘This is what I like doing.’ ”
Two days earlier, Ogden had raced to a career-best fifth in the 5-kilometer freestyle at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. That was great, she said, but even better — it wasn’t even her target race. She was going for the podium in the skiathlon.
It all went back to her sixth place in the skiathlon at 2015 Junior Worlds in Almaty, Kazakhstan. After that, she thought, “I can get a podium,” she said. But it didn’t quite work out that way. At 2016 Junior Worlds, she finished 13th in two individual distance races, the 5 k classic and 10 k skate.
“Every day in training, it’s kind of something that I think about. It’s the little thing that helps me push myself,” she said in an interview with the U.S. Ski Team on Friday. “Even in the middle of June I’ll be like, ‘You know what I want to be? On the podium at World Juniors.’ ”
She delivered on Friday, racing to third in the women’s 10 k skiathlon on U.S. soil in front of a home crowd, including her dad. In doing so, Ogden became the first American to medal in an individual race at Nordic Junior Worlds.
“I worked really hard for this and it’s really awesome to see that everything that I’ve done is really coming together,” Ogden said on the phone. “It’s also pretty sweet that I was able to time my training perfectly that I was able to race my fastest here.”
Norway’s Marte Mæhlum Johansen (2) and Germany’s Antonia Fräbel (3) leading early in the women’s 10 k skiathlon on Friday at 2017 Junior World Championships, along with American Katharine Ogden (4) and Italy’s Anna Comarella (5) on the first of four laps at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
Ogden started the four-lap race, which started with a 5 k classic leg and ended with 5 k of skating, in a prime position: right up front alongside Norway’s Marte Mæhlum Johansen, Sweden’s Ebba Andersson and Italy’s Anna Comarella — four of the women who finished ahead of her in Wednesday’s 5 k (which Andersson won by 13.8 seconds over Johansen),
While Ogden recalled a noticeable improvement in her classic skiing in the last year, she was slightly more confident in her skating, so she made a goal to stick with the leaders early to put herself in contention for the second half of the race.
“I kind of went into the race with the mindset that I’m going to stick with the leaders and if I blow up, I blow up, and hopefully I don’t,” she said. “On a good day I think I can stay with them. Kind of a ‘go big or go home’ mindset.”
For the first lap, she was one of about six women skiing together up front, with Johansen and Andersson leading the charge.
“I had the Norwegian and the Swede in sight so that was cool,” Ogden said. “They were off the front, but not crazy off the front. I still had some contact.”
At the halfway point of the race, Andersson reached the pit stop first to make the switch to skate skis, Johansen came in alongside her in second and Comarella in third. While Ogden exchanged in fourth, she didn’t waste any time catching Comarella on the first skate lap.
“I was pretty happy with where I was, for sure, in the classic part, and I knew that once I got on skate skis, I’d probably be at a little more of an advantage because I’m historically better at that,” Ogden told the U.S. Ski Team.
Norway’s Marte Mæhlum Johansen (r) making a move up the final climb of the second-to-last lap in Friday’s 10 k skiathlon at Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow, while skiing with Sweden’s Ebba Andersson (l) and USAs Katharine Ogden (c). (Photo: U.S. Ski Team/Tom Kelly)
She went on to drop the Italian and worked her way back in contact with Johansen and Andersson. On the second-to-last lap, ascending the final climb before the stadium, Johansen attacked on an inside corner and passed Andersson before the top. The Norwegian led into the downhill, while Ogden followed in third, slightly off the back of the two.
For the last 2.5 k, Johansen and Andersson jockeyed for the win, while Ogden continued to put time into Comarella behind her to lock up third place. Coming off the final downhill and into the final lefthand corner into the finishing straight, she looked back to see if anyone was behind her.
Nope.
While Johansen outlasted Andersson by 6.6 seconds for the gold medal, finishing first in 27:17.3, Ogden was 10.4 seconds back in third. Comarella finished 41.2 seconds later in fourth (+51.6), just ahead of Finland’s Eveliina Piippo in fifth (+58.7), while Germany’s Antonia Fräbel led a chase group across the line in sixth (+1:29.1).
For 19-year-old Johansen, it was her second gold in two Junior Worlds after winning the 5 k classic last year in Rasnov, Romania.
“I’m so happy. My shape was good and I felt strong almost all the way,” she told the U.S. Ski Team media after.
Asked about her experience in Utah, Johansen replied, “Amazing. It’s one of the most beautiful places I have skied ever.”
Of 44 finishers, Ogden posted the fastest skate leg in 12:47.3 minutes, 2.3 seconds faster than Johansen. Asked why she targeted the multi-technique race since her first skiathlon in 2015, Ogden said it had something to do with her lack of a preference of classic vs. skate.
Katharine Ogden (SMS/USST) finishing third for bronze in the women’s 10 k skiathlon on Friday at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. She is the first American to reach the podium in a Junior World Championships. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
Still, “generally, I think the skiathlons favor stronger skaters,” she said. That played to her strength.
With the third place, Ogden surpassed Lindsey Williams’s previous best individual result of fourth place (at a 2003 skate sprint in Solleftea, Sweden) to become the most successful American — and first individual medalist — at Junior Worlds. While she wasn’t aware of the context of her medal, Ogden was thrilled to have friends and family at Soldier Hollow, including her dad, to share it with.
“It’s just so much fun. The whole process,” she told the U.S. Ski Team. “Every day I’m out here, it’s just living the life, living the dream, and that’s what it should be about.”
Three of Ogden’s U.S. teammates also raced in Friday’s skiathlon, with Hailey Swirbul (University of Alaska Anchorage) finishing 24th (+2:21.0) for her first top 30 in her second Junior Worlds. Lauren Jortberg (Dartmouth) followed in 37th (+4:04.5) and Taeler McCrerey (University of Denver) 38th (+4:07.5).
In her final year of eligibility for Junior Worlds, Ogden is looking forward to the last race: Sunday’s relay.
“I think we can do some damage this year with the U.S. team so that’ll be really cool,” she said.
Swirbul’s teammate on the UAA Ski Team, Canada’s Natalie Hynes, of Whitehorse led her team in 28th (+3:11.3) for her first top 40 result at her second Junior Worlds, followed by India McIsaac (Rocky Mountain Racers) in 30th (+3:13.8), Lisle Compton (NTDC Thunder Bay) in 33rd (+3:45.5), and Annika Richardson (NTDC Thunder Bay/National Junior Team) in 41st (+4:49.3), all of which notched their best results at Junior Worlds as well.
Katharine Ogden (r) with U.S. teammates Hailey Swirbul (l) and Hannah Halvorsen (c) after Swirbul learned Ogden placed third in the women’s 10 k skiathlon at Junior World Championships. Swirbul was the second American in 24th on Friday at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
Katharine Ogden (SMS/USST) finishing third for bronze in the women’s 10 k skiathlon on Friday at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. She is the first American to reach the podium in a Junior World Championships. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
FIS Nordic Junior World Championships (Midway, Utah): 10/20 k skiathlon
A Junior World Championships medal has been on Katharine Ogden’s mind for some time — two years, to be exact.
“Every day in training, it’s kind of something that I think about. It’s the little thing that helps me push myself,” Ogden, a 19-year-old member of the Stratton Mountain School and U.S. Ski Team D-team, said in a post-race interview with the U.S. Ski Team on Friday. “Even in the middle of June, I’ll be like, ‘You know what I want to be? On the podium at World Juniors.’ ”
She did just that on Friday, racing to third in the women’s 10-kilometer skiathlon at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. In doing so, she became the most successful American at World Juniors, surpassing Lindsey Williams’s previous best of fourth place in 2003.
Ogden finished 10.4 seconds behind the winner, Norway’s Marte Mæhlum Johansen, who finished first in 27:17.3 minutes. Sweden’s Ebba Andersson took second, 6.6 seconds back. Behind Ogden, Italy’s Anna Comarella placed fourth (+51.6) ahead of Finland’s Eveliina Piippo in fifth (+58.7).
Hailey Swirbul (University of Alaska Anchorage) was the second U.S. woman in 24th (+2:21.0), while Natalie Hynes (Whitehorse) led Canada in 28th (+3:11.3).
Also for Canada, India McIsaac (Rocky Mountain Racers) finished 30th (+3:13.8), Lisle Compton (NTDC Thunder Bay) was 33rd (+3:45.5) and Annika Richardson (NTDC Thunder Bay) 41st (+4:49.3).
Also for the U.S., Lauren Jortberg (Dartmouth) finished 37th (+4:04.5) and Taeler McCrerey (University of Denver) 38th (+4:07.5).
[UPDATED] In the men’s 20 k skiathlon that followed, Russia’s Vladislav Vechkanov notched his second gold of the week in 49:40.5, outlasting Norway’s Thomas Helland Larsen by 1.9 seconds. Norway had two on the podium with Harald Østberg Amundsen in third (+2.2).
Canada’s Gareth Williams (Telemark Race Team) was the top North American in 11th (+1:24.0) for his best result at his first Junior Worlds.
American Wyatt Gebhardt (Steamboat Springs WSC) followed in 12th (+1:42.7) for his second-straight top 20 and Hunter Wonders (Alaska Pacific University) also finished in the top 20 for the second-straight race in 18th (+1:57.9).
Canada’s Philippe Boucher (CNEPH) was 22nd (+3:15.7), Ryan Jackson (Team Hardwood) 31st (+3:52.5), and Remi Drolet (Black Jack) 49th (+6:57.3).
Also for the U.S., Kam Husain (SMS) placed 50th (+6:59), and Logan Diekmann (University of Utah) was 53rd (+7:47.3).
NorAm Eastern Canadian Championships (Cantley, Quebec): Classic sprint
The NorAm series resumed at the Nakkertok Nordic Centre on Friday with Eastern Canadian Championships with classic technique sprints.
Alberta World Cup Academy’s Maya MacIsaac-Jones returned from U23s in time to win the 1.3 k A-final in 3:42.06, after qualifying sixth. Top qualifier Sophie Carrier-Laforte was second for CNEPH at her home event, 0.66 seconds behind. SMS Elite’s Anne Hart rounded out the podium at 3.40 seconds back.
On the men’s side, AWCA’s Dominique Moncion-Groulx qualified first before winning every heat on his way to victory in 3:14.84 on a slightly longer 1.4 k course. NTDC Thunder Bay’s Angus Foster was a close second, 0.09 seconds behind. Team R.A.D.’s Russell Kennedy was a comfortable third, 2.75 seconds back, on a day marked by some surprising eliminations.
The elite field is slightly smaller than usual with some athletes away in Soldier Hollow and PyeongChang. As many younger racers were stuck in school for the day, there are only about 500 starters for what is usually the largest FIS event in Canada.
FIS Cross-Country World Cup (PyeongChang, South Korea): Classic sprint
The women’s 1.4 k classic sprint podium on Friday at the pre-Olympic PyeongChang World Cup in South Korea, with Slovenia’s Anamarija Lampič (c) in first, Norway’s Silje Øyre Slind (l) in second, and American Ida Sargent (r) in third. It was the first time on the World Cup podium for all three athletes. (Photo: FIS Cross-Country/Twitter)
In the last month, we’ve seen two U.S. Ski Team members — Jessie Diggins and Sadie Bjornsen — on the World Cup podium. Add Ida Sargent to that list.
On Friday, the Vermont native raced to third in the women’s 1.4-kilometer classic sprint at the first-ever World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. It was the first of three days of racing in PyeongChang, which will host the 2018 Winter Olympics next season.
Sargent qualified fifth (4.76 seconds behind her teammate Sophie Caldwell, who won the qualifier in 3:40.89 minutes) and went on to win her quarterfinal in a photo finish, then placed second her semifinal (also in a photo finish), edging Russia’s Alisa Zhambalova in third by less than 0.01 seconds.
Both advanced to the final, where Sargent ultimately finished third, 1.79 seconds behind Slovenia’s Anamarija Lampič, who won in 3:41.97. Norway’s Silje Øyre Slind took second (+1.6), just 0.19 seconds ahead of Sargent. For all three women, it was their first time on a World Cup podium.
Sargent beat out Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk for third by 0.56 seconds. Zhambalova finished fifth and Slovenia’s Katja Visnar was sixth (+17.1).
“I’m really excited about the podium and it hasn’t really set in yet,” Sargent wrote in an email on Friday. “It has been a goal of mine for a long time to be on the podium so it was a very special day! I’ve been inspired by so many fast teammates so happy to follow in their footsteps!”
All five U.S. women racing on Friday finished in the top 30 to qualify for the heats. Caldwell won the qualifier by 1.84 seconds over Kowalczyk, Caitlin Patterson qualified 22nd, Liz Guiney 25th and Liz Stephen 29th (Stephen’s first time making the heats in three years).
Jessica Yeaton, who races for Australia but trains with Alaska Pacific University, took the last qualifying spot in 30th (+26.29).
Canada’s Annika Hicks and Sadie White missed qualifying in 32nd (+32.96) and 34th (+38.96), respectively, out of 36 women.
Caldwell won her quarterfinal but finished fourth in her semifinal (behind Slind, Kowalczyk, and Sweden’s Maria Nordström, respectively) to miss advancing to the final. She placed eighth overall.
Guiney placed 24th overall after finishing fifth in her quarterfinal, Stephen was 25th after taking fifth in the same quarterfinal as Sargent (where Yeaton finished sixth for 30th overall), and Patterson was 27th after finishing sixth in her quarterfinal.
***
Both Canada’s Len Valjas and American Andy Newell reached the final in the men’s 1.5 k classic sprint on Friday, where they raced to fourth and sixth, respectively.
Valjas started the day by qualifying in second, 1.97 seconds behind Russia’s Alexander Panzhinskiy, who topped the qualifier in 3:26.78. The Canadian went on to advance in second from his quarterfinal and fourth as a lucky loser from the first semifinal. In the final, he missed out on the podium in a photo finish with Russia’s Andrey Parfenov, who took third, 0.01 seconds ahead of him.
Meanwhile, Newell qualified seventh (+5.18) and took second in both his quarterfinal and semifinal (finishing the second semifinal 0.34 seconds behind Panzhinskiy in first).
In the final, Russia’s 25-year-old Gleb Retivykh pulled off his first World Cup victory and podium with a 0.3-second win over Norway’s Sondre Turvoll Fossli in 3:30.79. Retivykh qualified sixth (+4.53) then won his quarterfinal and placed third in the same semifinal as Valjas, advancing as the other lucky loser.
“I had wait six years for my first victory and it is great,” Retivykh said, according to an International Ski Federation (FIS) press release.
Russia had two on the podium with Parfenov in third (+0.73), just ahead of Valjas. The third Russian in the final, Panzhinsky ended up fifth (+1.49), ahead of Newell in sixth (+17.19)
Three Canadian men qualified for the heats, with Jess Cockney in 16th (+10.24) and Simon Lapointe in 25th (+14.15). Bob Thompson missed 30th by one-hundredth of a second in 31st (+16.95), and Julien Locke was 36th (+17.9).
Three Americans qualified as well, with Simi Hamilton in 12th (+8.26) and Matt Gelso in 29th (+16.66). Distance skiers Scott Patterson and Noah Hoffman finished 44th (+24.21) and 48th (+25.28) out of 55.
Cockney reached the semifinals after winning his quarterfinal. In the second semifinal with Newell, he placed fifth, 5.44 seconds behind Panzhinskiy, for 10th overall.
In Cockney’s quarterfinal, Hamilton crashed and finished fourth (+41.9) for 17th overall.
Canada’s 23-year-old Lapointe finished sixth in his quarterfinal to place 27th, besting his previous World Cup best by 43 places. Gelso took 29th for his first-ever World Cup points after placing sixth in his quarterfinal.
Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School/U.S. Ski Team D-team) racing to fifth in the women’s 5 k freestyle at 2017 Junior Worlds on Wednesday for her best result in her third Junior Worlds. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Americans Katharine Ogden and Taeler McCrerey, as well as Canada’s Gareth Williams.)
Katharine Ogden’s name had already been in the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Association (USSA) record books, right behind Lindsey Williams, Leif Zimmerman and Torin Koos as one of the top finishers in U.S. history at Nordic Junior Worlds Championships.
Ogden, 19, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) and U.S. Ski Team (USST) Development “D” Team, was tied with five other Americans who also placed sixth at Junior Worlds, including current World Cup skiers Andy Newell and Kikkan Randall, and Kris Freeman, who went on to finish fourth in two senior World Championships.
On Wednesday, Ogden moved up in the ranks, placing fifth for the second-best U.S. result at Junior Worlds, equalling Zimmerman and Koos.
Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School/U.S. Ski Team D-team) racing to fifth in the women’s 5 k freestyle at 2017 Junior Worlds on Wednesday at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
“I’m really psyched about my result … it was so awesome to see that I’m in a good place to stick with these top girls in the mass start race,” Ogden wrote in an email after the women’s 5-kilometer freestyle at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
She had previously finished sixth in the 10 k skiathlon two years ago in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
“My goal going into the 5k skate was mostly just getting a feel for how I can race in this field and on these courses so as to know how to race the skiathlon,” she explained, referring to her target race on Friday. “In the skiathalon I’m really hoping for another top 6 and maybe (hopefully) a podium.”
“It’s really encouraging to know that all those U.S. Ski Team girls that are doing so well [on the World Cup] right now were in the same place that I am at one point,” Ogden said in a post-race interview with the U.S. Ski Team.
She has her share of World Cup starts, eight to be exact, after racing the entire Ski Tour Canada — an eight-stage series that closed out the 2015/2016 international race season. This year, her fifth place on Wednesday puts her soundly within U.S. Ski Team criteria for selection to 2017 World Cup Finals, which will take place March 17-19 in Quebec City, Quebec.
But back to Junior Worlds: Ogden achieved a career best on Wednesday and was 6.5 seconds shy of a medal. Ogden started the one-lap 5 k individual start in bib 54 (of 57).
Asked what she was thinking about as she warmed up and lined up at the start, Ogden couldn’t get over how nervous she was.
“Honestly I was pretty nervous before the start of the race. That’s basically all that I was thinking about,” she wrote. “I felt good once I started racing, the nerves just went away! The course was totally awesome for me.”
While she didn’t get many splits, Ogden explained she heard just enough to know that she was with the leaders.
“That motivated me because I was aware that every second was important,” she wrote.
Just over 13 minutes later, she crossed the finish line in third, 6.5 seconds behind behind Russia’s Mariya Istomina, who was fastest across the line in bib 50. Italy’s Anna Comarella, who started 53rd, 30 seconds ahead of Ogden, came up 3.2 seconds shy of the Russian for second at the time. And Ogden was another 3.3 seconds back in third.
“I honestly didn’t have too much of a strategy,” Ogden told the U.S. Ski Team. “It was a short race, so I knew I was going to have to go hard basically from the start. But I was also trying to walk the line of not blowing up.”
The 2002 Olympic trails at Soldier Hollow peak out around 5,900 feet above sea level. That can be a doozy for most of the world that trains closer to sea level, including Ogden from Landgrove, Vt. Asked in a pre-Junior Worlds questionnaire what she was most excited for at these championships, Ogden wrote “racing at altitude.”
The women’s 5 k freestyle podium on Wednesday at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, with Sweden’s Ebba Andersson (c) in first, Norway’s Marte Mæhlum Johansen (l) in second and Russia’s Mariya Istomina (r) in third. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
Of the three women that started after Ogden, two of them reached the podium. Norway’s Marte Mæhlum Johansen in bib 56 bested Istomina’s time by 1.5 seconds to become the new race leader — albeit briefly. That bumped Ogden to fourth and the American ultimately placed fifth after the final starter, Sweden’s Ebba Andersson, finished 13.8 seconds faster than Johansen for the win in 12:45.4 minutes.
Andersson became a three-time Junior Worlds champion, after winning last year’s 10 k freestyle and 4 x 2.5 k freestyle relay with Sweden’s women’s team in Rasnov, Romania.
“When I was thinking about the race I made a tactic that I would have a controlled start and then power to the end and I think I succeeded,” Andersson told the U.S. Ski Team media. “The course was amazing today. It was incredible and the weather, too.”
Following the trend of the rest of the week so far, conditions were hard-packed and temperatures just below freezing on a bluebird day.
Ogden led three U.S. women in the top 20 on Wednesday, with Hannah Halvorsen (Sugar Bowl Academy/USST) in 13th (+1:01.2) and Taeler McCrerey (University of Denver) in 20th (+1:18.9). The team’s fourth woman, Hailey Swirbul (University of Alaska Anchorage) placed 31st (+1:35.5).
“My goal for this race was to pace it well so I could use my energy wisely,” Halvorsen, also a member of the USST D-team, wrote in an email. “I liked how firm and fast the course was because I could focus on skiing smooth, powerful, and relaxed. I was really happy with how things went!”
As the 22nd starter, Halvorsen initially crossed the line in second.
“I was excited to cross the line in second but I didn’t know how promising that would be with half the field still to finish,” she wrote. “I was a little bummed to not stay in the top ten but I know this was a great race for me.”
Two days earlier, in her first race of her first Junior Worlds, Halvorsen finished 11th in the classic sprint.
Also on Monday, McCrerey, a sophomore at the University of Denver, placed 40th in the classic sprint. She landed 20th on Wednesday for a career best at her first Junior Worlds.
“Today I set out to achieve my first solid race at world juniors,” McCrerey wrote in an email.
She explained that interval-start races are her strength and growing up 9,000 feet above sea level in Frisco, Colo., didn’t hurt, either.
“The 5k course is one of the most challenging I have raced at Soldier Hollow so that also benefited me,” McCrerey noted.
The 44th starter, she explained that she received splits at two parts of the race.
“The splits were surprisingly close as skiers 5-18 were all within 6 seconds of each other,” she wrote. “Unfortunately all the fast girls started behind me so I was not receiving splits off of them. Racing at ‘home’ in this big of races has been an incredible experience. It’s fun to hear people cheering for the ‘host country’ and waving the stars and stripes so proudly!
“Today was a good day,” McCrerey added. “I learned a lot about racing at this level which has made me grow as a skier. Special congratulations to my teammates Hannah and Katherine on their exceptional performances today.”
Canada had four women in 39th through 46th, with Lisle Compton (NTDC Thunder Bay) in 39th (+1:51.9), Annika Richardson (NTDC Thunder Bay/Canadian Junior Team) in 41st (+1:57.8), Claire Grall-Johnson (Nakkertok) in 42nd (+1:58.2), and India McIsaac (Rocky Mountain Racers) in 46th (+2:12.9).
Russia Sweeps Men’s Podium; Wonders 16th
The all-Russian 10 k freestyle men’s podium on Wednesday at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow, with winner Vladislav Vechkanov (c), Egor Kazarinov (l) in second, and Yaroslav Rybochkin (r) in third. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
After women’s race wrapped up in the morning, the men’s 10 k freestyle began at noon. Hunter Wonders, of Alaska Pacific University, led two Americans in the top 20 — finishing 16th in 24:25.8. The winner, Russia’s Vladislav Vechkanov, who had qualified fifth in the classic sprint then went on to place 10th on Monday, started in bib 59 (of 73) and posted an untouchable time of 23:08.6.
Russia swept the podium with two of Vechkanov’s teammates coming closest to him. Egor Kazarinov, the 70th starter, finished 7.9 seconds back in second, and Yaroslav Rybochkin was 13.3 seconds back in third.
For 19-year-old Vechkanov, the gold was his first medal in two Junior Worlds, after placing seventh in the skate sprint last year in Rasnov.
“I arrived at the finish and actually I didn’t think I would win gold,” he told the U.S. Ski Team media. “So I pushed knowing that I would be in top three, but not winning. I started really slow. The on the second loop I tried to increase my speed. On the last uphill I tried my best to make it to the finish line without any strength and I hoped I would be in the top three. But now I’m first!”
American Hunter Wonders (APU) racing to 16th in the men’s 10 k freestyle at 2017 Junior World Championships on Wednesday at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: U.S. Ski Team/Steven Earl)
Wonders’s time was 1:17.2 minutes back, which put him 16th in his first Junior Worlds race. He started 25th, two minutes behind his U.S. teammate Wyatt Gebhardt, of the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club. Gebhardt ended up 19th (+1:21.9), also in his Junior Worlds debut.
Also for the U.S, Bill Harmeyer (University of Vermont) placed 29th (+2:02.6) and Lance McKenney 61st (+4:23.3).
Following Gebhardt in 19th, Canada’s Gareth Williams, of the Telemark Race Team in Kelowna, B.C., placed 20th (+1:24.6) in his first Junior Worlds race. His Canadian teammates Antoine Blais (Skibec) followed in 32nd (+2:07.8), Philippe Boucher (CNEPH) 35th (+2:10.3), and Remi Drolet (Black Jack) 50th (+2:49.1).
“This and the skiathlon were both my target races after not qualifying for Canada’s sprint team,” Williams explained in an email. “In my head I wanted to be inside the top 20 on the day, but since it is my first Worlds race I had no idea what to expect.”
Toward the end of the second lap, he started cramping.
“This made it difficult for me to give a proper finishing kick on the last few hills. I was getting splits that I was fighting for a top 20, so for me that was motivating,” Williams wrote. “Overall I am happy with the day, top 20 is something to be pleased with. Now that I have a taste of what it’s like here at Worlds, I can adjust my goals for the coming races. I hope tomorrow’s skiathlon can go equally as well, if not better.”
Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School/U.S. Ski Team D-team) racing to fifth in the women’s 5 k freestyle at 2017 Junior Worlds on Wednesday for her best result in her third Junior Worlds. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
FIS Nordic Junior World Championships (Midway, Utah): 5/10 k freestyle
Coming into 2017 Junior World Championships with a career-best individual of sixth at Junior Worlds (which she achieved in the 10-kilometer skiathlon two years ago), Katharine Ogden of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) and U.S. Ski Team (USST) D-team did one better on Wednesday, racing to fifth in the women’s 5 k freestyle individual start at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
Ogden started 54th and initially finished third, behind Russia’s Mariya Istomina and Italy’s Anna Comarella, respectively. That was a good spot to be in, considering there were only 57 starters.
But the final two women out on course, Norway’s Marte Mæhlum Johansen in bib 56 and Sweden’s Ebba Andersson in bib 57 ultimately bumped Ogden out of third, then fourth, respectively. Andersson took the win in 12:45.4 minutes, finishing 13.8 seconds faster than Johansen in second. Istomina held on for third (+15.3), Comarella was fourth (+18.5), and Ogden was 6.5 seconds off the podium in fifth (+21.8) for her best result in three Junior Worlds.
The U.S. had three women in the top 20 with Hannah Halvorsen (Sugar Bowl Academy/USST) in 13th (+1:01.2) and Taeler McCrerey (University of Denver) in 20th (+1:18.9). The team’s fourth woman, Hailey Swirbul (University of Alaska Anchorage) placed 31st (+1:35.5).
Lisle Compton (NTDC Thunder Bay) led the Canadian women in 39th (+1:51.9), Annika Richardson (NTDC Thunder Bay) finished 41st (+1:57.8), Claire Grall-Johnson (Nakkertok) was 42nd (+1:58.2), and India McIsaac (Rocky Mountain Racers) 46th (+2:12.9).
[UPDATED] In the men’s 10 k freestyle that followed, Vladislav Vechkanov, the fifth qualifier in Monday’s classic sprint, led a Russian podium sweep. He won in 23:08.6, 7.9 seconds ahead of his teammate Egor Kazarinov, while the third Russian, Yaroslav Rybochkin was 13.3 seconds back.
Two Americans finished in the top 20, with Hunter Wonders (Alaska Pacific University) in 16th (+1:17.2) and Wyatt Gebhardt (Steamboat Springs WSC) in 19th (+1:21.9). Also for the U.S, Bill Harmeyer (University of Vermont) placed 29th (+2:02.6) and Lance McKenney 61st (+4:23.3).
Gareth Williams (Telemark) led the Canadians in 20th (+1:24.6), Antoine Blais (Skibec) finished 32nd (+2:07.8), Philippe Boucher (CNEPH) placed 35th (+2:10.3), and Remi Drolet (Black Jack) 50th (+2:49.1)
Kam Husain, of the Stratton Mountain School, racing at U.S. SuperTour Spring Series last season in Craftsbury, Vt. (Photo: NENSA/Facebook)
In an effort to showcase the North Americans competing at this week’s International Ski Federation (FIS) 2017 USANA Nordic Junior World Championships and U23 Cross Country World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. Here we have 19-year-old Kam Husain, of the Stratton Mountain School, who’s representing the U.S. at his first Junior Worlds.
***
“My full name is Kamran Husain, but you can call me Kam. I was born in Leonardtown, Md., raised in Fort Kent, Maine, and one thing you should know about my hometown is we grow lots of potatoes.
I started cross-country skiing when I was six, thanks to MWSC [Maine Winter Sports Center]. I currently train in Stratton, Vt., with SMS [Stratton Mountain School].
If I’m not skiing, you might find me rewatching ‘Game of Thrones’. If I had to pick a favorite book, it would be ‘Outliers‘.
One of the things I’m most excited about for Junior Worlds at Soldier Hollow is racing a skiathlon. One race I’m especially targeting there is the classic sprint.
The best advice anyone ever gave me about skiing or racing was to pace myself. One of the best race memories I have is winning the NENSA J2 Fest.
If I could meet one World Cup skier, it would be Katharine Ogden.
If I don’t end up being a professional skier, I’ll probably be somewhere a little warmer.
I’m missing zero days of school to be here; I’m taking a gap year.
Katharine Ogden, of the Stratton Mountain School and U.S. Ski Team D-team, in the women’s 20 k classic at 2017 U.S. nationals earlier this month at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. She finished second among the senior women. (Photo: U.S. Ski Team)
In an effort to showcase the North Americans competing at next week’s International Ski Federation (FIS) 2017 USANA Nordic Junior World Championships and U23 Cross Country World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. First up, 19-year-old Katharine Ogden, of the Stratton Mountain School and U.S. Ski Team D-team, who’s representing the U.S. at her third Junior Worlds.
***
“My full name is Katharine Ogden, but you can call me KO. I was born in Seattle, Wash., and raised in Landgrove, Vt., and one thing you should know about my hometown is there are only about 100 people living there.
I started cross-country skiing when I was three, thanks to my papa who is a ski coach. I currently train in Stratton, Vt., with Stratton Mountain School.
If I’m not skiing, you might find me mountain biking. If I had to pick a favorite book, it would be ‘Looking for Alaska’.
One of the things I’m most excited about for Junior Worlds at Soldier Hollow is racing at altitude. One race I’m especially targeting there is the 10 k skiathlon.
The best advice anyone ever gave me about skiing or racing was my dad always tells me, ‘It’s fun to kick ass.’ One of the best race memories I have is when my teammate (Julia Kern) won the relay race in a photo finish at my first JNS at Soldier Hollow in 2012.
If I could meet one World Cup skier, it would be Heidi Weng.
If I don’t end up being a professional skier, I’ll probably be a recreational skier 🙂.
I’m missing zero days of school to be here, and my teachers are probably thinking, “I don’t have teachers.”
You may remember this from the last World Championships: The U.S. took two out of three spots on the podium in the 10 k freestyle at 2015 World Championships. From left to right at the medals ceremony: silver medalist Jessie Diggins (USA), gold medalist Charlotte Kalla (Sweden) and bronze medalist Caitlin Gregg (USA).
On Wednesday, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) announced its team nominations for the International Ski Federation (FIS) 2017 Nordic World Ski Championships, scheduled for Feb. 22-March 5 in Lahti, Finland. Following the announcement, FasterSkier spoke with U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover to discuss the reasoning behind some specific skiers who were or were not named to the team.
Applying the criteria
First, a quick review: FasterSkier has previously discussed the substance and the operation of the objective selection criteria based on World Cup performance. These objective criteria placed the following members of the U.S. Ski Team (USST) onto the Lahti team based on their performance during the 2016/2017 World Cup season: Sadie Bjornsen, Rosie Brennan, Sophie Caldwell, Jessie Diggins, Simi Hamilton, Noah Hoffman, Andy Newell, Kikkan Randall, Ida Sargent, and Liz Stephen.
All 10 athletes were ranked in the top 50 of the sprint and/or distance standings that were released earlier this week. USST member Erik Bjornsen ranked slightly outside the top-50 cutoff for both disciplines (59th for sprint and 60th for distance), and so is technically a discretionary selection.
That leaves six additional athletes without USST status who were also selected through the exercise of discretion by the Selection Committee: Kyle Bratrud, Tad Elliott, Ben Lustgarten, and Cole Morgan for the men, and Caitlin Gregg and Chelsea Holmes for the women.
Craftsbury Green Racing Project’s Ben Lustgarten on his way to winning the 30 k classic mass start at U.S. Cross Country Championships on Jan. 10 at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
Lustgarten (70 points), Bratrud (63) and Elliott (56) are the top-three men in the distance ranking of the 2017 Championship Selection List. (The list takes an athlete’s best two finishes per discipline, including bonus points for U.S. nationals.) Morgan (70 points) is facially tied with Ben Saxton (also 70) on the men’s sprint list. (For more on why Morgan over Saxton, keep reading.)
Holmes (80 points) and Gregg (63) are top two on the women’s distance list, followed by Katharine Ogden (60) and Caitlin Patterson (52). The top-ranked domestic skier on the women’s sprint list, Kaitlynn Miller (60 points), was not selected for Lahti.
The principles of discretionary selection
This summer, USST Women’s Coach Matt Whitcomb told FasterSkier that making discretionary picks was one of the harder parts of his job, saying, “We love not to do it.” But, he added, “in any criteria, discretion can often be one of the most important pieces.”
Grover previewed how USST coaches might apply that discretion when he spoke with FasterSkier earlier this week, following the individual skate sprint in Toblach but before Wednesday’s announcement.
“We do pay very close attention to what is happening in those races [at U.S. nationals],” Grover said. “And we are following them live as best we can from over here. We’ve been paying very close attention, and we’ve had some discussions.”
Grover added that they had specifically been discussing “who we would start in which races in Lahti, because we absolutely want to fill every start spot, and we want to be able to have an alternate there in most cases as well, and that makes for some tough choices. Who’s skiing well domestically, who’s skiing well on the World Cup; it’s occasionally challenging to figure out which athletes are faster when they have the Atlantic Ocean between them.”
Grover mentioned at the time that he hoped to follow and apply the selection criteria fairly rigorously and systematically.
U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover supervises a classic-technique drill at an on-snow camp in May at Mt. Bachelor in Bend, Ore.
“The real key thing is that, at the bottom of the selection, we followed the selection criteria,” Grover said. “That’s key. Discretion really belongs to be used at the top, for those athletes who have a chance to come over and have big races at World Championships, and by big races I mean someone who can go on the podium, or the top five, top 10, or top 15. Look for some selections from USA, but I wouldn’t look for a lot of discretion at the end of the day. That doesn’t mean that we won’t use some, but we have a selection criteria, and we’ve created a clear path for athletes to visualize, and see how they are going to make it to the World Championships team, and we have to be very careful to honor those athletes, and their coaches, and their programs, and their hometowns, by selecting the athletes who came to the table, and raced fast, and won races. That’s the key for us.”
Grover seemed willing to temper the strict application of objective rankings with some more objective consideration of conditions on the ground, particularly following a U.S. nationals where some races featured rather variable weather.
“Of course we’re going to take everything into account,” Grover said, “take the waxing situation into account, tough waxing days. I know that some people struggled, I know that some teams struggled, that’s unfortunate. You absolutely want to see a national championship where it’s easy waxing, and then you get to see who is the best athlete out there. I’m also getting petitions from athletes who are like, ‘Yes, I felt sick during U.S. Nationals.’ And that’s tough too. You want to see everybody healthy, and having an easy wax day.”
“It’s occasionally challenging to figure out which athletes are faster when they have the Atlantic Ocean between them.” — Chris Grover, U.S. Ski Team head coach
But “at the end of the day,” Grover concluded, “we set up a selection criteria that was designed to give athletes a chance to have a bad race, to be sick for weekend, to give teams a chance to miss the wax, that’s why we only take the best two out of four distance races, and/or the best two out of four sprint races. That’s why the selection period is more than just U.S. nationals, but also includes the races from Yellowstone and Silver Star, so athletes have the chance to demonstrate their ability over a longer period of time, and to be able to throw out some bad races.”
FasterSkier previously discussed the theory that the bonus points given for podium finishes at U.S. nationals made solid performances there potentially decisive for an athlete’s selection.
Naming names
As Grover adumbrated earlier this week, the selection of the male skiers not currently on the USST was based directly on skiers’ standing on the Lahti points list. Those selections “are very straightforward,” Grover told FasterSkier on the phone on Thursday. “We went right off of the Lahti selection list.”
Grover added that they felt the need for only one more sprinter, in light of already having Hamilton, Newell and Erik Bjornsen on the team.
Cole Morgan (SVSEF) racing to 12th in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race in late November in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
So why Morgan over Saxton for that one sprint spot, when both athletes had 70 points and were tied for first on the selection list? Tiebreakers.
“That had to go down to like a four-way tiebreak procedure in order to determine which athlete to select,” Grover recounted. “Because they both had a first place from SuperTour, they both had two second-place finishes, and so it was only by going to their fourth race, where Cole prevailed over Ben. So that was tough, and definitely as excited as we are for Cole, that was tough for Ben, to be in that situation.”
The tiebreaking race was “the skate qualifier only in Nationals.” Morgan finished 5.11 seconds and 17 places ahead of Saxton in Thursday’s demi-sprint, with Morgan clocking 3:20.23 and sixth vs. Saxton’s 3:25.34 and 23rd.
Turning to distance skiers, Grover said, “So then we had four sprinters that we wanted to start, and then we obviously needed some distance skiers. And we felt like with Erik Bjornsen and Noah Hoffman on the team, that if we went out and got three more additional distance skiers that we would have the depth that we needed to effectively fill start rights, plus have an alternate, in the distance races at Lahti, which is why we went and got the three guys. We just went right off the distance points list.”
That’s it for the men. As for the women, among American distance skiers, Gregg has a sterling championships résumé: bronze in the 10-kilometer freestyle at Falun in 2015. This performance, and Gregg’s ability to peak for it, figured heavily in the decision to go down to second on the women’s distance list and name Gregg, Grover noted.
“We definitely … view Caitlin as a really incredible distance skier,” Grover said, “somebody who has the ability, or at least has proven the ability in the past, to be able to target an event, train for an event, a certain event, prepare for it, and then ski quite well at that event. And of course I’m referencing the Falun 10-kilometer race from two years ago. We named her to the team as a potential starter for the women’s 30 k freestyle. And typically Caitlin has been somebody who’s great at the long-distance skating in particular, and gets stronger as the race gets longer. So we’re not guaranteeing start positions for any athletes right now, but Caitlin for sure will be a strong contender to race that last race for women at the World Championships.”
So Gregg was second on the distance list, but why not go down to Katharine Ogden (often referred to as “KO”) in third? In large part because of her youth – Ogden is still only 19 years old – and a concern for appropriate development.
“We absolutely agree that athletes should first aim to be successful at – in the age group that they’re competing against,” Grover said. “So for KO, that means World Juniors, and being successful at World Juniors. And that should be, in my opinion, the absolute focus of her year this year.”
The women’s 20 k classic mass start podium on Tuesday at 2017 U.S. nationals at Soldier Hollow, with winner Chelsea Holmes (c), runner-up Katharine Ogden (l), and third-place finisher Caitlin Patterson.
He added that the strength of the current American women’s team made it questionable whether Ogden, despite her talent, would necessarily be stronger than any other option. The coaches would ask, “‘OK, yes, if we were to bring you to the [senior] World Championships, what are the actual events that we would start you in? Are you one of the best four women in the United States in those events?’ There most likely, at this particular moment, is not starting space for her. … She’s going to be an absolute talent for the future, but we also have one of the strongest, if not the strongest women’s team in the history of U.S. skiing. So it’s tough to break into that group when you’re limited to four starts.”
And what about Caitlin Patterson, an athlete who began the 2016/2017 season in Europe and scored World Cup points in the opening weekend, but never quite made the top 30 thereafter?
Patterson was “one that we talked about, for sure,” Grover said. “However, she was not even the next woman on the points list behind Caitlin Gregg. That was Katharine Ogden. … So any time you’re talking about using discretion and using it at the bottom of the list, and then jumping over athletes that are on the list to use that discretion, then it becomes quite complicated.”
Much as with Ogden, Grover noted that the strength of the current women’s team made it difficult to easily pencil Patterson in as a starter: “Our women’s team is so strong,” Grover said, “we didn’t necessarily see a race where we said, ‘You know what, Caitlin Patterson is within the top four women that we want to start in that particular event.’ It would have been a different situation if we didn’t have so many women making the objective criteria for World Cup in front of her.”
But Grover noted that Patterson was not necessarily off the team for good: “So it puts Caitlin Patterson in a really tough spot, and we definitely want to see her have more opportunities, and we are in fact trying to provide her more opportunities by actually offering her some World Cup starts in the next few weekends that she’s going to take advantage of. And we’ll see what happens. If she’s able to have some outstanding results, we may reconsider.”
As Grover alluded to regarding Patterson, the U.S. roster is not quite set in stone. “I think it’s important to recognize that we … may decide to add a man, or a woman, later to the World Championships Team,” Grover emphasized.
“We have not maxed out what our quotas are for that event by any means,” he continued “And if we see an outstanding result of some kind, either at World Cup or say U23s/World Juniors, we may choose to add somebody to the team, which we did … two years ago in Falun, when we added Ben Saxton after he’d been sixth in the sprint at the World Juniors. So nobody has guaranteed start rights at the Lahti World Championships. And it may be that our team grows slightly. Or it may stay the same; we just don’t know yet.”
End of an era?
And finally, a look back for a historical note before everyone looks forward to next month’s races in Lahti: Assuming that he is not added to the roster in the next few weeks, this will be the first American international championship team without Kris Freeman since 1997. Freeman, currently of Team Freebird but a USST member for 11 years before that, was named to a total of 15 championship teams from 1997 to 2015. He was at Falun in 2015, Sochi in 2014, Val di Fiemme in 2013, Oslo in 2011, Whistler in 2010, Liberec in 2009, Sapporo in 2007, Torino in 2006, Oberstdorf in 2005. He was at Val di Fiemme, for the first time, in 2003, Salt Lake City in 2002, Lahti in 2001, and before that, he was also at three FIS Junior World Championships: Štrbské Pleso, Slovakia, in 2000; Saalfelden, Austria, in 1999; and Pontresina, Switzerland, in 1998.
Kris Freeman competing at 2009 World Championships in Liberec, Czech Republic. (Photo: Swix Sport)
The last time Freeman was not named to an American championship team was Junior Worlds in Canmore in February 1997. To put that in perspective: top junior skiers at those races included Kristina Smigun, Axel Teichmann, Per Elofsson, and Lukas Bauer. American juniors racing at Canmore in 1997 included Rob Whitney, Pat Casey, and Lars Flora. Recent national champion Kevin Bolger (University of Utah) was 3 years old. Recent Nationals podium finisher Katharine Ogden was not born yet.
Freeman told FasterSkier a week ago at U.S. nationals that, even if he were not selected to his second Lahti team, he intended to keep competing for at least one more winter with an eye to Pyeongchang: “Still in it, I’ll be back next year and hopefully make the Olympic team.”
USST athlete Kikkan Randall keeps alive a streak going back to World Juniors at Štrbské Pleso in 2000. Counting 2017 in Lahti, she has been named to 16 championship teams (nine World Championships teams, four Winter Olympics teams, and three World Juniors teams) in that time.
And USST skier Andy Newell was named to his 14th championship team, continuing a streak that dates back to World Juniors at Szklarska Poręba in 2001.
Races in Lahti begin with the skate sprint on Feb. 23.
Chelsea Holmes of Alaska Pacific University crossing the finish line first in the women’s 20-kilometer classic mass start on Tuesday at 2017 U.S. nationals in Midway, Utah.
MIDWAY, Utah. — As she headed up Soldier Hollow’s infamous Hermod’s Hill for her fifth and final time, there wasn’t another skier in sight. At least none of the ones she started with.
Chelsea Holmes, of Alaska Pacific University (APU), was fine with that. She never liked sprints to the finish, and on Tuesday, Holmes would have it her way.
Of course, there was still the possibility that she would slip and skid to a stop, or slow down drastically from a serious bonk. But those were all chances Holmes was willing to take. In the 29-year-old Alaskan’s mind, ski racing is about taking risks.
Chelsea Holmes (4) leads Katharine Ogden (3) and Caitlin Patterson during the women’s 20-kilometer classic masst start on Tuesday at U.S. nationals in Midway, Utah.
Tuesday’s 20-kilometer classic mass start was no different. Especially with it being the last distance event of the 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships series.
“There are countless races that I’ve lead only to be passed and blown out in the last half kilometer,” Holmes said after Tuesday’s race. “But even those days, I don’t think I would do anything different other than say I should have gone harder, earlier. … I know that, more than anything, I will be disappointed if I don’t put it all out there.”
Go hard or go home it was, and within the first of five laps, Holmes was charging the front along with Katharine Ogden, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) and U.S. Ski Team Development Team, Caitlin Patterson, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP), and Erika Flowers (SMS Elite Team).
Hunting Holmes down in a chase group was her APU teammate Becca Rorabaugh — who place second in Sunday’s classic sprint and just off the podium in fourth in Saturday’s individual start — Liz Guiney (CRGP), Canada’s Dahria Beatty, and Anne Hart (SMS Elite Team).
As the squad of women in front descended back toward the lap lane, Holmes continued to work through the stadium’s flat section. Ogden did not. The 19 year-old was relaxed, following close to Holmes’s lead until the group made their way out into lap two.
Skiing under the bridge that spanned the course’s first major climb, Ogden strode to the right of Holmes, seeking the front spot for herself.
Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School/USST D-Team) during the final lap of the women’s 20-kilometer classic mass start on Tuesday at U.S. nationals in Midway, Utah.
“KO is like me, she likes to push the pace,” Holmes said of Ogden. “Even though the stadium is not super-long, I could tell … I would get sucked back in. On the climbs, I felt myself breaking away.”
Though Holmes hadn’t necessarily peg-pointed a place on course to start her surge, by the end of Lap 2, she was feeling it. Climbing up the last hill before cornering back through stadium, it was only Ogden and Patterson who were able to hold onto Holmes.
“[Holmes and Ogden] have really amazing turnover on the uphills,” said Patterson, who strode roughly 10 meters behind the leaders on the hill. “It was sort of hard for me to ski relaxed and comfortable and follow them but, I was trying to follow them.”
Close to 25 seconds ticked by before the next group of women made their way up, including Rorabaugh, Hart, Flowers and APU’s Rosie Frankowski, who had maneuvered around three more skiers since the start — she started in bib 14 — and now sat in seventh.
Yet, as Patterson point out, with two laps to go, no podium or position was firmly in place. Especially at altitude, on a course that features some 700 meters of climbing, anything could happen. Patterson was predicting, or hoping, something would.
“I think your mind kind of naturally goes to like, ‘Ah, OK, here I am in third,’ ” said Patterson who had lost close to 30 second on the leaders by the end of Lap 3.
“But I was telling myself that it’s not over until it’s over,” she added. “People blow up and or get stronger again and with these big downhills and flats. You just never know what’s going to happen.”
Something did happen. Holmes hammered even harder.
Heading into her fourth lap, the Alaskan was bringing the hurt. Ogden, who had been fairly relaxed for three-fourths of the race, slowly faded from the APU suit’s sight.
“I was definitely chilling a little bit the first few laps,” Ogden explained. “Then [I] kind of died a little, actually a lot.”
Admittedly for Ogden, the race soon became about holding onto her spot rather than the finding first place position.
“I could tell that she was dropping me pretty hard,” Ogden added. “And I was just trying stay ahead of Caitlin [Patterson], to be honest.”
But Holmes hadn’t won yet. Even for a seriously adept climber, racing for the win is far from a glamour gig. It’s gritty. It’s grueling. But, according to Holmes, glamorous? Far from it.
“You hear stories about people feeling amazing, I don’t think I’ve ever felt that,” Holmes said. “If someone feels it’s easy, I don’t know I believe them.”
With one lap to go, the potential to bonk was still present. But botching the win because of that wasn’t what Holmes was worried about. For Holmes, it was whether she’d cross the line knowing she’d gone hard enough.
The women’s 20 k classic mass start podium on Tuesday at 2017 U.S. nationals at Soldier Hollow, with winner Chelsea Holmes (c), runner-up Katharine Ogden (l), and third-place finisher Caitlin Patterson.
“It’s a waste to think about that,” Holmes said of worrying about going too hard, too soon. “If I blow up, I blow up. I have to believe that I blow up less than everyone else.”
By the final 100 meters, with none of the skiers she had started with around, Holmes proved she wasted no time worrying about blowing up, crossing first for the win in time of 1:01:33.5 hours.
Taking second place, in her second 20 k ever, was Ogden, 49.2 seconds behind Holmes.
The final podium spot went to Patterson in third, (+1:10.4). Just missing the podium spot in was Frankowski in fourth (+2:13.9), while Canadian World Cup Team member Emily Nishikawa rounded out the top five in fifth overall (+2:26.6).
With the final U.S. nationals distance race done and just one race left, a freestyle sprint qualifier on Thursday, Holmes is happy to have taken the win for herself and for her APU team.
“Our techs, they work so hard…and the coaches,” Holmes said. “To do this for them, to give back to them, is amazing.”
Left to right: David Norris of Alaska Pacific University, Ben Lustgarten of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project and Kris Freeman of Team Freebird standing on the podium after the men’s 30-kilometer classic mass start on Tuesday at 2017 U.S. nationals in Midway, Utah.
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Soldier Hollow): 20/30 k classic mass starts
After a day of rest, racers returned to the Soldier Hollow (SoHo) trails on Tuesday for the men’s 30-kilometer and women’s 20 k classic mass start competitions.
Two laps into the the men’s eight-lap event, a front group began to form, with Kris Freeman of Team Freebird, Ben Lustgarten of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP), Scott Patterson of Alaska Pacific University (APU) and his APU teammate David Norris among those leading the charge. Lustgarten soon took over the lead and with three laps to go, it was he and Norris pushing the pace.
Lustgarten continued his drive from the front, eventually crossing first in a time of 1:26.06 for the win. Norris crossed second (+38.0), while Freeman took the final men’s podium spot in third (+1:43).
Rounding out the men’s top five finishers were Patterson in fourth (+1:56) and Brian Gregg of Team Gregg in fifth (+2:04.0).
In the women’s 20 k event, it didn’t take long for a lead pack to break free, with Katharine Ogden of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) and U.S. Ski Team D-Team, APU’s Chelsea Holmes and Caitlin Patterson of the CGRP commanding the front. A chasing group led by SMS Elite Team’s Anne Hart and Erika Flowers, along with APU’s Rosie Frankowski, followed a little less than a minute behind.
Ultimately, it was Holmes who hammered home to a decisive win, crossing first in a time of 1:01:33.5. Second place went to Ogden (+49.2), while Patterson rounded out the women’s podium in third (+1:10.4).
Also finishing in the women’s top five were Frankowski in fourth (+2:13.9) and Canada’s Emily Nishikawa in fifth (+2:26.6).
Stay tuned for complete race recaps and results. Only men’s live results were available at the time of publication.
Left to right: Chelsea Holmes, Caitlin Gregg, and Caitlin Patterson standing on top of the podium for the women’s 10-kilometer freestyle event at the 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Soldier Hollow): 10 k skate
[UPDATED] Don’t bet against Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) in a distance skate event. The 36-year-old took another national title in the 10-kilometer freestyle individual start at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, earlier today in the first event of the 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships. Gregg’s winning time was 27:00.6 on a cold, slow-snow morning at SoHo.
Chelsea Holmes (Alaska Pacific University) was second, 2.2 seconds back, with Caitlin Patterson (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) third (+14.5). Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School, +20) was fourth, Becca Rorabaugh (APU, +58.4) fifth, and Rosie Frankowski (APU, +1:05) sixth to round out the extended podium.
In the men’s 15-kilometer freestyle event, Central Cross Country Ski Association’s Kyle Bratrud took first in a time of 34:52.0. Second place wen tot Ski and Snowboard Club Vail’s Tad Elliott finished in a time of 35:14.6, while University of Denver’s Mori Madelaner (+35:22.4) rounded out the podium in third. Patrick Caldwell of Stratton Mountain School was seven tenths of a second out of third place in fourth overall (the third American on the day) in a time of 35:23.1. Fifth went to Kris Freeman of Team Freebird in a time of 35:28.0.
[UPDATED] In the men’s 12.5 k pursuit on Saturday in Oberhof, Germany, France’s Martin Fourcade got back to his winning ways, shooting 19-for-20 (0+1+0+0) on a cold and gusting afternoon for a 1:09.9-minute victory in 36:45.7. He started eighth.
Germany’s Arnd Peiffer started 15th and finished second with three penalties (0+0+1+2), and for the second-straight race, Italy’s Dominik Windisch placed third (+1:32.4), with five misses. Windisch was just 0.2 seconds ahead of Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen in fifth (+1:32.6), also with five penalties (1+1+2+1).
Tim Burke (US Biathlon) raced to 26th (+3:18.9) after starting 35th, with four penalties, all in standing (0+0+2+2). Also for the U.S., Russell Currier placed 34th (+4:29.8), up from 46th at the start, with five penalties (2+0+1+2).
Canada’s Scott Gow finished 45th (+5:45.7) with seven misses (1+1+2+3).
No North American men are listed on the provisional start list for Sunday’s 15 k mass start.
In the women’s 10 k pursuit that followed, France made it a double on the day with Marie Dorin Habert taking a 38.8-second victory in 34:33.3. She started third and had two penalties (1+0+0+1) en route to the win, ahead of Friday’s sprint winner Gabriela Koukalova of the Czech Republic in second, with two clean stages followed by three misses (0+0+1+2).
Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen started second and ended up third (+1:19.1) with four penalties (1+0+1+2) amid blustery conditions in Oberhof.
Canada’s Rosanna Crawford finished 22nd (+3:47.9), one spot down from starting 21st, with four penalties (0+1+1+2).
For the U.S., Susan Dunklee placed 44th (+6:20.4), up from starting 50th, despite nine misses (1+3+4+1). Clare Egan finished 49th (+7:25.6) after starting 52nd, with seven misses (4+0+0+3).
Dunklee was listed as the lone North American starter in Sunday’s 12.5 k mass start, as she is currently ranked 17th overall in the IBU World Cup. Crawford is next in line on the “reserve standby athletes” lists by her event results of the week, should another qualified athlete have to cancel (e.g. due to illness).
Alex Harvey (Canadian World Cup Team) en route to 19th in the men’s 15 k classic mass start on Saturday, which puts him sixth overall in the Tour de Ski with one stage remaining in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 6 (Val di Fiemme, Italy): 10/15 k classic
Russian Sergey Ustiugov’s Tour de Ski winning streak came to an end on Saturday at the penultimate stage of the seven-stage Tour, with Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby breaking away on the final 2.5 k lap to win the men’s 15-kilometer classic mass start at Stage 6 in Val di Fiemme, Italy.
Ustiugov had to outlast a chase pack to settle for second, 2.2 seconds behind Sundby, who won in 40:40.0. Finland’s Matti Heikkinen reached the podium in third (+2.8), ahead of Italy’s Francesco de Fabiani in fourth (+3.2), Russia’s Andrey Larkov in fifth (+3.3), Norway’s Niklas Dyrhaug in sixth (+3.5), Switzerland’s Dario Cologna in seventh (+3.8), and Russia’s Alexander Bessmertnykh in eighth (+3.9). Behind Heikkinen, the fourth- through eighth-place finishers were all within 1.1 seconds of the stage podium.
Canada’s Alex Harvey ended up 19th (+38.7) after losing seconds to the leaders on the second half of the course. He finished ahead of teammates Devon Kershaw in 27th (+1:12.1) and Graeme Killick in 32nd (+1:31.0).
For the U.S., Noah Hoffman scored points for the second-straight day in 30th (+1:17.1). Erik Bjornsen crashed on an early downhill and dropped out of the race around the halfway point.
Ustiugov previously built a more than 1 1/2 minute lead in the Tour, so he remains 1:11.9 minutes ahead of Sundby in the overall with one stage (the 9 k final climb) to go. Cologna remains in third (+2:04.1), Heikkinen is fourth (+2:32.9), France’s Maurice Manificat fifth (+2:34.6) after finishing 13th on Saturday, and Harvey slipped from fourth to sixth overall (+2:42.5), ahead of Sweden’s Marcus Hellner, who finished 10th for seventh overall (+2:54.5).
Kershaw is 23rd overall (+7:19.1), Hoffman 30th (+9.42.7), and Killick 37th (+11:25.1) heading into the final stage.
Stina Nilsson of Sweden (center) celebrates another win in the Tour de Ski, which puts her atop the overall standings; Anne Kyllönen of Finland (left) was second in the 10 k classic mass start and Charlotte Kalla of Sweden third.
In the women’s 10 k classic mass start to start the day, Stina Nilsson of Sweden won her fourth stage of this year’s Tour, racing aggressively from start to finish and picking up extra bonus seconds along the way.
Nilsson pushed the hills late and nobody from the already-fractured main pack could keep up. She notched a 3.0-second win over Anne Kyllönen of Finland, who collected her first individual podium of the season. Charlotte Kalla joined her Swedish teammate on the podium in third (+3.7), also her first podium of the year; she had been fourth in the 5 k freestyle the day before in Toblach, Italy.
Krista Parmakoski of Finland was fourth, +9.4, Teresa Stadlober of Austria fifth, +10.1, and Yulia Tchekaleva of Russia sixth, +10.5.
With the bonus seconds that Nilsson picked up along the way, she stole the overall Tour de Ski lead from Norway’s Heidi Weng, who finished seventh (+17.5). Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, also of Norway, had been in second place but slipped even farther. After leading at the start of the race, she slipped through the pack and then off the back, crossing the line 18th (+1:08.5). She is now fourth in the Tour de ski, behind Parmakoski.
Jessie Diggins of the U.S. skied to eighth place (+19.5) and retained her fifth place overall Tour standing. Teammate Liz Stephen raced to 19th (+1:11.2), and moved into the top 20 of the Tour standings for the first time. Rosie Brennan scored points again in 28th (+2:06.1).
FIS Cross-Country OPA Cup (Planica, Slovenia): 10 k classic
[UPDATED] A quartet of American sprinters turned to distance classic skiing, placing as high as fifth, in 10-kilometer classic interval start races at the OPA Cup in Planica, Slovenia, earlier Saturday.
U.S. Ski Team member Simi Hamilton posted the day’s best result for the Americans, finishing fifth in the men’s race, 13.8 seconds back from winner Jean Tiberghien of France. Hamilton, who started in the final third of the 110-skier field, worked his way into the race, placing 14th at the 3.8 k mark and seventh at 7.5 k before moving up into fifth by the finish. His teammate and the other American in the race, Andy Newell, placed 58th, 1:30.7 back, finishing strong after placing 67th at the 7.5 k time checkpoint.
Mickael Philipot (+2.0) and Valentin Chauvin (+8.6) rounded out the all-Gallic podium.
In the women’s race, Ida Sargent (USST) was the leading American in 17th. She finished 1:10 behind winner Sara Pellegrini of Italy. Sargent likewise worked her way into the race, placing 26th and 18th at intermediate checkpoints before moving up to 17th by the finish.
Three places and less than ten seconds back, Sophie Caldwell (USST) finished 20th, 1:19.7 back of Pellegrini. Caldwell started out somewhat faster than the three other Americans who raced today, placing as high as seventh at the first checkpoint.
The final podium, reminiscent of the 2006 World Cup soccer final, was Pellegrini in first, Italian Caterina Ganz in second (+7.6), and Delphine Claudel of France in third (+14.6).
Conditions in Planica were clear and cold and just a few degrees above the FIS-legal cutoff, with race-time temperatures between 3° F and 5° F.
Racing in Planica concludes tomorrow with interval start 10 and 15 k classic races, replacing the 7.5/15 k skiathlon that was originally scheduled.
The last time U.S. nationals were held at SoHo: Start of the women’s 20 k freestyle mass start at 2014 U.S. Cross Country Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
The domestic trials for the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships team begin at Soldier Hollow on Saturday morning. Not officially, but in practice that’s pretty much the case. That’s one implication of the numbers and points system used to help determine who competes for the U.S. at next month’s races in Lahti, Finland. Here, FasterSkier previews the races and considers the subtle math behind U.S. championship-team selection.
The races
The women race a 10-kilometer freestyle individual start at 10 a.m. local time on Saturday, followed by the men in a 15 k freestyle at noon. Sunday brings a full classic sprint (men’s qualifying starting at 10 a.m., women’s qualifying at 11 a.m., and sprint heats starting at 12:30 p.m.). Then Tuesday, Jan. 10, brings classic mass starts, 20 k for women and 30 k for men, starting at 10 a.m.
A qualification-only, freestyle-sprint type event rounds out the week on Thursday, Jan. 12. (Why no heats? Because of overall demands on local volunteers and an elementary school housed at the venue. The national championship skate sprint will be held at U.S. SuperTour Finals, a.k.a. Spring Series, in March in Fairbanks, Alaska.)
Social media shows several inches of fresh snow currently on top of a manmade base at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
FasterSkier will be on site throughout the week, providing live updates and reports on the races.
What’s at stake
Bragging rights, for one. All racers like to win, and the week’s first three events are all national championships. Also money: $1,200, $600, and $300 for podium spots in each of the distance races and sprint. It’s no Qaniq Challenge money, but it’s no small sum, either.
Paddy Caldwell (Dartmouth/SMS/USST) racing to 21st in the men’s 15 k freestyle at 2016 U23 World Championships in Rasnov, Romania. (Photo: Logan Hanneman)
But beyond who takes home the medals and the money this week, the races are also important for determining who gets to compete in higher-level races later this season. Skiers under 18 are competing for spots on the Scandinavian Cup Team. Skiers slightly older are competing for spots on the U.S. team for U23/Junior World Championships, which will also be held at Soldier Hollow Jan. 30-Feb. 5. And at the highest level, there are spots up for grabs on the World Championships team for Lahti next month. Probably.
As FasterSkier previously explained, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) looks first to athletes’ performance on the World Cup in light of objective standards, and then potentially applies discretionary picks. After objective and discretionary selection, then “any remaining positions” for the Lahti team “may be filled by considering the athlete ranking highest on the 2017 Championship Selection List.” (As FasterSkier previously parsed, technically speaking the document says that remaining positions may be filled rather than will or shall be filled, meaning that USSA would not be strictly required to name a leading domestic skier to the team if it did not want to.)
Filling out the team: Objective and discretionary selections
So who’s already in from the U.S. Ski Team (USST)? One woman for sure, five more women basically guaranteed, one man basically guaranteed, then one woman and two men on the bubble.
On the women’s side, Jessie Diggins has automatically qualified for Lahti twice over with her fifth- and sixth-place sprint finishes in Davos and Val Müstair.
Behind her, five more skiers were well within the top 50 in either the sprint or distance World Cup standings following Wednesday’s pursuit race in Oberstdorf: Sophie Caldwell (12th in sprint standings), Sadie Bjornsen (15th in distance standings and 16th in sprint), Ida Sargent (33rd in sprint), Kikkan Randall (32nd in distance and 38th in sprint), and Liz Stephen (42nd in distance).
Jessie Diggins celebrates finishing fifth in the Davos skate sprint. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
(In the most strictly technical sense, everyone after Diggins cannot officially qualify this way until they are in the top 50 in those discipline standings that are released on Jan. 16. But – barring some extremely statistically improbable races by all eight women immediately below Stephen in the distance rankings – they should all qualify then with ease.)
Rosie Brennan was 56th in the distance standings Wednesday, five points – one solid race – away from the top 50. She got that race in Toblach on Friday, moving up to 47th in the distance standings after finishing 23rd in the 5 k skate.
For the men, Simi Hamilton is currently 41st in the sprint standings, and should be well within the top 50 on Jan. 16.
As of Wednesday, Erik Bjornsen ranked 53rd for distance, four points out of 50th, and 55th for sprinting. Noah Hoffman was 67th in the distance standings. Hoffman moved up to 60th following his 25th-place finish in the 10 k skate in Toblach on Friday.
USST Women’s Coach Matt Whitcomb told FasterSkier in July that athletes who were on the bubble for World Championships selection “going into the Tour de Ski” would “need to make a pretty important decision. And that is whether or not to go back to U.S. championships and qualify domestically, or to take a chance and go with what they know and qualify in the Tour de Ski, and the sprint weekend after the Tour de Ski in Toblach.” Whitcomb added, “And so there are a great number of options both domestically and internationally on the World Cup, that I think we feel is as fair as can be.”
But in practice, all USST athletes discussed above have remained in Europe rather than race at U.S. nationals. Diggins, both Bjornsens, Stephen, Caldwell, Randall, Hamilton, and Hoffman raced at least the first two stages of the Tour de Ski. Sargent and Andy Newell, joined by Hamilton and Caldwell, will compete in OPA Cup races in Planica, Slovenia, this weekend, USST Head Coach Chris Grover told FasterSkier by email last week.
APU skier Scott Patterson made roughly the inverse decision in deciding to start the 2016/2017 season in this country (he had hoped for World Cup starts as last year’s SuperTour distance leader, but was not offered them for the first period of racing). Describing conversations between himself, Grover, and APU Coach Erik Flora, Patterson wrote to FasterSkier in November, “One of the most important points brought up was regarding qualification for world championships in Lahti. The selection criteria favors domestic racing for men due to the difficult objective criteria and weaker World Cup performances relative to the women. In accordance with the criteria I will be looking for some extremely strong early season results so that I can hopefully head to Europe in January and not return until after World Cup finals.”
Regardless of who qualifies off the World Cup via objective standards, USSA may then make discretionary selections. FasterSkier previously surveyed the guidelines for the exercise of this discretion.
Briefly put, USSA has almost unlimited discretion under the listed criteria. And if those criteria give USSA insufficient discretion, a catch-all provision lets USSA make discretionary selections for nearly any other reason if it feels like the objective criteria won’t work: “Other unanticipated failure of objective criteria to select an athlete likely to achieve competition results consistent with USSA program goals for World Championships.”
Filling out the team: SuperTour leaders and bonuses for nationals podiums
After objective and discretionary selections, that leaves this country’s top domestic racers skiing against each other for (probably) one remaining spot per gender.
Before the season began, FasterSkier wrote in a preview article that “American cross-country skiing does not have a trials system.” Kris Freeman (Team Freebird), a man who has been selected to 12 U.S. Olympic or World Championship teams (up to 15 if you include World Juniors teams) since 1998, politely begged to differ, writing in a comment to the FasterSkier Facebook site after the article was posted (see final two sentences in particular):
Both FasterSkier and Freeman are technically correct. Given the numbers involved, Freeman is probably more correct. That is, there is no official trials system, but U.S. Nationals this year is getting pretty close to one.
The World Championships Selection List is based on an athlete’s best two finishes in a single discipline, distance or sprint (qualification round only), across the 2016/2017 SuperTour to date, including the four races at U.S. Nationals. But first through third at the December SuperTour races were worth 30, 25, and 21 points, respectively. Because of the additional Nationals-only bonus points that will be awarded this week, first through third in the next four races count for 45, 35, and 26 points, respectively. Best two races, from the entire season to date, wins.
So Freeman is correct that the “normal” SuperTour events were, if not meaningless, maybe less meaningful in light of the potentially dispositive points available for nationals podium finishes. (There are of course other advantages to being the season-long SuperTour leader, and the December races still count toward that.)
In practice, two firsts at nationals would be unsurpassable by any combination of other races. Same for a first and second at nationals. Indeed, two seconds at nationals is a better result than two firsts in December. Two thirds at nationals beats two seconds from last month. The bonus points for nationals podiums are certainly significant digits.
Matt Gelso (SVSEF) racing to his second-straight victory at the West Yellowstone SuperTour in the men’s 15 k classic in December 2016.
Matt Gelso (Sun Valley Ski Education Gold Team) and Liz Guiney (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) come into nationals as the SuperTour leaders to date, Gelso by a profound margin. Although both have World Cup start rights in Europe later this month by virtue of that status, both athletes will compete in at least the first three races in Soldier Hollow, Gelso and Guiney told FasterSkier earlier this week.
The current SuperTour discipline leaders are Gelso for men’s distance, with 55 points, and Ben Saxton (SMST2) for men’s sprint, with 50 points. Jennie Bender (Bridger Ski Foundation) leads the women’s sprint standings with 55 points, while Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School/USST D-Team) has 50 points to lead the women’s distance standings. These are not unimpressive point totals, which may become relevant if no single athlete puts together two podiums at nationals.
The first race at Soldier Hollow begins at 10 a.m. Saturday morning. The U.S. team for Lahti is tentatively scheduled to be announced on Jan. 23.
Team R.A.D.’s Russell Kennedy (r) powering through the snow to finish at the top Canadian in ninth in the men’s 15 k freestyle on Sunday, Dec. 11, at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour. (Photo: Marie-Éve Bilodeau-Corriveau)
VERNON, B.C. –The combined Noram/SuperTour last weekend at Sovereign Lake, British Columbia, produced some exciting skiing and some challenging photography conditions with almost non-stop snowfall both days. Some of our best photos that didn’t make the two-day race recap are included below, but first, a little background and feedback:
The NorAm circuit has not been a fully North American circuit since 2006. This year, Canada and the U.S. planned two combined NorAm/SuperTour events in Bozeman, Montana, and Sovereign Lake, B.C. With the relocation of the Bozeman event to West Yellowstone, Sovereign Lake became the only combined event of the season.
While many athletes dream of a return to the glory days of this series, the 2006/2007 birth of the SuperTour coincided with a second Continental Cup quota spot, allowing each country to send one “COC” leader of each gender. Effectively, each country became a “continent” in the eyes of the International Ski Federation (FIS). Combining the two series could reduce North America to one COC position per gender.
FasterSkier asked athletes and organization leaders what they thought of the 2016 combination of the early season NorAm and SuperTour:
“I think what became very clear last year [in] the discussion with the coaches and the Canadian people, instead of trying to send to our athletes East to West, maybe it’s better to send them North to South. In terms of saving cost, obviously, and more competition between better athletes, [this] is better to improve the quality of our athletes in Canada and the US.” — Robert Lazzaroni, U.S. Ski & Snowboard Association (USSA) nordic domestic program director
“If you back to the NorAm races, when we used to do them with the U.S., when Devon Kershaw was racing Justin Wadsworth … ‘x’ number of years later, the one guy is coaching the other guy. Crossing over generations is very important.” — Thomas Holland, Cross Country Canada (CCC) high performance director
“The altitude at West Yellowstone is too high to use it as a selection race for the Canadian team.” — Holland, on applying the FIS limits to selection races.
“I think it’s an incredible opportunity. I think we as North Americans don’t get the opportunity to have such a competitive field and I think coming together and making each other better is super important and think there’s just so much more to learn.” — Julia Kern, Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite
“I really like it. This has been a very well-run, well-organized event. It’s really fun to race against other athletes, more people than the usual SuperTour field. It would be awesome to have more.” — Kaitlyn Miller, Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP)
“I can’t express to you how much I love it and how happy I am. I’ve been telling everyone I run into that I absolutely love it, and I would wish that the entire circuit could be combined the way it is today. I know that logistically, that’s not totally possible, but it’s so good for us, it adds such a depth of field. It’s just so much more fun, I love it. Yeah, I love it.” — Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt, Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA)
“I think it’s awesome. I think we should do more of these, for sure. Rossland and Silver Star and Canmore, it’s always beautiful snow and great grooming, and a really hilly, challenging course. I think all three of those have some really good terrain; it’s always fun to come up here and get a little bit different than our usual back courses back home.” — Jennie Bender, Bridger Ski Foundation (BSF)
“It’s been great. I’ve been amazed at the professionalism here. They’ve put on an amazing event. For us in North America, we have it unique that we are separate from Europe and it’s cool to be able to challenge each other against the Canadians, and I think we should have more of it.” — Heather Mooney, CGRP
“It’s just great. In sport and in skiing, I always believe that you need to race against the best. That’s why we’ll be racing in Europe in February. It’s a super good idea, and I don’t know why we didn’t do it earlier. They’re so close to us, so we need to race against them, and they need to race against us.” — Antoine Briand, Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre (CNEPH)
“I think it’s incredible. Last year at our athlete meeting at Canadian Nationals, I made that point very strongly a couple times. I raced U.S. nationals in Houghton last year. That was an awesome event, I thought. Having a higher level of competition benefits everyone and then when we get to racing deeper fields in Europe, we’re not caught quite as offguard.” — Evan Palmer-Charrette, Thunder Bay National Team Development Centre (NTDC)
“I think it’s awesome. I think it’s better for both the Americans and the Canadians. Everybody that I’ve talked to likes it. It raises the level of competition, we’re still competing for SuperTour points and NorAm points respectively. It just makes a deeper, faster field.” — Reese Hanneman, Alaska Pacific University (APU)
“It raised the level of competition a lot, brings everyone’s game up, I think it’s good for North American skiing.” — Cole Morgan, Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF)
“It’s the best, we need to do this all the time. It’s so good to mix it up and see all of our best racers. I think if you look back generations, guys like [Chris] Jeffries and [George] Grey and Kersh [Devon Kershaw], like [Ivan] Babikov, they cut their teeth on a combined circuit. I think their success on the world cup is definitely in part due to that. I hope we get a couple more opportunities to keep racing each other.” — Ben Saxton, SMS Elite (Note: Jeffries is the AWCA head coach, Grey placed eighth in the skiathlon at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Kershaw was second overall in the 2012 World Cup, and Babikov is one the Canadian World Cup coaches.)
“I think it’s a great idea. It’s really nice to get some deeper fields, to get the Americans and Canadians racing together. It wasn’t so fun to watch the podium here, to watch it filled up with Americans, but when all the Canadians go down in the semi, that was happens. We’ll be down at US Nationals for sure.” — Angus Foster, NTDC Thunder Bay
“It’s really good, because the level is really high with the U.S. Good for us to see other skiers, and other fast guys.” — Alexis Dumas, CNEPH, the second Canadian and 15th overall in the men’s 15 k
“I love it! I think it’s like the best thing for our sport. The camaraderie, and also you learn so much from your peers, it’s super important and so valuable.” — Chelsea Holmes, APU
“I love it, I hope we do more. I think it’s awesome for everyone involved.” — Katharine Ogden, SMS Elite
“I love it. It’s fun having a bigger field and a new venue. I love Silver Star, this place is hard to beat.” — Erika Flowers, SMS Elite
APU’s Reese Hanneman earned the NorAm leader’s big in Saturday’s sprints. (Photo: XTS Photography)
Three Canadians won’t be advancing to the A final. CNEPH’s Simon Lapointe (standing) watches NTDC TBay’s Angus Foster try to stand up with Lapointe’s ski stuck through his bib. Evan Palmer-Charrette is more interested in breathing after getting the wind knocked out of him. (Photo: XTS Photography)
Bend Endurance Academy’s Nick Michaud passes the 83% test during the heats. (Photo: XTS Photography)
Denver U and Finland’s Jasmi Joensuu powers to a 17th place qualification. (Photo: XTS Photography)
Cole Morgan and Reese Hanneman are easily through to the A final. (Photo: Russell Kennedy)
SMS Elite’s Katherine Ogden was the top junior with her second overall in the 10km free. (Photo: Marie-Éve Bilodeau-Corriveau)
Junior Gareth Williams found the one hour drive worthwhile, qualifying 27th overall and top junior, before winning the junior men heats. (Photo: XTS Photography)
FasterSkier was on the scene, learning how to spell Joensuu’s hometown of Kuortane. (Photo: XTS Photography)
Get your hot chocolate here! (Photo: XTS Photography)
The open women’s A final. (Photo: XTS Photography)
Angus Foster (309) untangles himself after a semifinal crash at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour on Dec. 10, as his NTDC Thunder Bay teammate Evan Palmer-Charrette tries to get his breath back. The ski through the bib belongs to Simon Lapointe. (Photo: Shelley Woodman)
Vail’s Tad Elliot leads Brian Gregg to third and fourth place. (Photo: XTS Photography)
APU’s Jack Novak can hear his teammate Scott Patterson coming up fast on his way to victory. (Photo: XTS Photography)
Two each from NTDC TBay and Dartmouth on the final climb of the loop. (Photo: XTS Photography)
Three skiers on three different laps. Canmore’s Sebastian Boemler-Dandurand leads Dartmouth’s Paolo Takagi-Atilano and APU’s David Norris. (Photo: XTS Photography)
SVSEF’s Matt Gelso leads Denver U’s Lars Hannah through the falling snow. (Photo: XTS Photography)
Team R.A.D.’s Russell Kennedy (r) powering through the snow to finish at the top Canadian in ninth in the men’s 15 k freestyle on Sunday, Dec. 11, at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour. (Photo: Marie-Éve Bilodeau-Corriveau)
AWCA’s Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt in the lap lane on her way to a second day as top Canadian. (Photo: Marie-Éve Bilodeau-Corriveau)
CNEPH’s Antoine Briand stretches for the last lucky loser spot in semifinal 1. (Photo: Russell Kennedy)
Sovereign Lake’s junior Hannah Mehain was 20th overall in the 10 km free. In the sprint, she qualified 8th overall before easily winning the junior A final. (Photo: Jeff Bassett)
APU’s Reese Hanneman (315) leading down the finishing stretch of the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour men’s classic sprint final on Dec. 10, with Sun Valley’s Cole Morgan (r), the University of Denver’s Moritz Madlener (behind Hanneman), Stratton’s Ben Saxton (behind Morgan), and Sun Valley’s Matt Gelso (behind Madlener) chasing. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
VERNON, B.C. — It might’ve been the first Canadian NorAm of the season, but the Americans made it all about themselves in what also doubled as their second stop on the U.S. SuperTour circuit this past weekend at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre.
U.S. skiers kept Canada off the podium in the classic sprints and freestyle intervals starts on Saturday, Dec. 10, and Sunday, Dec. 11, with Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt, of the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) and Canadian U25 Team, coming closest in fourth on Day 1.
On Saturday, Bouffard-Nesbitt started off the very first NorAm race, a 1.2 k classic sprint, with a qualifying win. She went on to advance in second in her quarterfinal and third in her semifinal, before finishing fourth in the A-final, 1.49 seconds out of first.
American Julia Kern of the Vermont-based Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite Team (formerly the T2 Team) won the women’s final in 3:17.04, after qualifying fifth and placing second in both her quarterfinal and semifinal. Kern led two Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) teammates, Liz Guiney and Kaitlynn Miller, in second (+0.67) and third (+0.91) on the podium, respectively.
Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt (AWCA) leads the Americans through the bridge turn in the women’s classic sprint A-final on Saturday, Dec. 10, at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour. Stratton’s Julia Kern (second from r) made a tactical choice more than a minute earlier, which gave her the inside position on Craftsbury’s Kaitlynn Miller (l) and the advantage she needed to win. (Photo: Peggy Hung)
Bouffard-Nesbitt led the six finalists into the finishing straight after opening up a wide gap at the top of the second climb.
“Yeah, those Americans,” Bouffard-Nesbitt told FasterSkier after the race. “I was in first until we hit the final finishing straight, and then I just got out-double poled by three of the girls.”
Kern, a U.S. Ski Team Development Team member and Dartmouth student, credited tactical choices for her victory.
“In the quarterfinal, I made the mistake of not taking the outside, which turned into the inside turn on the second downhill,” Kern said.
The second downhill on Sovereign’s sprint course has a gentle right turn leading into a high-speed left, followed by the long climb and then two sharp left turns to the finish. Keeping control of the inside for the last three turns gave Kern the ideal position to take the second skied-in finish lane to cross the line first.
Guiney followed Kern to second, leaving Miller with the fresh snow in lane three.
“I was in third the first half of the course, just stayed in the mix,” Miller said of the final. “I really like the striding hill at the end.”
Despite being slowed in the final straight, Miller loved the conditions.
“This course is really nice, the conditions are awesome,” she said. “I love all the fresh snow. We had really great skis today, so that always helps.”
While Bouffard-Nesbitt was disappointed that there wasn’t a Canadian on the podium, she was happy with her day.
“I haven’t really sprinted this year,” she said, referring to a stress fracture in her foot that put her on crutches for several months this summer. “The intensity I’ve done since I’ve been back on my feet has been almost exclusively controlled Zone 3.”
The fourth American in the top five, Jennie Bender of the Bridger Ski Foundation (BSF) qualified third and finished fifth overall (+3.8). The SuperTour leader after West Yellowstone’s first two races of the season, she was disappointed with fifth.
“It was a tough field out there,” Bender said. “It’s a really short course, lots of turns, three different 180-degree turns. I kind of got swallowed up on the last downhill and lost a little gusto.”
Asked if she was tempted to double-pole the course, Bender laughed and said, “I was! I might of been interested to do it during the qualifier, but I was third, and yeah, I’ll keep the striding.”
A third Craftsbury skier in the A-final, Heather Mooney qualified ninth and went on to finish sixth in the final (+19.84).
“It’s a really fun course, fun with lots of transitions,” Mooney said. “Off the start of the final, I was really excited that we had three from our team. I just didn’t quite have it at the beginning, caught back up a little bit, but I was definitely on and off the back of the pack. Came in last, but it was a good day.”
All six of the women’s B-finalists were American, with Becca Rorabaugh of Alaska Pacific University (APU)ultimately placing seventh, Erika Flowers (SMS Elite) eighth, Mary O’Connell (CGRP) ninth, Jessica Yeaton (APU) 10th, Mary Rose of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) 11th, and Anne Hart (SMS Elite) 12th.
“I definitely wasn’t skiing as fast as I would like to be,” MacIsaac-Jones said, “but I am definitely just happy to be racing and on snow.”
She was eliminated after placing fifth in her quarterfinal and skipped the 10 k freestyle on Sunday for a distance training session instead.
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The men’s final on the first downhill at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour on Dec. 10 near Vernon, B.C. Sun Valley’s Cole Morgan leads Denver’s Moritz Madlener, CNEPH’s Antoine Briand, Sun Valley’s Matt Gelso, and Stratton’s Ben Saxton Saxton in pursuit of APU’s Reese Hanneman (not shown). (Photo: Peggy Hung)
The men’s classic sprint shared the same 1.2 k course and the same American domination of the podium after a semifinal crash took three Canadians out of contention.
Reese Hanneman (APU) double poled to the win in 2:38.08 after qualifying 15th. Cole Morgan (SVSEF) and Ben Saxton (SMS Elite) rounded out the podium in second (+0.87) and third (+1.92), respectively.
“I had a really bad qualifier, for me. I chose a classic ski,” Hanneman said of his qualification round. “But I think [grip wax] was much slower, as the heats showed.”
He described the A-final as fast from the start.
“I had a decent start; I was in second behind Cole up until the top of the first climb. I made a pass, double poled by him, and I was kind of leading into the big climb,” Hanneman recalled.
“Then he and I were side by side, one and two, with a little gap. Then up the steep pitch, he took the lead and I tucked in behind him and just followed him over the bridge. I was able to close down the gap and then pass him and then turn on the jets coming in the final double-pole section.”
Morgan, who won the qualifier and was one of the four others on skate skis in the final, was also pleased with his tactics.
“I did the same tactic as I did in every heat, try to be in second place coming into the big downhill before the last hill,” Morgan said. “[I] was able to lead over the top, but didn’t have the same finish as Reese did.”
Saxton double poled all four laps, as did Hanneman, Morgan and many of the top men.
“I think that was the faster call, but it was definitely a physical task those last heats there,” Saxton said.
Another double poler in the final, the University of Denver’s Moritz Madlener ended up fourth (+1.92) after qualifying third.
“Considering how much we trained the last couple of weeks, it was a great result,” he said.
For Madlener, who is originally from Germany, this marked his first visit to Canada.
“This is German territory. The last time there was a World Cup here, the first five were Germans,” he said, probably not realizing that it was 11 years to the day since that 30 k pursuit event.
The lone finalist on grip wax, Matt Gelso (SVSEF) finished fifth (+3.88) after winning his crash-marred semifinal. Antoine Briand of the Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre (CNEPH) was the lone Canadian in the A-final, with a lucky loser time that was faster than Gelso’s winning time from the other semifinal.
Angus Foster (309) untangles himself after a semifinal crash at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour on Dec. 10, as his NTDC Thunder Bay teammate Evan Palmer-Charrette tries to get his breath back. The ski through the bib belongs to Simon Lapointe. (Photo: Shelley Woodman)
For a few Canadian athletes, the crash in the second semifinal was the defining moment of the day. Only 50 metres into the race, Gelso used his inside position in the tight pack to pull in front of Angus Foster, of the Thunder Bay National Team Development Center (NTDC), but Gelso skied over Foster’s ski, triggering a chain reaction.
“[Gelso] got through, but I went down, had two other Canadians go down with me,” Foster said after. “Probably the hardest crash we’ve ever had.”
Foster fell sideways in front of NTDC teammate Evan Palmer-Charrette.
“I just got unlucky, [Foster] fell right in front of me, and I just pitchforked over him, got the wind knocked out of me pretty bad,” Palmer-Charrette said. “Unfortunate, but that’s racing.”
CNEPH’s Simon Lapointe was the third skier in the tangle. Lapointe got up quickly, but a broken binding required him to wait for a coach to run over with a spare ski.
Palmer-Charrette was slow to get up, leaving Foster pinned in place. Foster finished the heat with three holes in the back of his race bib and likely a few ski-shaped bruises underneath.
Lapointe, one of the top Canadians sprinters, was the most frustrated with the semifinal crash. He left the finish area with a quick French-language “nothing to say” before going on to win the B-final by 1.06 seconds over Palmer-Charrette in 2:43.31.
None of the three Canadians protested to the jury member at the finish. Asked directly about whether there was cause for a protest, Foster said “That wasn’t a clean move, but that happens. People make mistakes. Still frustrating, but….”
Gelso was surprised to find only one skier with him at the top of the second climb. “We both went for a track at the same time, and I don’t know what happened,” Gelso said later, “but I’ve been on both ends of that.”
Everyone interviewed spoke favorably of the combined NorAm/SuperTour weekend.
“It’s really nice to get some deeper fields, to get the Americans and Canadians racing together,” Foster said. “It wasn’t so fun to watch the podium here.”
APU’s Scott Patterson leading Canadian junior Ty Godfrey (Team R.A.D.) during the men’s 15 k freestyle interval start on Sunday, Dec. 11, at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour. (Photo: Peggy Hung)
Day 2 at Sovereign proved to be more populated with Americans sweeping the top five and nearly the top 10 in the men’s and women’s distance freestyle interval starts.
In the men’s 15 k, Scott Patterson (APU) topped the field by 13.2 seconds with a winning time of 40:00.2. Gelso reached the podium in second — his third this season in four SuperTour races — and Tad Elliott (Ski Club Vail) placed third (+26.6).
The U.S. swept the top eight with Brian Gregg (Team Gregg) in fourth (+54.8), Paddy Caldwell (SMS Elite/Dartmouth/USST) in fifth (+1:20.5), Ben Lustgarten (CGRP) in sixth (+1:27.4), Madlener in seventh (+1:31.3), and Kyle Bratrud (CXC Team) in eighth (+1:33.5).
Russell Kennedy of the Canmore-based Team R.A.D. was the top Canadian* in ninth (+1:38.8), and John Hegman (SVSEF) finished 10th (+1:44.2).
(*While Kennedy lives and trains in Canada, he is originally from Truckee, Calif.)
Out of 112 finishers in the men’s race, nearly 50 were American, and two were Australian national team members.
“Gelso’s definitely in good shape so it was good to hear splits out there that I was leading,” Patterson said. He started in bib 94 behind Gelso in bib 80.
“Fifteen k skate’s kind of been my game, one race I can always fall back to and know I can ski pretty fast,” Patterson added.
Asked about the event doubling as a SuperTour, he said it added competition.
“I would have loved to see the Canadians in West [Yellowstone], but it’s a weird course, makes sense to skip it,” he said of the SuperTour’s usual first stop on the circuit (one of the few places in the U.S. with reliable early season snow) at the Rendezvous Ski Trails in West Yellowstone, Mont. The SuperTour opener was originally scheduled for Bozeman, Mont., which would have been a NorAm as well, but moved because of low snow.
“It’s always fun to have a bunch of people that you don’t know all that well,” Patterson added. “This is my first time in Silver Star and it’s been great. Real winter, and we’ve been lacking that in Anchorage [Alaska].”
After spending a good chunk of last season in Europe on the World Cup, Patterson noted that even those venues tend to rely on manmade snow.
“It’s nice to have dumping snow out here,” he said.
“I think the third lap, things started to slow down,” Patterson added about the race itself. “I was getting ice through my glasses and eyes. It made things feel a little more closed in, feel like it’s snowing harder. I think it slowed down a little bit, but maybe that’s just getting tired, too.”
Sun Valley’s Matt Gelso (front) charging a false flat on his first lap of the men’s three-lap 15 k freestyle on Dec. 11 at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour, followed by Welly Ramsey (Ford Sayre). (Photo: Peggy Hung)
Gelso recalled a slower last lap as well, but was pleased with his effort.
“It’s a great course, and it was fun,” he said.
Gelso was strongly in favor of combining the two North American circuits whenever possible, recalling a conversation he had with some U.S. and Canadian national-team members at 2015 World Championships.
“Devon Kershaw and a bunch of the Canadians and Americans were staying in the same hotel, and we were talking about how cool … instead of having one Canadian, one American that goes to the World Cup on the Continental Cup, why [doesn’t the International Ski Federation] give North America three spots for Canada and the US, and all of our races are together?” he said. “Sometimes it will be three Americans, sometimes it will be three Canadians, sometimes it will be two and one, whoever’s racing fast. The more we are racing together, I think the better we’re going to fare internationally.”
“I mean, we’re friends with these guys, we know who they are,” Elliott said of racing with Canadians. “Michael Somppi, Kevin Sandau, they’ve been visited us at U.S. nationals last year. Silver Star’s gorgeous, great skiing, great course, well-run races, so it’s always a pleasure to visit here.”
Elliott, a former U.S. Ski Team distance skier, described feeling surprised with his effort on Sunday after what he called a “great sprint” in West Yellowstone (in which he placed 14th) followed by a head cold, which forced him to skip the West Yellowstone distance race.
“I rested all week indoors, and I felt incredible today,” he said.
Kennedy in ninth called his race a solid start, but had hoped to finished a “little higher up.”
“The U.S. guys are skiing super-strong right now, you could just see it out there,” Kennedy said. “I thought I was skiing pretty well, and then got some splits off of Gelso, and OK, they’re moving. I am hoping when we have [World Championships] trials in Park City, we’ll be a little bit more up there, but we’ll see. It’s good to have that competition, too. You can’t rest anywhere, you have to push everywhere, so that’s good.”
Asked about the NorAm/SuperTour combo, he was also positive.
“It’s good for us to have the extra competition and it’s good to race new faces,” Kennedy said. “Especially in sprints, you get used to the same tactics from the same people. When you have someone new, it’s nice to have to adjust your tactics and be prepared for what they’re going to do when you don’t know them as well. In distance, it’s really cool to have new guys to chase. I can kind of know the Canadians, what’s happening with them, but I was chasing down David [Norris] today, and he kind of surprised me how strong he was on the last lap, it was good to have that extra push, for sure.”
The second-fastest Canadian man of the day, Alexis Dumas (CNEPH) placed 15th (+2:13.1).
“I feel really fast on the one-skate, and the uphill was good, too,” Dumas said after. “I improved a lot my offset this summer, so it was good for this course.”
In terms of season goals, he’s looking to qualify for U23 World Championships, where he’d like to achieve a top 20.
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Chelsea Holmes leads Erika Flowers at the 5 k mark of the women’s 10 k freestyle interval start on Sunday, Dec. 11, at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour. (Photo: Marie-Éve Bilodeau-Corriveau)
In the women’s 10 k, Chelsea Holmes (APU) took the win in 30:42.9, topping the time of the race’s previous leader, Katharine Ogden (SMS Elite) by 13.4 seconds. Stratton had two on the podium with Flowers in third, 36.4 seconds back from Holmes.
“The course was really hard, but my techs and coaches gave us really good skis,” Holmes said after. “Today, I had the most amazing team, all the boys finished and they were cheering so hard.”
Holmes started 30 seconds after Flowers and 1 minute behind her APU teammate Rosie Frankowski.
“Chelsea started right behind me, and her and Frankie [Frankowski] and I all skied together for most of it, which made it a lot more fun cruising through the snow,” Flowers recalled. “We had a good little crew going, so it was hard, but hard with friends.”
Frankowski finished with Holmes and 59.9 seconds off her winning time in sixth place, behind Gregg in fourth (+40.8) and Rose in fifth (+51.7). APU had three in the top seven with Rorabaugh in seventh (+1:09.8). Craftsbury’s Guiney placed eighth (+1:17.9), Deedra Irwin (SVSEF) was ninth (+1:18.4), and Kern, Saturday’s sprint winner, 10th (+1:24.8).
For the second day in a row, Bouffard-Nesbitt was the top Canadian woman, placing 13th (+1:51.8). Of the top 20, the U.S. swept all but three places: 13th, 18th with NTDC’s Annika Richardson, and 20th with Sovereign Lake’s own Hannah Mehain. (Both Richardson and Mehain belong to Canada’s Junior National Team.)
“I’ve never had an easy race at Silver Star,” Bouffard-Nesbitt said after Sunday’s 10 k. “It was really hard as usual. To be honest, all morning, I feel pretty wrecked from yesterday’s race. Whole body, that sprint really took a toll on me. I was kind of just trying to play the hand I was dealt the best I could, make the most of it. I think I’m happy with it.”
Asked how she felt about being the top Canadian for the second-straight day, albeit outside the top 10, she replied, “Let’s say, bittersweet. Obviously, we want to have Canadians represented at the top of these fields, among the Americans, but of course I’m happy to be top Canadian.”
Regardless, she was glad to have the competition.
“We not coming here to have easy wins; we’re coming here to be challenged,” Bouffard-Nesbitt said. “I’m very happy to have them here, and I’m very happy when they can show us what fast racing looks like.”
Sixty-two women finished the distance race, and about half were American. Most of the NorAm field is headed to Rossland, B.C., for next weekend’s NorAm, which is not a SuperTour and will not count toward the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Association’s (USSA) national ranking list.
Matt Gelso (SVSEF) topping the SuperTour podium for the second-straight day on Sunday in West Yellowstone, Mont. Joining him on Sunday’s 15 k classic podium: CGRP’s Ben Lustgarten (l) in second and APU’s Scott Patterson (r) in third.
WEST YELLOWSTONE, Mont. — It was the type of day every alpine enthusiast dreams about: fresh powder snow that keeps falling down.
For cross-country skiers gearing up to race the first classic distance races of the SuperTour season, it was the type of day that creates questions: more or less kick? Chance a step out of the track or stay settled in? To double pole or not to double pole?
With nearly an inch of fresh snow covering much of the 5-kilometer race loop by the time the men’s field hit the Rendezvous Ski Trails on Sunday for the 15 k classic event, a few skiers opted to forego kick wax altogether and pole through the powder.
Matt Gelso (SVSEF) racing to his second-straight victory at the West Yellowstone SuperTour on Sunday in the men’s 15 k classic. In two SuperTour races this season, he’s undefeated.
Scott Patterson of Alaska Pacific University (APU) was one skier who saw kick wax as costing him seconds. The 28th skier out of the start, Patterson proved his double-pole strength, catching his APU teammate Logan Hanneman — who started 30 seconds ahead of him — within the first 2 k.
However, by the second time Patterson reached the high point of the course, another blue-suited skier was closing in. Matt Gelso, of the Sun Valley Ski Education (SVSEF) Gold Team, who started 30 seconds after Patterson, was now striding within 15 meters of the APU skier.
“I didn’t know how the [other] double polers were doing because the only double poler I saw was Scott,” Gelso, 28, told FasterSkier after. “Anybody could have a bad day at anytime, so I was like ‘OK, maybe Scott is having a bad day or maybe double pole wasn’t the right call.”
Still a fairly early starter in the field, Gelso didn’t see the gap he was closing between himself and Patterson as a sign of securing the win. He continued to drive through the blowing snow, even after passing by Patterson.
“It was hell of a day out there,” Gelso added. “On that third lap I came through … passed a few people and then it was like the track was blown in and it looked like no one had skied by in like 15 minutes.”
Completing his third and final 5 k lap, Gelso finished in a time of 42:57, taking the top spot with a little over half the men’s field still on course. As each consecutive skier completed the 15 k, Gelso’s only challenger came from Ben Lustgarten, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP), who finished 32.2 seconds back in second.
“Baring being super blown out from yesterday[’s sprint], I was expecting to be up there, in the top fighting for it with some guys because I knew my fitness was good,” said Gelso, who also won Saturday’s 1.3 k freestyle sprint. “But … I didn’t realize I had a lead like that.”
With his back-to-back wins at this weekend’s SuperTour opener, Gelso sees his season and training as heading in the right direction.
Ben Lustgarten (CGRP) racing to the highest point of the course during the men’s 15 k classic on Sunday in West Yellowstone, Mont.
“I always want to be up there, you don’t train to come in 10th,” Gelso said. “World Cup starts are always a goal …i t’s [also] a World Championship year. … I am sure not the only person out here whose overarching goal for the season is to go to world champs. I went two years ago and it would be pretty cool to go again.”
In second place on Sunday, Lustgarten also hopes to earn World Cup starts. With that in mind, he will focus in on the upcoming Canadian NorAm/SuperTour races taking place this upcoming weekend at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre in British Columbia.
“As of now Matt has a great start to the season, so I will need a great few races next weekend to make Period 2,” Lustgarten wrote in an email. “If not I always have Nationals to do well at.”
Rounding out the men’s podium in third was Patterson, 1:16.8 seconds back from Gelso.
“The third time I double poled up Telemark Hill I looked over at some of the guys striding and thought I wouldn’t have minded trading with them,” Patterson reflected. “But you know, whatever you decide, you have to go to the start line and have the confidence you made the right choice.”
About two seconds behind Patterson, Kyle Bratrud (CXC Team) placed fourth (+1:18.9), and Kris Freeman (Team Freebird) finished fifth (+1:40.2). Completing the top 10, David Norris (APU) placed sixth, Brian Gregg (Team Gregg) was seventh, Ben Saxton (SMST2) eighth, Tyler Kornfield (APU) ninth, and Rogan Brown (SVSEF) 10th.
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The women’s 10 k classic podium at the SuperTour in West Yellowstone, Mont., with (from left to right) Katharine Ogden (SMS) in second, Liz Guiney (CGRP) in first and Kaitlynn Miller (CGRP) in third.
Guiney Gets the Ball ‘Rolling’ with First SuperTour Win
In the women’s 10 k classic on Sunday, Craftsbury’s Liz Guiney (CGRP) took first, claiming her first ever SuperTour victory.
Guiney covered the two-lap 10 k in a time of 33:52.8, besting second-place finisher Katharine Ogden, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) and U.S. Ski Team D-team, by 7.7 seconds.
Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) skier Kaitlynn Miller leading Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) during the women’s 10-kilometer individual start classic race on Sunday in West Yellowstone, Mont.
“Obviously there’s an opportunity to lead the SuperTour,” the 25-year-old Guiney told FasterSkier on Sunday. “[But] I’m kind of just taking it one race at a time … I’m happy with where my fitness is right now and am just going see if I can keep it rolling.”
Ogden, who recently turned 19, saw her performance as a sign of improvement in her classic skiing.
“I struggled a little bit with classic racing last year so this is a really encouraging result for me,” Ogden said after. “I actually love West Yellowstone … I was petty excited, psyched [when the races were moved here].”
The second Craftsbury GRP racer on the podium, Kaitlynn Miller placed third, finishing 28.4 seconds behind Guiney. While many racers may not have been rejoicing over Sunday’s snowy conditions, Miller explained that a 10 k classic individual race in fresh powder primed her performance.
“This is kind of my favorite race format and favorite race conditions,” Miller said after.
Miller, who started 30 seconds behind Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg), had caught Gregg by the start of the second lap, and the two skied together for the rest of the race.
“Honestly, I didn’t get a single split during the whole race,” Miller said. “I heard like, Craftsbury’s doing really well and some enthusiastic cheering so I figured things were going well, but mostly I was just out there going for it and having fun.”
Gregg finished fifth, 1:01.1 behind Guiney and 32.7 seconds behind Miller. Saturday’s skate sprint winner, Jennie Bender placed fourth, 42.4 seconds out of first. Rounding out the top 10, Petra Hyncicova of the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU) placed sixth, Merete Myrseth (University of Utah) was seventh, Christina Rolandsen (CU) eighth, Erika Flowers (SMST2) ninth, and Guro Jordheim (Utah) 10th.
With her first SuperTour win packed away, Guiney is excited to get the rest of the season ‘rolling’, especially the upcoming U.S. nationals, which will be held in Park City, Utah, from Jan. 7 to Jan. 12, 2017.
“Soldier Hollow is kind of my home course, having grown up in Park City,” Guiney said. So I’m excited to race in front of my family and friends and hopefully have some fast races.”
Matt Gelso (SVSEF) topping the SuperTour podium for the second-straight day in West Yellowstone, Mont. Joining him on Sunday’s 15 k classic podium: CGRP’s Ben Lustgarten (l) in second and APU’s Scott Patterson (r) in third.
Welcome to The Rundown, your quick primer of need-to-know information about the day’s racing. We’ll be updating this digest as the day goes on with additional results, photos and quotes. The Rundown is NOT a race report; stay tuned for complete race reports later today with interviews from the day’s top racers.
(Note: This Rundown has been updated to include comments from U.S. Nordic Combined’s Bryan Fletcher, who placed ninth on Sunday at the World Cup in Lillehammer, Norway.)
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U.S. SuperTour opener in West Yellowstone: 10/15 k classic
Matt Gelso made the case that he can win any discipline and format when it comes to cross-country skiing, topping the SuperTour podium for the second-straight day of the circuit’s opening weekend in West Yellowstone, Mont. Gelso, of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team, won the men’s 15-kilometer classic individual start in 42:57. He finished 32.2 seconds ahead of Ben Lustgarten of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) in second, and Scott Patterson, of Alaska Pacific University (APU), clocked in 1:16.8 back in third.
In the women’s 10 k classic, Liz Guiney (CGRP) tallied the distance victory in 33:52.8. Katharine Ogden, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) and U.S. Ski Team D-team, finished 7.7 seconds back in second place, while Craftsbury put two on the podium with Kaitlynn Miller in third (+28.4).
Nordic Combined World Cup in Lillehammer: Two individual comps and a relay
German winner Eric Frenzel (c) with teammate Björn Kircheisen (l) in second and Norway’s Jørgen Graabak (r) in third on Day 3 of the Nordic Combined World Cup in Lillehammer, Norway. (Photo: FIS Nordic Combined/Twitter)
[UPDATE) Twenty-second in the jump. Ninth at the finish. That’s a bit more like it for U.S. Nordic Combined’s Bryan Fletcher. The American jumped to 22nd on Sunday on the large hill in Lillehammer, Norway, then raced to ninth in the 10 k Gundersen start cross-country race. He finished 1:22 minutes behind race winner Eric Frenzel, who notched his second-straight individual victory and third win (including Friday’s team event) of the Nordic Combined World Cup’s long weekend in 25:13.6.
“Going into the race on Sunday I was confident that with a good race I could move up quite well,” Fletcher wrote in an email. “So I just set out to ski my own race and right from the start I was moving up. Top 10 was the goal and I was happy to accomplish that.”
Germany went 1-2 with Björn Kircheisen in second (+10.8) and Jørgen Graabak of Norway finished third (+23.4) on Day 3 in Lillehammer. Fletcher’s younger brother Taylor Fletcher placed 26th (+2:21.1), moving way up from 48th in the jump (with the fastest overall course time). Also for the U.S., Ben Berend placed 49th (+4:30), and Ben Loomis was 52nd (+5:16).
On Friday, the German teammates started off the three-day series with a victory in the first 4 x 5 k team event of the season. They teamed up with Kircheisen and Fabian Riessle for first, beating Norway by 31.5 seconds with a winning time of 49:34.9.
Norway’s squad, with Mikko Kokslien, Espen Andersen, Håvard Klemetsen, and Graabak, finished second without anyone else in sight. Austria took third (+1:23.7) with David Pommer, Mario Seidl, Wilhelm Denifl, and Phillipp Orter.
Finland placed fourth, Japan was fifth, France sixth, the Czech Republic seventh, Italy eighth, and the U.S. ninth (+4:19.1), ahead of Russia in 10th.
The order for the U.S. team was Bryan Fletcher, Berend, Loomis, and Taylor Fletcher. They rose as high as sixth during Bryan’s first leg, but dropped to eighth and finally ninth.
On Saturday, in the individual normal hill/10 k competition, Frenzel overtook Rydzek for the win in 24:35. Rydzek started the day by winning the jump, and Frenzel ranked fourth heading into the 10 k Gundersen start. Frenzel overcame a 24-second deficit at the start to pass Rydzek and beat him by 15 seconds at the finish. Germany ended up sweeping the podium with Riessle in third (+25.8), after Riessle improved from 11th at the start with the second-fastest course time.
Also on Saturday, Taylor Fletcher led the Americans in 26th (+1:51.2) after jumping to 44th and starting 2:02 minutes back from Rydzek. Fletcher skied the ninth-fastest course time.
Bryan improved from 43rd at the start to 32nd (+2:32.9), Loomis ended up 43rd (+5:02.6) and Berend 44th (+5:33.4).
“Going into this weekend I was feeling good and had some solid jumps in training so I knew that I was capable of a decent performance,” Bryan wrote on Sunday. “However, I struggle to put all the pieces together through the weekend. The team event was a good performance on my part and it was fun to ski with our young guys too. In Saturday’s event, I was close but had a rather unusual race in which I just couldn’t get going and fell off the pace quickly. Sunday however it all came together with a decent jump and race to finish 9th. This is more indicative of my true level at the moment so I was happy to finally fall into form.
“This is definitely a result that I was hoping for in this period,” he continued. “I would like to finish in the top 10 consistently this year and it was a bit of a shaky start but I am starting to find the rhythm now. I hope to continue this momentum in Ramsau.”
Lowell Bailey came oh-so-close to fourth place on Sunday. Just two fewer misses and he could’ve been in the hunt, but that’s how biathlon goes.
US Biathlon’s top man so far this season, Bailey started 13th in the IBU World Cup 12.5 k pursuit on Sunday in Östersund, Sweden, and by the first prone stage, he was up to seventh with clean shooting. Two-and-a-half kilometers later, he was back in the range and shooting without a miss again. Bailey headed out on his third loop in fourth, and more or less held that position through the third shooting — cleaning yet again in standing.
Russia went 1-2 in the men’s 15 k pursuit on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden, with Anton Babikov (l) winning his first World Cup and Maxim Tsvetkov (r) placing second. (Photo: IBU)
But two misses on the final standing dropped him to ninth, and on the final loop, Bailey slipped six spots to 15th at the finish. With two penalties (0+0+0+2), Bailey finished 1:21.8 behind the winner, Russia’s Anton Babikov, who hit 19-of-20 targets en route to his first World Cup victory and podium. Russia took second place as well with Maxim Tsvetkov shooting clean (0+0+0+0) and finishing 10.5 seconds behind his teammate, and France’s Martin Fourcade pushed through four penalties (2+0+0+2) to place third (+15.2).
Fourcade started the day in first, after winning Saturday’s sprint, and lost the lead on the final stage, with two misses sending him to the penalty lap. On that last shooting, Babikov (the seventh starter) took control, and Tsvetkov (who started 11th) moved up from skiing in third for most of the race to second place.
Also for the U.S., Tim Burke placed 35th (+2:39.2) after starting 29th, with four penalties (0+1+2+1).
Canada’s Scott Gow finished 47th (+3:34.8) with three misses (0+0+2+1), Brendan Green was 50th (+3:45.5) wit five misses (1+3+0+1), and Macx Davies 51st (+3:54.6) with four penalties (0+0+2+2).
Gabriela Koukalová of the Czech Republic with her first-place prize after winning Sunday’s 10 k pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden. (Photo: IBU)
In the women’s race, Gabriela Koukalová (formerly Soukalova, you’ll get used to it, we promise), took her third-place finish in Saturday’s sprint and catapulted herself into first on Sunday in the 10 k pursuit. Koukalova shot 19-for-20, missing just one on the first standing (0+0+1+0) to cross the finish line first, 8.4 seconds ahead of Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier.
While Koukalova, of the Czech Republic, took the win in 31:43.3, Dahlmeier placed second (after starting fourth) with two penalties (0+1+1+0). Italy’s Dorothea Wierer improved from 19th to third (+21.4) at the finish, with perfect shooting (0+0+0+0).
Switzerland’s Lena Häcki also cleaned for fourth (+36.3), after starting 12th.
The first out of the gate (the winner of Saturday’s sprint), France’s Marie Dorin Habert dropped to seventh, more than a minute and 15 seconds back, with six penalties (2+1+2+1).
American Susan Dunklee moved up to 22nd (+2:55.7) after starting 27th, despite five penalties (2+2+0+1).
Also for US Biathlon, Clare Egan improved to 30th (+3:35.4), up from 44th, with three misses (0+0+1+2).
Joanne Reid (US Biathlon) finished 47th (+4:59.6) with four misses (1+1+1+1), and Canada’s Julia Ransom finished 58th (+6:36.8) with eight misses (2+0+4+2).
Martin Johnsrud Sundby is the man to beat once again after winning the men’s 15-kilometer classic pursuit on Sunday in Lillehammer, Norway. The Norwegian started seventh and overcame a 50-second deficit to Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson, the leader going into the final day of the mini tour. Halfvarsson dropped to fifth, while Sundby rose to first and brought another Norwegian Johannes Høsflot Klæbo to the top with him. Klæbo started sixth, 3 seconds ahead of Sundby, and placed second, 2.3 seconds behind him. Finland’s Matti Heikkinen took the final spot on the podium in third (+2.7), by 0.9 seconds over Norway’s Emil Iversen in fourth. Halfvarsson was 6.3 seconds back in fifth, his Swedish teammate Marcus Hellner sixth (+6.8), Norway’s Pål Golberg and Finn Hågen Krogh seventh (+9.9) and eighth (+15.0), respectively, and Canada’s Alex Harvey ninth (+16.2), ahead of Finland’s Iivo Niskanen in 10th (+52.0)
Canada had two in the points with Devon Kershaw rising from 43rd to 27th (+2:08.5). Len Valjas placed 48th (+3.44), Graeme Killick was 53rd (+3:53.9), Knute Johnsgaard 72nd (+6:20.3), Bob Thompson 81st (+8:16.3), Andy Shields 83rd (+9:57.3).
For the U.S., Noah Hoffman rose to 36th (+2:39.5) after starting 48th, Erik Bjornsen finished 57th (+4:33.3), and Eric Packer finished out his first overseas mini tour in 68th (+5:45.1).
Heidi Weng (c) held onto her lead to win the Lillehammer mini-tour by 16.1 seconds over Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (l). Finland’s Krista Parmakoski was third after losing a shot at second thanks to a crash. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
Heidi Weng of Norway started the 10 k pursuit in first place, and that’s where she finished it, 16.1 seconds ahead of teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg. Finland’s Krista Parmakoski rounded out the podium in third, after skiing up from a fifth place starting position and passing Østberg near the end of the race but then crashing on a downhill and losing valuable seconds. Nevertheless her effort gave Parmakoski the fastest ski time of the day.
Jessie Diggins, who started the race in third position after winning yesterday’s 5 k skate, made an early bid to ski with Østberg but ultimately lost ground, ending eighth, +1:39.4.
Instead it was Marit Bjørgen who took fourth, +57.5. Stina Nilsson of Sweden was one of the biggest movers of the day, skiing from 27th at the start all the way up to fifth, +1:26.1.
Following Diggins, Sadie Bjornsen finished 11th, +1:51.2. The American had started in a pack of skiers and stayed there for most of the race. Liz Stephen was 38th (+3:31.8), and Rosie Brennan and Caitlin Patterson 41st (+3:50.2) and 42nd (+3:56.8). Ida Sargent rounded out the U.S. results in 57th (+5:39.7).
Emily Nishikawa led the Canadians in 46th (+4:08.5), with Cendrine Browne and Dahria Beatty 52nd (+4:41.5) and 59th (+6:08.2).
The Ruka stadium from above in Kuusamo, Finland. (Photo: Toko)
Welcome to The Rundown, your quick primer of need-to-know information about the day’s racing. We’ll be updating this digest as the day goes on with additional results, photos and quotes. The Rundown is NOT a race report; stay tuned for complete race reports later today with interviews from the day’s top racers.
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West Yellowstone FIS Races: 5/10 k classic
Scott Patterson (APU) double poling to the win in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Scott Patterson of Alaska Pacific University (APU) continued his winning streak on Saturday, topping the 10-kilometer classic FIS race at the Rendezvous Ski Trails in West Yellowstone, Mont. (In the two FIS races he’s competed in — the other being a 7.5 k freestyle last weekend in Fairbanks, Alaska — Patterson is undefeated.) He won Saturday’s classic race in 22:12.2 minutes, more than 20 seconds ahead of runner-up Matt Gelso, of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF), who placed second (+20.8). Ben Lustgarten, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP), improved on his fifth-place finish in Friday’s 10 k freestyle, reaching the podium in third (+23.4).
David Norris (APU) placed fourth (+30.0), Kevin Bolger (University of Utah) was fifth (+33.1), and Ben Saxton, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2 Team,was sixth (+38.9). Petter Reistad, of the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU), finished seventh (+45.7), Daniel Streinz (Mountain Endurance Sports) took eighth (+49.9), Friday’s winner Paddy Caldwell, of SMS, Dartmouth College and the U.S. Ski Team (USST), was ninth (+56.0), and Martin Mikkelsen (Utah) placed 10th (+1:00.8) out of 70 male finishers.
In the women’s 5 k classic, Craftsbury’s Liz Guiney took the win in 13:06, edging Utah freshman Merete Myrseth by just 0.3 seconds. Friday’s 5 k freestyle winner, Katharine Ogden (SMS/USST) reached the podium again in third (+11.1), Jesse Knori (CU) was fourth (+13.5), and Erika Flowers (SMST2) fifth (+18.2) on her 27th birthday.
Kaitlynn Miller (CGRP) took sixth (+21.8), Christina Rolandsen (CU) was seventh (+21.9), Petra Hyncicova (CU) eighth (+24.1), Guro Jordheim (Utah) ninth (+28.9), and Jennie Bender, of the Bridger Ski Foundation, 10th (+31.2), out of 74 female finishers.
While this weekend’s FIS races are over, West Yellowstone will host again next weekend, as Bozeman SuperTour organizers announced Friday afternoon that it was moving its races to West, its southern neighbor, because of a lack of snow. Next weekend’s SuperTour races will be the first of the season, featuring the originally planned freestyle sprints on Saturday, Dec. 3, and 10/15 classic races on Sunday, Dec. 4.
Katharine Ogden (SMS/USST) racing to third in the women’s 5 k classic FIS race on Sunday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Erika Flowers (SMST2) racing to fifth in the women’s 5 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Kaitlynn Miller (CGRP) racing to sixth in the women’s 5 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Deedra Irwin (SVSEF) racing to 11th in the women’s 5 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Anne Hart (SMST2) racing to 12th in the women’s 5 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Jessica Yeaton (APU) racing to 15th in the women’s 5 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Scott Patterson (APu) racing to first in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Matt Gelso (SVSEF) racing to second in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Matt Gelso (SVSEF) racing to second in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Ben Lustgarten (CGRP) racing to third in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Ben Lustgarten (CGRP) racing to third in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
David Norris (APU) leading Nick Power (157), of the Bridger Ski Foundation, during the men’s 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. Norris placed fourth and Power was 19th. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
David Norris (APU) racing to fourth in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Ben Saxton (SMST2) racing to sixth in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Ben Saxton (SMST2) racing to sixth in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Cole Morgan (SVSEF) racing to 12th in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race in late November in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Welly Ramsey (Farmington Ski Club) racing to 23rd in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
Welly Ramsey (Farmington Ski Club) racing to 23rd in the men’s 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
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FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Ruka: Classic sprint:
Sweden’s Stina Nilsson (top and bottom center) won her first World Cup classic sprint on Saturday in the first race of the 2016/2017 World Cup season. Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla (bottom right) placed second and Heidi Weng (bottom left) was third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country Twitter)
Sweden’s Stina Nilsson and Norway’s Pål Golberg emerged as the big winners on Saturday in the first race of the 2016/2017 FIS Cross-Country World Cup season, winning the women’s and men’s 1.4-kilometer classic sprint finals, respectively, in Kuusamo, Finland.
After qualifying second, Nilsson won both her quarterfinal and semifinal before dethroning Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla in the final. Falla had not lost a World Cup classic sprint since February 2015 (two seasons ago in Östersund, Sweden). Falla won her quarterfinal and placed third in her semifinal, advancing to the final as a lucky loser with Finland’s Krista Parmakoski. There, Nilsson held off Falla by 0.17 seconds and won the final in 3:21.61. Heidi Weng was the second Norwegian on the podium in third (+0.69), finishing ahead of two Russians, Natalia Matveeva (4th, +3.18) and Yulia Belorukova (6th, +8.94) and Parmakoski (5th, +5.12).
“This is also my first victory in classic so I’m very, very happy,” Nilsson told FIS in an on-air, post-race interview.
Norway’s Pål Golberg (r) crossing the finish line a few ski lengths ahead of his competition in the men’s classic sprint final on Saturday at the World Cup opener in Kuusamo, Finland. Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson placed second, and Norway’s Johannes Klæbo edged Sweden’s Teodor Peterson (l) for the final podium spot in third. (Photo: NRK screenshot)
In the men’s final, Golberg surged past his competitors on Ruka’s infamous final climb and held off Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson by 0.75 seconds for the win. Golberg found out on Wednesday of this week that he had been tapped for the sprint, after fellow Norwegian Petter Northug opted out of this weekend.
“I knew my shape was good, but the skiers from the national team are good skiers so that’s why I wasn’t supposed to be here but Petter got sick so that’s why I’m here,” Golberg told FIS in a post-race interview. “In the quarterfinals, I had a pretty bad climb [on the final hill]. I lost a few spots so I decided to stay more in the back in the semifinals and that worked out.”
The men’s classic sprint podium in the first World Cup race of the season on Saturday in Kuusamo, Finland: Norway’s Pål Golberg (c) placed first, Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson (l) was second, and Norway’s 20-year-old Johannes Klaebo (r) was third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country Twitter)
After placing fourth in his quarterfinal, Golberg advanced as a lucky loser. In the semifinals, he placed second to ensure his spot in the final. He won the final in 2:54.12, Halfvarsson was second (+0.75) and Norway’s 20-year-old JohannesKlæbo captured his first World Cup podium in his second-ever World Cup in third (+0.87). Sweden’s Teodor Peterson narrowly missed the podium in fourth (+1.06), Russia’s Alexander Panzhinskiy was fifth (+8.22), and Norway’s Finn Hågen Krogh finished more than a minute later in sixth (+1:12.58).
In her comeback season after having a baby last December, Norway’s Marit Bjørgen placed 10th after finishing fifth in her semifinal (she qualified in 10th and was second in her quarterfinal). Another top Norwegian, Ingvild Flugstad Østberg placed seventh on the day after placing third in the Bjørgen’s semifinal.
The top American, Sadie Bjornsen posted the seventh-fastest qualifying time then finished the day in 17th overall. She placed fourth in her quarterfinal. Also for the U.S. Ski Team, Sophie Caldwell placed 20th (after qualifying in 30th then placing fourth in her quarterfinal), Ida Sargent was 23rd (qualified 23rd and was fifth in her quarterfinal), and Jessie Diggins 26th (13th in the qualifier, sixth in her quarterfinal).
The lone North American man in the heats, Alex Harvey of Canada placed 25th overall after qualifying in 28th then placing fifth in his quarterfinal. The two men directly ahead of him in his quarterfinal, Russia’s Anton Gafarov and Golberg, placed third and fourth respectively, and advanced to the semifinals as lucky losers.
In the morning’s sprint qualifier, Parmakoski andKlæbo posted the top times.
Parmakoski notched a 1.14-second qualifying win, ahead of three Swedish sprinters.Nilssonand Ida Ingemarsdotter finished second and third, +1.14 and +2.40 respectively. Their teammate Hanna Falk qualified in fourth (+3.70) ahead of Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland (+3.93).Østbergwas the top Norwegian, qualifying in sixth (+4.05).
Sadie Bjornsenled the U.S. team by qualifying in seventh (+4.41). Three teammates joined her in the quarterfinals:Diggins(13th, +6.27),Sargent(23rd, +10.28), andCaldwell(30th, +11.84).
A fifth U.S. Ski Team (USST) member, Rosie Brennan missed the heats in 44th (+15.28), and in her return to the World Cup after a year of maternity leave, Kikkan Randall (USST) finished 52nd, tied with Craftsbury’s Caitlin Patterson (+19.75). For Canada, U25 Team skiers Dahria Beatty raced to 50th (+18.80), followed by Cendrine Browne in 62nd (+26.05).
Klæbo eked out a narrower victory in the qualifier, edging Russia’sPanzhinskyby just 0.81 seconds. Marko Kilp of Estonia qualified third, +2.01, followed by two Finns: Ari Luusua (+2.18) and Anssi Pentsinen (+2.22).Petersonof Sweden rounded out the top six (+2.31).
The lone North American qualifier wasHarveyin 28th (+6.94). His Canadian teammates were left out of the heats: Len Valjas 54th (+11.28), Devon Kershaw 63rd (+12.28), Knute Johnsgaard 69th (+13.46), Bob Thompson 80th (+17.64), Jesse Cockney 83rd (+19.52), and Andy Shields 91st (+25.07).
Simi Hamilton did not start for the U.S., and according to U.S. coach Matt Whitcomb, he is fighting a small cold. Andy Newell led the team in 40th (+7.74), shortly followed by Erik Bjornsen in 42nd (+7.81). SuperTour leader Eric Packer of Alaska Pacific University finished 78th (+17.30).
The World Cup continues Sunday with the 10/15 k classic individual starts in Ruka.
FIS Nordic Combined World Cup in Ruka: Individual Large Hill/10 k
In the first Nordic Combined World Cup competition of the season, also in Kuusamo, Akito Watabe of Japan won the jumping round with a total of 145 points. Johannes Rydzek of Germany jumped into second. After jumping Bryan Fletcher was sitting in 32nd place for the U.S. and Ben Berend in 38th. The Americans started the cross-country race 3:54 and 4:08 behind Watabe.
In the 10 k Gundersen start, Fletcher improved to 23rd and Berend did not start. Fletcher finished 4:06.5 behind the winner of the day, Rydzek, who won in 27:31.7. Germany took the top two spots on the podium with Eric Frenzel in second (+34.1). Frenzel skied the fastest course time in 26:52.8, moving up six spots after ranking eighth in the jump.
Norway’s Jørgen Graabak placed third (+45.6) and Watabe ultimately finished seventh (+1:23.5). The World Cup continues Sunday in Kuusamo with another large hill/10 k individual competition.
Katharine Ogden (SMS/USST) racing to an 11-second win in the women’s 5 k freestyle FIS race on Friday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)
The first official cross-country ski races of the season in the Lower 48 were held Friday in West Yellowstone, Mont., and for the first time in a long time, they weren’t U.S. SuperTour races.
But they were International Ski Federation (FIS) sanctioned and once again a big part of the West Yellowstone Ski Festival, which has been known to attract 3,500 skiers and has been an early season tradition for more than 30 years.
Paddy Caldwell, of the U.S. Ski Team’s D-team, Dartmouth College and the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2 Team, won the men’s 10-kilometer freestyle on Friday at the Rendezvous Ski Trails. He bested nearly 90 in the men’s race, putting down the fastest time in 20:32.4 minutes, which was 26.7 seconds ahead of runner-up Rogan Brown, of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF). Mads Strøm, a Norwegian-born University of Colorado-Boulder (CU) senior and two-time NCAA champion, placed third, 31.1 seconds behind Caldwell.
Just 0.2 seconds off the podium, Sun Valley’s Jack Hegman placed fourth (+31.3), and Ben Lustgarten, of theCraftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP), was close behind in fifth (+32.4), as was Silas Talbot, of the Bridger Ski Foundation (BSF) Elite Team, in fifth (+37.4).
Rounding out the top 10, Karsten Hokanson (Montana State University) placed seventh (+53.6), Patrick Johnson (Far West) was eighth (+56.7), and Norway’s Petter Reistad (CU) and Welly Ramsey (Farmington Ski Club) tied for ninth (+57.6). Oscar Ivars (University of Utah) took the next spot in 11th (+1:01.5).
In the women’s 5 k freestyle, Katharine Ogden, another U.S. Ski Team (USST) D-team member who trains with SMS, took the win. She beat out CU’s Petra Hyncicova, originally from the Czech Republic, by 11.8 seconds with a winning time of 11:45. One of Ogden’s training partners, Erika Flowers (SMST2) placed third (+13.3).
Craftsbury’s Liz Guiney took fourth (+19.4), Jennie Bender (BSF) was fifth (+22.4), Mary Rose (SVSEF) sixth (+27.0), Anne Hart (SMST2) seventh (+32.8), Christina Rolandsen (CU) eighth (+34.7), Kaitlynn Miller (CGRP) ninth (+36.5), and Hannah Halvorsen (Sugar Bowl Elite Team/USST D-team) 10th (+36.8) in a tighter women’s field, which included 76 finishers.
FIS racing continues at the Rendezvous Trails on Saturday, with 5/10 k classic races scheduled.
In related news, the first SuperTour races of the season — which were supposed to take place next weekend, Dec. 3-4 — were canceled. At the top of the Bridger Ski Foundation’s SuperTour event page, it now reads: “Bozeman SuperTour Cancelled: Due to lack of snowfall the races are not able to be run.” The SuperTour opener doubled as the first races of the Canadian NorAm season as well.
Just like in the U.S., Cross Country Canada (CCC) intended to use Bozeman as part of its selection races for 2017 World Championships and the Continental Cup leader (COC) World Cup spots. Now instead of considering an athlete’s best three results out of seven race days, CCC will consider three out of five.
“Bozeman was part of our NorAm COC series selection process; however now that Bozeman is cancelled it’s not in the picture,” CCC High Performance Director Thomas Holland wrote in an email to FasterSkier on Friday night.
“Are you ready for some more West Yellowstone fun? ‘Cuz we’re hosting the SuperTour next weekend December 3 & 4,” the post read. “Saturday Freestyle Sprints, Sunday 15k/10k Classic; 5k U16 Classic. Registration site is in progress but will be on ysfraces.athlete360.com. And can you volunteer? Send us a message at info@skirunbikemt.com to give us your info. Thanks!”
“The altitude at West Yellowstone is too high to use it as a selection race for the Canadian team – will not count for the FIS COC series,” Holland wrote.
We’ll post more information as it becomes available.
![The U.S. women's relay after taking a historic third in the 4 x 3.3 k relay at 2017 Junior World Championships on Sunday at Soldier Hollow in Midway Utah, with (from left to right) Hailey Swirbul, Katharine Ogden, Julia Kern, and Hannah Halvorsen. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF1266.jpg")
![Hailey Swirbul tucking into the stadium as the first skier on the U.S. women's 4 x 3.3 k relay team at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF4963.jpg")
![The final exchange of the 4 x 3.3 k relay, with Americans Hannah Halvorsen (second from left) before tagging Katharine Ogden (l) in fourth, right behind France in third. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF5169.jpg")
![The first U.S. women's team to podium at Junior World Championships: (from left to right) Hailey Swirbul, Katharine Ogden, Hannah Halvorsen, and Julia Kern, after placing third in the 4 x 3.3 k on Sunday at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF5334.jpg")
![Paddy Caldwell switching to skate skis during the halfway point of the men's 30 k skiathlon on Jan. 4 at 2017 U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF3050.jpg")
![Paddy Caldwell, of the Stratton Mountain School and U.S. Ski Team, racing to ninth in the men's 15 k freestyle at 2017 U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: U.S. Ski Team/Tom Kelly)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/DSC2790-XL.jpg")
![American Jack Hegman (SVSEF) racing to 24th in the men's 15 k freestyle on Thursday at 2017 U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF3662.jpg")
![Adam Martin (Northern Michigan University) racing to 15th in the men's 30 k skiathlon on Saturday at 2017 U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. It was his first top 20 in two U23 Worlds. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF3692.jpg")
![American Ben Loomis (10) racing to a career-best ninth in the individual normal hill/5 k competition on Feb. 4 at Nordic Combined Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (U.S. Ski Team - Tom Kelly)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/DSC4727-X2.jpg")
![The women's 4 x 3.3 k relay podium on the final day of 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, with Russia (c) in first, Italy (l) in second, and the U.S. (with Hailey Swirbul, Julia Kern, Hannah Halvorsen, and Katharine Ogden) in third. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF1225.jpg")
![The women's freestyle team sprint podium at the PyeongChang World Cup on Sunday in South Korea, with Sweden's Elin Mohlin and Maria Nordström (c) in first, Norway's Anna Svensen and Silje Øyre Slind (l) in second, and USA I's Ida Sargent and Sophie Caldwell (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/C35Svs_UcAAV_m3.jpg-large.jpeg")
![SMS Elite's Anne Hart catching Nakkertok's Zoe Williams in the interval start classic, day two of Eastern Championships. (Photo: Ian Austen)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/DSC_6759.jpg")
![Katharine Ogden (l) became the first American to reach the podium at Nordic Junior World Championships on Friday after placing third in the women's 10 k skiathlon. Norway’s Marte Mæhlum Johansen won the race for her first gold of the championships (c) and Sweden’s Ebba Andersson was second (r). (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF9041.jpg")
![American Katharine Ogden (SMS/USST) and her dad John celebrate her bronze medal in the women's 10 k skiathlon on Friday at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: U.S. Ski Team/Tom Kelly)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/DSC0301-XL.jpg")
![Norway’s Marte Mæhlum Johansen (2) and Germany’s Antonia Fräbel (3) leading early in the women's 10 k skiathlon on Friday at 2017 Junior World Championships, along with American Katharine Ogden (4) and Italy’s Anna Comarella (5) on the first of four laps at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF6156.jpg")
![Norway's Marte Mæhlum Johansen (r) making a move up the final climb of the second-to-last lap in Friday's 10 k skiathlon at Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow, while skiing with Sweden's Ebba Andersson (l) and USAs Katharine Ogden (c). (Photo: U.S. Ski Team/Tom Kelly)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/DSC3716-XL.jpg")
![Katharine Ogden (SMS/USST) finishing third for bronze in the women's 10 k skiathlon on Friday at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. She is the first American to reach the podium in a Junior World Championships. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF7229.jpg")
![Katharine Ogden (r) with U.S. teammates Hailey Swirbul (l) and Hannah Halvorsen (c) after Swirbul learned Ogden placed third in the women's 10 k skiathlon at Junior World Championships. Swirbul was the second American in 24th on Friday at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF8884.jpg")
![The women's 1.4 k classic sprint podium on Friday at the pre-Olympic PyeongChang World Cup in South Korea, with Slovenia's Anamarija Lampič (c) in first, Norway’s Silje Øyre Slind (l) in second, and American Ida Sargent (r) in third. It was the first time on the World Cup podium for all three athletes. (Photo: FIS Cross-Country/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/C3vOANtUYAENIZE.jpg")
![Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School/U.S. Ski Team D-team) racing to fifth in the women's 5 k freestyle at 2017 Junior Worlds on Wednesday for her best result in her third Junior Worlds. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF0139.jpg")
![Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School/U.S. Ski Team D-team) racing to fifth in the women's 5 k freestyle at 2017 Junior Worlds on Wednesday for her best result in her third Junior Worlds. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF0090.jpg")
![The women's 5 k freestyle podium on Wednesday at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, with Sweden’s Ebba Andersson (c) in first, Norway’s Marte Mæhlum Johansen (l) in second and Russia's Mariya Istomina (r) in third. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF7465.jpg")
![The all-Russian 10 k freestyle men's podium on Wednesday at 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow, with winner Vladislav Vechkanov (c), Egor Kazarinov (l) in second, and Yaroslav Rybochkin (r) in third. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/SMF7891.jpg")
![American Hunter Wonders (APU) racing to 16th in the men's 10 k freestyle at 2017 Junior World Championships on Wednesday at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: U.S. Ski Team/Steven Earl)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/unnamed-2.jpg")
![Kam Husain, of the Stratton Mountain School, racing at U.S. SuperTour Spring Series last season in Craftsbury, Vt. (Photo: NENSA/Facebook)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/IMG_0021.jpg")
![Katharine Ogden, of the Stratton Mountain School and U.S. Ski Team D-team, in the women's 20 k classic at 2017 U.S. nationals earlier this month at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: U.S. Ski Team)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/BG5B1844-XL.jpg")
![The U.S. took two out of three spots on the podium in Tuesday's 10 k freestyle at 2015 World Championships. From left to right at the medals ceremony: silver medalist Jessie Diggins (USA), gold medalist Charlotte Kalla (Sweden) and bronze medalist Caitlin Gregg (USA) at the medals plaza on Tuesday night in Falun, Sweden.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/podium_ceremony_kneel.jpg")
![Craftsbury Green Racing Project's Ben Lustgarten on his way to winning the 30 k classic mass start at U.S. Cross Country Championships on Tuesday at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/IMG_7301-e1484148964556.jpg")
![U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover supervises a classic-technique drill at an on-snow camp last month at Mt. Bachelor in Bend, Ore.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/06/Grover-2-e1465786951165.jpg")
![Cole Morgan (SVSEF) racing to 12th in the men's 10 k classic FIS race in late November in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/Cole-Morgan.jpg")
![The women's 20 k classic mass start podium on Tuesday at 2017 U.S. nationals at Soldier Hollow, with winner Chelsea Holmes (c), runner-up Katharine Ogden (l), and third-place finisher Caitlin Patterson.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/IMG_8322-e1484147170718.jpg")
![Freeman at the 2009 World Championships in Liberec. (Photo: Swix Sport)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2009/02/web.jpg")
![Chelsea Holmes of Alaska Pacific University crosses first in women's 20-kilometer classic mass start on Tuesday at U.S. nationals in Midway, Utah.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/IMG_8299.jpg")
![Chelsea Holmes (l) of Alaska Pacific University leads Katharine Ogden (c) and Caitlin Patterson of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project during the women's 20-kilometer classic masst start on Tuesday at U.S. nationals in Midway, Utah.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/IMG_7724-e1484147291253.jpg")
![Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School) of the U.S. Ski Team D-team during her final lap of the women's 20-kilometer classic masst start on Tuesday at U.S. nationals in Midway, Utah.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/IMG_8127.jpg")
![Left to right: David Norris of Alaska Pacific University, Ben Lustgarten of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project and Kris Freeman of Team Freebird standing on the podium after the men's 30-kilometer classic mass start on Tuesday at 2017 U.S. nationals in Midway, Utah.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/15894438_10153949378935882_1320791214975103374_n.jpg")
![Left to right: Chelsea Holmes, Caitlin Gregg, and Caitlin Patterson standing on top of the podium for the women's 10-kilometer freestyle event at the 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/IMG_20170107_152549.jpg")
![Alex Harvey (Canadian World Cup Team) en route to 19th in the men's 15 k classic mass start on Saturday, which puts him sixth overall in the Tour de Ski with one stage remaining in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Group7117fm0004.jpg")
![Stina Nilsson of Sweden (center) celebrates another win in the Tour de Ski, which puts her atop the overall standings; Anne Kylloenen of Finland (left) was second in the 10 k classic mass start and Charlotte Kalla of Sweden third.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Screen-Shot-2017-01-07-at-3.05.22-PM.png")
![The last time U.S. Nationals were held at SoHo: Start of the women's 20 k freestyle mass start at 2014 U.S. Cross Country Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. Caitlin Gregg went on to win going away.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/01/IMG_9761_edited-1.jpg")
![Paddy Caldwell (Dartmouth/SMS/USST) racing to 21st in the men's 15 k freestyle at U23 World Championships in Rasnov, Romania. (Photo: Logan Hanneman)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/02/IMG_8633.jpg")
![Jessie Diggins celebrates finishing fifth in the Davos skate sprint. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/Diggins111216fm644.jpg")
![Kris Freeman comment on FasterSkier Facebook page, Sept. 4, 2016. (photo: screenshot)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Freeman-FB-comment.png.png")
![Matt Gelso (SVSEF) racing to his second-straight victory at the West Yellowstone SuperTour on Sunday in the men’s 15 k classic.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/IMG_2884-e1480920512592.jpg")
![Team RAD's Russell Kennedy powering through the snow to be top Canadian in the 15 km. (Photo: Marie-Éve Bilodeau-Corriveau)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/RUSS-SS2-8.jpg")
![APU's Reese Hanneman (315) leading down the finishing stretch, with Sun Valley's Cole Morgan (r), Moritz Madlener (behind Hannneman) and Ben Saxton (behind Morgan) chasing. (Photo: Doug Stephen)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/DSC_0372.jpg")
![Bouffard-Nesbitt leads the American's through the bridge turn. Kern's tactical choice over a minute earlier gave her the inside position on Miller and the advantage she needed. (Photo: Peggy Hung)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/P1290890-2.jpg")
![The men's final on the first downhill. Hanneman leads Madlener, Briand, Gelso, and Morgan (Photo: Peggy Hung)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/P1300468.jpg")
![Angus Foster untangles himself as Evan Palmer-Charrette waits underneath. The ski through the big belongs to Simon Lapointe. (Photo: Shelley Woodman)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/unnamed-15.jpg")
![APU's Scott Patterson leading Canadian junior Ty Godfrey (Team R.A.D.) during the men's 15 k freestyle interval start on Sunday, Dec. 11, at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour. (Photo: Peggy Hung](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/P1310651.jpg")
![Sun Valley's Matt Gelso (front) charging a false flat on his first lap of the men's three-lap 15 k freestyle on Dec. 11 at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour. (Photo: Peggy Hung)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/P1300910.jpg")
![Chelsea Holmes leads Erika Flowers at the 5 k mark of the women's 10 k freestyle interval start on Sunday, Dec. 11, at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour. (Photo: Marie-Éve Bilodeau-Corriveau)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/RUSS-SS2-22.jpg")
![Matt Gelso (SVSEF) topping the SuperTour podium for the second-straight day on Sunday in West Yellowstone, Mont. Joining him on Sunday's 15 k classic podium: CGRP's Ben Lustgarten (l) in second and APU's Scott Patterson (r) in third.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/IMG_3263.jpg")
![Craftsbury Green Racing Project’s Ben Lustgarten cresting the highest point on course during the men’s 15-kilometer individual start classic race on Sunday in West Yellowstone, Mont.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/IMG_2846-e1480920566153.jpg")
![Left to right: Stratton Mountain School’s Katharine Ogden and Craftsbury Green Racing Project skiers Kaitlynn Miller, and Liz Guiney along with standing on the podium for the women’s 10-kilometer individual start classic race on Sunday in West Yellowstone, Mont.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/IMG_3266-e1480920487197.jpg")
![Craftsbury Green Racing Project’s Kaitlynn Miller leading Team Gregg’s Caitlin Gregg during the women’s 10-kilometer individual start classic race on Sunday in West Yellowstone, Mont.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/IMG_3241-e1480920644553.jpg")
![German winner Eric Frenzel (c) with teammate Björn Kircheisen (l) in second and Norway's Jørgen Graabak (r) in third on Day 3 of the Nordic Combined World Cup in Lillehammer, Norway. (Photo: FIS Nordic Combined/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/Cy1jj_QWIAEM0ZQ.jpg")
![Russia went 1-2 in the men's 15 k pursuit on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden, with Anton Babikov (l) winning his first World Cup and Maxim Tsvetkov (r) placing second. (Photo: IBU)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/babikov-and-tsvetkov.jpg")
![Gabriela Koukalová of the Czech Republic with her first-place prize after winning Sunday's 10 k pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden. (Photo: IBU)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/lc7yhcmuaufehr0dwcdm.jpeg")
![Heidi Weng (c) held onto her lead to win the Lillehammer mini-tour by 16.1 seconds over Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (l). Finland's Krista Parmakoski was third after losing a shot at second thanks to a crash. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/Ostberg-Weng-Parmakoski.jpeg")
![Scott Patterson (APU) double poling to the win in the men's 10 k classic FIS race on Saturday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/Scott-Patterson_0.jpg")
![Sweden's Stina Nilsson (top and bottom center) won her first World Cup classic sprint on Saturday in the first race of the 2016/2017 World Cup season. Norway's Maiken Caspersen Falla (bottom right) placed second and Heidi Weng (bottom left) was third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/CyMLDCSXUAArt6v.jpg")
![Norway's Pål Golberg crossing the finish line a few ski lengths ahead of his competition in the men's classic sprint final on Saturday at the World Cup opener in Kuusamo, Finland. Sweden's Calle Halfvarsson placed second, and Norway's Johannes Klæbo edged Sweden's Teodor Peterson for the final podium spot in third. (Photo: NRK screenshot)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/Screenshot-men-finish.jpg")
![The men's classic sprint podium in the first World Cup race of the season on Saturday in Kuusamo, Finland: Norway's Pål Golberg (c) placed first, Sweden's Calle Halfvarsson (l) was second, and Norway's 20-year-old Johannes Klaebo (r) was third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/CyMOM4JW8AA4Rpd.jpg")
![Katharine Ogden (SMS/USST) racing to an 11-second win in the women's 5 k freestyle FIS race on Friday in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Ian Harvey/Toko)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/Ogden_1.jpg")
