Annie Hart leads Annie Pokorny, Mary Rose, Jessie Diggins, Deedra Irwin, Katharine Ogden, Kelsey Phinney, Hannah Halvorsen, Sophie Caldwell, and Hailey Swirbul during a rollerski session near Lake Placid, N.Y. (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)
Of the 12 workouts in six days at last week’s U.S. Ski Team (USST) dryland camp in Lake Placid, N.Y., two tested VO2 max, two were speed-specific, including a classic-sprint simulation, and three were strength sessions with a smattering of recovery runs. Also that week, the team incorporated Level 3 threshold and three distance sessions, with the National Elite Group (NEG) and National Training Group (NTG) joining several of its workouts.
At the end of it all, several team members shared their highlights from camp:
(Photo: Pat O’Brien)
(Photo: Colin Rodgers)
(Photo: Colin Rodgers)
(Photo: Colin Rodgers)
(Photo: Colin Rodgers)
(Photo: Bryan Fish)
(Photo Mary Rose)
(Photo: Pat O’Brien)
Kern during a rollerski session in Lake Placid in September. (Photo: Bryan Fish)
– Katharine Ogden (USST D-team/Stratton Mountain School T2 Team):
Favorite training moment: “Doing skate speeds on the Lake Placid rollerski track, for sure. It was so awesome to practice high-speed transitions and get some sweet, smooth, car-free speed practice.”
Favorite moment outside of training: “Getting some sweet henna tattoos from Hailey and Jenna (two of the junior girls at camp).”
On training with the best: “It never ceases to amaze me training with the USST girls. Getting the opportunity to copy their technique and have them there to motivate us during harder sessions is beyond awesome. One thing that I learned talking to some Norwegian junior skiers is that they have never even met most of their national team girls. This really put in perspective for me how lucky we are to be able to train with them.”
On making strides: “I’ve learned so much this camp. I’ve been working a lot on bounding technique and it was pretty sweet to have some breakthroughs doing bounding. I’ve also learned a lot about sprint tactics from having the opportunity to do a sprint time trial alongside the USST girls.”
– Sophie Caldwell(USST A-team/SMST2 Team):
Favorite workout: “My favorite workout of the camp was probably the run we did on the final day. We ran up Algonquin and then to Avalanche Lake. I love running in the Adirondacks and was happy we got to get out and do some adventuring at the camp. It was the perfect way to wrap up and watch the fall colors begin to change.”
On what makes the camp unique: “This camp was both the shortest camp and the most focused on intensity that I have done this summer. I thought it was a really fun format and enjoyed jamming so much into one week.”
On a larger training group: “I think having a larger, younger group is both motivating and inspiring. I remember when I was the same age the NTG girls are now and how excited I would get for camps. I got to room with Julia, who is also my SMS teammate, but I loved talking to her about everything and reflecting on what it was like when I was her age. They all bring a lot of new energy and are also fast and can challenge us in many of the workouts.”
(Photo: Reese Brown)
(Photo: Bryan Fish)
(Photo: Bryan Fish)
(Photo: Pat O’Brien)
(Photo: Pat O’Brien)
(Photo: Bryan Fish)
(Photo: Bryan Fish)
(Photo: Bryan Fish)
(Photo: Colin Rodgers)
(Photo: Colin Rodgers)
(Photo: Colin Rodgers)
(Photo: Colin Rodgers)
– Andy Newell (USST A-team/SMST2 Team):
Highlight: “To be able to hammer out some high-intensity intervals and be pushed by some new faces I don’t get to train with very often.”
On a tight schedule: “This camp was slightly different than our normal Lake Placid camp because it was shorter and more intense, our coaches packed in a lot of quality training into 6 days including one day with double intervals. I think our camp schedule has been thought out really well this year and personally, my fitness is feeling better than ever.”
On working out with young guns: “Having a younger contingent at this camp was awesome. For someone who has spent the majority of the last several years racing on the world cup there are a lot of young faces in the National Training Group or even top level US skiers that I’m just meeting for the first time. This LP camp was a cool way to connect with the up and coming talent and train together and push each other, I’m really impressed with both the younger guys and girls that are training with the NTG these days.”
– Simi Hamilton(USST A-team/SMST2 Team):
Favorite moment: “Watching the bobsledders train for their World Cup team selection… those dudes can push some serious weight.
“Our Placid camp was great this year. Only being there a week, our focus was on quality over quantity. Of course we got in some great runs (today we did the Algonquin to Avalanche Lake loop), but we were hitting the pavement hard with 5 intensity sessions and 2 speed sessions throughout the week.”
On training with the NTG: “It was so awesome having the NTG group around. We were getting pushed in every single workout by those guys and girls, and it’s always an awesome feeling to turn around during a hard interval session and see a 16 year old hot on your heels. I’m so psyched about where our future is headed as a top XC nation.”
It’s been a busy and informative 5 days for coaches around New England, with time for some fun too.
Last Wednesday and Thursday, 18 coaches took part in the first ever L200 coach certification training to be held in the East. Bryan Fish, development coach for the USST taught this very informative course, and with any luck, and some hard work, we will have 18 new L200 certified coaches in NE, once every has passed their exams.
On Friday, the USSA played host to their semi-annual National Cross Country Coaches Symposium held at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid. Over 35 coaches from Alaska to Maine, and all in between, attended this 3-day conference held at the OTC. US Ski Team development coach Bryan Fish, USST woman’s coach Matt Whitcomb, USST men’s coach Jason Cork, and overall USST coach Chris Grover where all on hand to welcome the coaches, and run the weekend, as well as USSA’s new Nordic Director Robert Lazzaroni.
There was a full slate of very informative Keynote speakers, including – Anders Bystrom, the Norwegian Junior National team coach, who gave two great talks on the Current Norwegian Training for Juniors and their Development, as well as Current Norwegian Technique Training Principles.
Vern Gambetta, of Gambetta Sports Training System, gave his unique generalist approach to the Application of Coaching Excellence, as well as an informative presentation on Endurance Training Principles and the Integration of General Athleticism.
Brian Krill, the Director of Sport Education and Club Development for USSA shared his philosophy on Grass Roots/High Performance/and Long-Term-Athletic-Development Ski Club development within the USSA.
Jay Gump, a professor of anatomy and psychology, as well as cycling coach, gave a talk about Preparation for Multi-Day Events.
Troy Taylor, USSA’s new High Performance Director, also gave two presentations – the first on Learning from Medal Winning Programs Around the World and the second on Bridging the Gap – Juniors to Seniors International Success.
And last, but certainly not least, the USST coaches hosted a round table discussion with lots of time for Q&A, and gave a very informative presentation of New Projects happening within the USST and Lessons from 2015.
ORDA hosted a very fun opening dinner for everyone Friday evening at the Olympic Jump Complex, complete with the thrilling and adrenaline pumping opportunity to go tubing down the ski jump hill! See the NENSA Facebook page for photos!
ORDA will be hosting one of the Supertour and Eastern Cup race weekends in Lake Placid this coming January 30th and 31st. They are so excited to be able to showcase the Mt. Van Hovevenberg venue, so rich in Nordic history, and they look forward welcoming all our New England Nordic athletes, as well as the Supertour athletes, next January!
National Training Group (NTG) Camp started Monday in Lake Placid
National Training Group (NTG) Camp started in Lake Placid [on Monday, Sept. 14] – so thrilled to be able to join them on their morning interval workout – thanks to the USST coaches for letting me tag along! Many of our NENSA Elite Team members there – Sophie Caldwell, Jessie Diggins, Erika Flowers, Andy Newell, Simi Hamilton, Paddy Caldwell, Anne Hart, Annie Porkorny, Katharine Ogden, Julia Kern, Kamran Husain and Ben Saxton, as well as our NENSA Development Team Member Daniel Streinz, to name a few.
The group started the day off with a brief meeting at the OTC, where they are all staying this week, and to watch 5 minutes of World Cup footage for visualizaiton, and to get pumped for the skate intervals they were about to do. We loaded up in the vans and headed 20 miuntes south to a loop near Jay and Keene NY for intervals. The team started with a nice warm up skate up one road, then all met in a grassy area, where USST Senior Strength and Conditioning Coach Tschana Schiller led them all in a dynamic warm up, which lasted 5-10 minutes. Then they went off as a group to do their intervals. The USST coaches Bryan Fish, Matt Whitcomb and Jason Cork took video footage from the vans and from the side of the road, as well as providing feedback along the way. USST member Andy Newell even got the full service treatment of getting a broken pole tip changed, in less then 30 seconds, as the team van slowly trailed him. The rain that was falling during breakfast cleared, and the team got in a great morning workout. See our NENSA Facebook page for photos!
This week, 17-year-old Hailey Swirbul, a member of the Aspen Ski and Snowboard Club and one of nine American skiers invited to the International Junior Camp in Norway, shares a workout from that very camp, taking place Aug. 6-14 in Norway. It’s called the Triple ‘S’, which stands for Skate Sprint Simulation, and involves a prologue, sprint heats and an epilogue on a 1.5-kilometer loop. Athletes completed this workout on Monday
in Sjusjøen, and Swirbul captured the sprint simulation in the above video.
***
1. Warmup: Since the simulation represents a race effort, warm up like you would a sprint race. This is an ideal opportunity to experiment with different warmups to find out what works best for you.
International Junior Camp participant and sprinter Hannah Halvorsen (Sugar Bowl Academy) suggests:
– Play your favorite song to get you pumped for the workout!
– 20 minutes of L1 [Level 1] easy skiing on the course to learn the turns and downhills of the track.
– One lap of the course in Level 2 – Fast enough to get a feel for which techniques to use in different terrain, but still easy enough to keep your heart rate fairly low.
*Bathroom break!*
– One lap of the course in Level 3 with specific focus on transitioning terrain.
– One lap of the course with 30-40 second speeds in the most important and valuable sections (over the tops of hills, carrying speed into hills, etc.)
– 3 or 4 sprints on the finishing stretch.
– Jump around, plyos, run with poles, and when it’s time, smile and dance your way to the start line!
2. Prologue: After warming up well, it is time for the prologue, or qualifier. Each skier starts at 15-second intervals and skis one lap of the sprint course to determine the start positions in the heats. It is important to give 100-percent effort to give yourself the best advantage for the heats.
Then take a 15-minute active recovery break
3. Heats: The six fastest skiers from the prologue will be in heat 1, the next six in heat 2, and so on. The first two skiers from each heat (with the exception of heat 1) will move up to the higher ranked heat in the next round of sprints, while the last two skiers from each heat move to a lower ranked heat. Ski aggressively and push yourself to win your heat. Separate each of the sprints with a 15-minute active break period.
International Junior Camp participant Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School) says: “Don’t worry about offending people. When you are skiing aggressively, it not only helps your own skiing tactics, but it helps your competitors improve their skiing, so everybody wins in this situation!”
4. Epilogue: In the same start order and format as the prologue, complete one final sprint loop, trying to ski smoothly and improve your time from your prologue. 5. Cool Down: Finish the workout with 15-minutes of easy skating.
Rosie Brennan (APU) leads Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg/Madshus) at the 2015 U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich. The two skiers will join the USST B-team in the 2015/2016 season.
When the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) announced the nominations for the upcoming season’s National Team earlier this month, four new faces were added to the ranks. Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg/Madshus) and Rosie Brennan (Alaska Pacific University) were nominated to the B-team, while Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School) and Julia Kern (Cambridge Sports Union) were placed on the D-team.
FasterSkier caught up with each of the new additions to discuss their motivations, feelings, and journeys to their respective nominations. From the 34-year-old Gregg — who has been working to earn a spot on the team for nearly a decade — to Ogden — a 17-year-old who will be a senior in high school next season — the four women mark changes in the USST lineup that will ultimately shape its future.
Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg/Madshus) skis to a nearly three minute win in the 2015 U.S. Distance Nationals 30 k in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Caitlin Gregg: A long time coming
Gregg was the only new addition to the USST to qualify via objective criteria. After a season which included two national titles and a bronze medal performance in the World Championships 10 k, she ranked 27th on the International Ski Federation (FIS) distance points list — which was within the USST team standards.
The Minneapolis-based skier had kept her eyes on the list throughout the latter part of the season, but it was only after her dominating performance in the 30 k freestyle at U.S. Distance Nationals in Sun Valley, Idaho that she knew there was a good chance of making the team. Even then there were still several international races left in the season for other athletes to bump her out of the qualifying standard.
“We calculated my points after the 30 k at U.S. Nationals, but there was a period of races after that – the marathon in Russia and a few others around the world – where other athletes could have gotten better FIS points and bumped me down,” Gregg said in a phone interview after the nominations were announced.
Once all international races were complete it was only a matter of waiting. Gregg received a call from USSA in April informing her that the nomination was coming – something the 34-year-old had been working towards her entire career.
When it comes to the USST, Gregg has faced challenges regarding her age for a long time. According to a blog post by Gregg’s husband Brian regarding her 2015 World Championships medal, she was told after the 2007 World Championships that she was “too old for the U.S. Ski Team and their pipeline.” Eight years later, however, Gregg is on the team and excited about the season’s prospects.
For Gregg the nomination is a reward for the years of hard work – physically, financially, and otherwise – that she has put into the sport. She explained that due to her late entry into professional skiing, her career has seen delayed trajectory. While the journey to the nomination was challenging, the 34-year-old said it was worthwhile.
Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) hugs her husband, Brian, after her large win in the 30 k freestyle mass start at the 2015 SuperTour Finals in Sun Valley, Idaho.
“It’s been a goal for a long, long time. I’ve been battling; a lot of the criteria is centered around age-based results,” Gregg said of her journey to the nomination. “That was always something that was more difficult for me because I came into skiing after college and even after college there wasn’t a whole ton of programming until CXC came around. By the time that all came together I was on that older end of the spectrum already.
“At my age you’re not going to be discretion-ed onto the team but if you make the criteria they’re going to put you on the team. I think that’s really reassuring for anyone out there who’s really questioning if it is worth it to keep going. It’s not going to be easy and nothing will be handed to you, but it’s totally possible.”
Earlier in the 2014/2015 season Gregg wasn’t sure what her future held, and before the successes of the late-season she contemplated retiring. “It’s a tough decision after every year,” she explained.
According to Gregg, both she and Brian have created a sustainable financial model that has taken years to master. That, coupled with her recent successes led them to ask, “why stop now?” Furthermore, Brian plans to continue to ski through the 2018 Olympics, and while it would be possible for Team Gregg to exist as a one-man project, it largely centers around the two of them.
“As much as it would be sweet for me to be his coach or working or supporting him from the side, we really feel like it’s a pretty incredible opportunity for the two of us to keep racing together and keep building that model we have,” she explained.
“I’m really psyched with that decision. I know it’s early in the season, but I think it was the best call so I’m fired up.”
In the upcoming year Gregg will continue to ski as a skate distance specialist, but will look to improve her classic and sprinting skills. In the past, focusing on several key races instead of trying to compete in them all has helped her perform at the highest level. She will employ a similar strategy in the 2015/2016 season.
Fueled by the exciting developments in her career, Gregg began her busy summer schedule earlier this month with a trip to the USST camp in Park City. She will remain there for Rookie Camp, where she said a joking Matt Whitcomb (USST Women’s Coach) told her she would likely be the oldest rookie in history.
“[The nomination is] super exciting and something I’ve been trying to do since I was 18-years-old,” she explained. “To reach the goal a few years after I had hoped is still awesome and an incredible feeling. Both Brian and I are incredibly fired up. We feel like we learned so much in the last couple years and now with the resources and opportunities that are presented to us and available we feel like it’s a great launching pad and we can build on what we’ve already achieved. We’re excited to see what’s possible.”
Rosie Brennan, USST, skis 30th place in the 2015 World Championships 15 k skiathlon. (Photo: flyingpointroad.com)
Rosie Brennan: A return to the team
Of the four women who will join the team in 2015, Brennan is the only one who held a position in the past. The Park City native was nominated in 2007 and remained on the team until she was cut in 2009. Brennan was 18 and a recent high school graduate when she was first nominated to the team. She decided to attend school and race for Dartmouth College, while juggling her spot on the national squad.
“I was quite young and I decided to school anyway,” Brennan said in a phone interview. “I did a few years on the National Team but was pretty much just racing at school with the exception of Junior Worlds and U23s and camps and stuff. After 2009 the coaches decided that wasn’t the direction they wanted the team to go so they dropped all of us who were in school at the time.”
According to Brennan, her removal from the team was difficult because she felt as if the USST coaches had lost faith in her abilities. “At the time I was really bummed and really devastated by it. For whatever reason it’s hard not to feel that the governing body of skiing doesn’t believe in you,” she said.
“It took me a little while to get over that. I was really thankful that I was in school and I had a really good ski team and coaches that supported me and believed in my skiing regardless of what the direction the ski team was headed in. I kept plugging along.”
Although she debated to continue her skiing career after Dartmouth, Brennan ultimately decided to race professionally for APU. She said the “supportive and conducive environment for training” on the team helped her jump back into racing and eventually regain a spot on the team.
Brennan said that her return to the USST feels especially gratifying given her history. “It makes me extra proud to know that I didn’t give up and believed in myself and I made it back to where I know I should be,” she said.
In the upcoming season Brennan said she hopes to continue on the trajectory she started this past year — where she earned 16th in the 30 k and helped the U.S. ski to fourth in the women’s relay, both at World Championships. “I’d like to just continue on what I was doing last year. I finally figured out how the World Cup circuit works and I’d like to continue along those lines and work forward from there,” she said.
Brennan is planning to attend the two USST camps in Park City, but hopes to remain in Alaska for the majority of the training season to continue a program that has worked for her in the past.
From l-r, Julia Kern (CSU), Hailey Swirbul (Aspen Valley), and Katharine Ogden (SMS) cheering on the U.S. U23 team at World Chamionships in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Julia Kern)
Katharine Ogden and Julia Kern: Young and up to the challenge
Ogden has been one of the most successful junior athletes in the history of U.S. cross country skiing, so when she received a call from Matt Whitcomb over her spring break it seemed routine. It wasn’t, however, as Whitcomb told her she would be nominated for a spot on the USST D-team – a feat she had only dreamt of since she was a very young skier.
“I was kind of shocked because ever since I was little it has been a huge — I don’t know if you can call it a goal when you’re six — but it’s been something I wanted to do for my entire life,” Ogen explained in a phone interview. “It was just crazy, and while it really isn’t the U.S. Ski Team it’s the next step, which is really cool.”
It was a similar experience for fellow D-team member Kern, who received the call right before she was supposed to meet with her CSU teammates.
“I didn’t really know how to respond,” Kern said in a phone interview. “I was about to meet two of my teammates and it was weird because I couldn’t say anything. I was thrilled and honored to be nominated. It also kind of felt relieving in a way because it is a dream come true.”
The skiers, both 17 years old, will be the youngest members of the team. Kern will graduate from high school this year, while Ogden still has one year left at Stratton. Both had a momentous year on the international circuit, with Ogden claiming sixth in the skiathlon at Junior Worlds and Kern taking third in a mid-season Slavic Cup.
Kern said she is excited about her spot on the team because of the new opportunities that will be at her disposal. “It will offer more support and access to resources which is definitely a big key,” she said. “It’s just a great motivator.”
After Kern graduates this spring, she will make the transition from CSU to take a post-graduate year at Stratton, where she will train with Ogden and utilize the ski-oriented environment at the small Vermont school.
Katharine Ogden (10) on her way to a sixth-place finish in the women’s 10 k skiathlon at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)
“This last year I was thinking about taking the year off and skiing, and since the year went well I wanted to see what skiing full time is like,” Kern said. “With the Stratton option I’ll have one of the best coaches I know, Sverre Caldwell, and also Pat O’brien. I’ll also still be able to stay in contact with Rob, my high school coach. The training group is so competitive with such a great group of girls and guys. I’m so close with Katharine and our strengths are opposite so we’ll have a lot to gain from each other.”
Ogden echoed Kern’s statements, adding that another top female junior skier, Lauren Jortberg from Boulder, Colo., would be joining the ranks at Stratton. “I’m so excited to have everyone coming. The more fast people around the better everyone gets, but also I’m just really close friends with Julia and Lauren and I’m really excited to spend more time with them and I think they’re going to be a great addition to our team.”
Both Kern and Ogden will travel to Park City for the upcoming rookie camp, where they will learn about the inner workings of the USST. From there, the two are looking forward to a season where they can call some of the best skiers in the world their teammates.
“It’s pretty incredible and motivating to be able to consider the U.S. Ski Team A and B team women my teammates because they are so incredibly strong,” Ogden said. “They’re some of the best in the world and that’s incredibly motivating.”
Several members of the U.S. Ski Team lift up Kikkan Randall after she won her third-straight World Cup sprint Crystal Globe a the end of the 2013/2014 season. Randall enters the upcoming season with another A-team nomination after a year of possible over-training. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) announced its cross-country team nominations for the 2015/2016 season on Thursday, naming 16 athletes to the team, four more than the previous year.
All 12 athletes from 2014/2015 will return, led by Liz Stephen (Burke Mountain Academy) who finished 10th overall in the season’s World Cup standings. Other A-team athletes include 2015 World Championships silver medalist Jessie Diggins of the Stratton Mountain School T2 Team (SMST2), three-time World Cup sprint champion Kikkan Randall of Alaska Pacific University (APU), Sadie Bjornsen (APU), Sophie Caldwell (SMST2), Ida Sargent (Craftsbury Green Racing Project), Andy Newell (SMST2), and Simi Hamilton (SMST2).
The B-team will feature returning athletes Noah Hoffman (Ski and Snowboard Club Vail) and Erik Bjornsen (APU).
Rosie Brennan (APU) and Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) are two new additions to the B-team after breakthrough seasons. Like Diggins, Gregg earned a historic medal in the 10 k freestyle at World Championships in Falun, Sweden, placing third after Diggins. Brennan broke into the top 20 on both the World Cup circuit and at World Championships, most notably in the 30 k in Falun where she placed 16th. Brennan returns to the USST after being a member of the team in 2007/2008 and 2008/2009.
The D-team will also grow in the 2015/2016 season with the addition of two women, Katharine Ogden (SMS) and Julia Kern (Cambridge Sports Union). They were named along with returning D-team athletes, Ben Saxton (SMST2) and Patrick Caldwell (SMST2/Dartmouth).
Andy Newell is one of two men on the USST A-team in the 2015/2016 season. Here the SMST2 skier is racing in the 15 k classic individual start at the 2015 Super Tour Finals in Sun Valley, Idaho.
There are objective requirements to earn an automatic nomination to the U.S. Ski Team (USST). An athlete must either be in the top 50 in the overall World Cup rankings or have a top-30 ranking in the distance or sprint disciplines. A skier can also be ranked in the top 30 of the FIS points list in distance or sprint list to earn the nomination. A final qualifying criteria is a top-three finish at either the Junior or U23 World Championships.
Nine athletes automatically qualified for the team: the eight A-team athletes, who all met the World Cup ranking criteria, and Gregg, who was 27th in the International Ski Federation (FIS) distance points list. The remaining seven skiers were all chosen by discretion.
Although Gregg made the objective criteria, she was not ranked in the World Cup’s Red Group and thus was placed on the B-team.
As in past years, USSA will cover the majority of the eight A-team athletes’ expenses. According to USST Head Coach Chris Grover, there are several instances when A-team members will have to cover their own costs, such as the training period over Christmas when the team prepares for the Tour de Ski.
The B-team athletes will receive some support in the form of lodging and meals at certain training camps, such as the upcoming Park City training camp occurring later this month. However, during the actual season, B-team athletes receive no support from USSA in terms of travel and lodging.
D-team athletes are expected to pay for everything they do throughout the season, but receive the support of the national-team infrastructure, such as coaching, when necessary.
According to Grover, the National Nordic Foundation (NNF) has financially aided both B- and D-team athletes at training camps and during the competition season in the past.
Liz Stephen racing to 11th in the 15 k skiathlon at the 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. Stephen will headline 12 returning and four new athletes on the 2015/2016 U.S. Ski Team. (Photo: flyingpointroad.com)
Grover: ‘We’re really excited to see what people can do’
After the nominations were announced, Grover said that he was excited to see what the group of 16 skiers could accomplish in the upcoming season. Although there is no major championship event in the 2015/2016 schedule, he believes that the Americans have an opportunity to shine.
“I’m really excited for the season because I felt like we had so much bad luck with our crew last year,” he said on the phone. “We made some mistakes as a nation and as a coaching crew both within the USST coaches and also with the club coaches. We had bad luck in terms of injuries. First of all, I doubt we will have those injuries again and second of all I think we will learn from some over-training issues going forward.”
The most notable injuries of the season came from Sophie Caldwell and Hoffman. Caldwell broke both her elbows in the leadup to the season, which hindered much of her preparation. Hoffman fractured his leg in a November crash — his first World Cup race of the season — which took him out of competition and full training until late February 2015.
In terms of overtraining, Grover pointed to two specific athletes — Newell and Randall — who may have suffered from its effects throughout the season.
With no championship event, the team will have varying focus races between athletes. However, Grover said that the Tour de Ski and the season-ending Canadian World Cup tour are two events that many team members will target. With a “home-time-zone” advantage and a small break spent in the U.S. to prepare beforehand, Grover said that the Canadian tour gives his team an opportunity for high performance. The midseason World Cup weekend in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, is another focus as it features some of the Americans’ best events: a freestyle individual distance and a team relay.
Grover explained he’s interested to see how the newcomers perform in their first seasons as full-time World Cup athletes, especially after successful 2014/2015 outings.
“[Brennan] dominated domestically in the fall. We’ve talked about her a lot — she was in great shape last summer when we saw her at the camp at Eagle Glacier and she carried that shape into the fall,” Grover said. “Then she showed up on the World Cup and she proved that her domestically really translated to her speed internationally. It was natural to put her on the B-team.”
“Caitlin by contrast struggled in the early part of the season. She was the Continental Cup leader during the whole first period and she wasn’t skiing particularly fast at that time,” he added. “She went home, regrouped, she obviously did some good training in Colorado. She came back and did some really good skiing in Falun and Holmenkollen in particular.”
Grover said that the coaching staff will be “selective” as to which races they enter the 34-year-old Gregg because of limited starting spots and her tendency for high performance when targeting certain races.
“For her it doesn’t make sense for her to dive into a full World Cup schedule,” he said. “She has shown that she does her best when she targets key events that play to her strengths. One key thing that’s on her radar is the 15 k freestyle in Davos in the middle of December.”
On the World Cup circuit, the U.S. has lost two sprint starts for the women — a reduction from six to four — and will only be able to start seven women in the season’s tours, which make up just over half of the season’s races. (Tour starts are calculated by adding distance spots plus half the sprint spots). With eight women on the A- and B-teams, the entire team will not be able to start the tours. One exception will be the Ruka mini tour in Kuusamo, Finland, which allows an additional spot for the Continental Cup leader for Period 1. Since Brennan will be the leader at the time, all eight women will technically be able to start the mini tour.
17-year-old Katharine Ogden’s sixth-place finish in the women’s 10 k skiathlon at the 2015 Junior World Championships was the best American result in a distance race since 2002 (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)
D-Team: An Opportunity for Extra Support
The D-team will double in size from two to four in 2015/2016 with the addition of Ogden and Kern. According to Grover there were several athletes who were strong candidates for positions on the team.
“It’s hard because there are a number of athletes who are out there that could have potential D-team positions,” he said. “Especially on the guys’ side, there are a lot of guys who are really close that maybe had one or two real standout races for the year. There are a lot of guys we are keeping an eye out for and we just want to watch really for another year and see how they develop and see if they can have some big results in Europe.”
Grover explained that Ogden and Kern have been at the top of women’s junior racing in the U.S. for several years and that their successes last season proved they were ready for national-team support.
“With Katharine and Julia, those are two juniors who have been the best juniors for a few years. In general they have been two of the standouts,” Grover said. “Katharine was one of the obvious choices, as her result at the Junior World Championships is one of our historic best U.S. finishes of all time. Julia had some really standout results on the Europa Cup and Slavic Cup in particular where she was the fastest American woman.”
While the D-team does not provide any special starting rights or automatic trip qualifications, it does allow its athletes to take advantage of the USST infrastructure. According to Grover, its four members will have access to USST perks such as sports medicine, sports science and coaching that wouldn’t otherwise be provided to National Training Group (NTG) athletes.
2015/2016 USST Nominations:
A-team
Men
Andrew Newell (Shaftsbury, VT; SMS T2; 11/30/83)
Simi Hamilton (Aspen, CO; SMS T2; 5/14/87)
Women
Sadie Bjornsen (Winthrop, WA; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Center; 11/21/89)
Sophie Caldwell (Peru, VT; SMS T2; 3/22/90)
Jessie Diggins (Afton, MN; SMS T2; 8/26/91)
Kikkan Randall (Anchorage, AK; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Center; 12/31/82)
Ida Sargent (Orleans, VT; Craftsbury Green Racing Project; 1/25/88)
Liz Stephen (East Montpelier, VT; Burke Mountain Academy; 1/12/87)
B-team
Men
Erik Bjornsen (Winthrop, WA; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Center; 7/14/91)
Noah Hoffman (Aspen, CO; Ski and Snowboard Club Vail; 8/1/89)
Women
Rosie Brennan (Anchorage, AK; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Center; 12/2/88)
Sean Doherty and Katharine Ogden are FasterSkier’s Junior Skiers of the year.
With the 2014/2015 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. and Canada, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review.
We’re kicking off the series by honoring the youngest skiers of the bunch with Junior of the Year, awarded to one outstanding male and one female in the U.S. and/or Canada.
***
Katharine Ogden, Stratton Mountain School
The many achievements of Katharine Ogden, FasterSkier’s Junior Skier of the Year for 2015, make it easy to forget she is only 17 years old.
Despite her young age the Stratton Mountain School skier kept up with the best of the American women in the 2014/2015 season. Long before the winter, Ogden demonstrated her abilities with a third place finish behind Liz Stephen and Caitlin Gregg in the annual Climb to the Castle rollerski race in Lake Placid, N.Y.
New England’s Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School) racing to a 26.8-second win at the 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals in Wednesday’s 10 k freestyle at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
Come winter, Ogden continued her impressive racing as she traveled through the SuperTour circuit – claiming second in the West Yellowstone 10 k freestyle and third in the Bozeman 10 k classic behind a dominant Rosie Brennan who would later be named to the U.S. World Championships team.
Unsurprisingly, Ogden finished in the top ten of all but one race at the 2015 U.S. Cross Country Championships and handily won the junior women’s 5 k. The week would serve as a launching point for her first trip to the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
In the first race of Junior Worlds, a 5 k freestyle, Ogden placed an impressive 11th. The best was still to come for the 17-year-old, who finished sixth just two days later in the 10 k skiathlon. The result tied the best-ever distance finish by a U.S. skier at Junior Worlds.
“It was really cool to be able to ski with some fast, aggressive Europeans and to experience a crazy, Euro-style mass start for the first time,” she wrote to FasterSkier after the historic result. “This was a really good, encouraging result for me, and going forward it is really awesome to have the learning experience from my first international mass-start race.”
To round out a successful year Ogden earned four podiums at the 2015 Junior National Championships, three of which were victories. Ogden has two more years as a junior and will enter the 2015/2016 season as one of America’s most promising young skiers to date.
Sean Doherty, U.S. Biathlon
FasterSkier’s Junior of the Year award isn’t new territory for Sean Doherty. The 19-year-old won the honor in 2013, and since then he’s added a large list of accolades to his name.
The Conway, N.H. native won two golds and a silver at the 2014 IBU Junior World Championships and subsequently competed in the 2014 Olympics as one of the youngest starters in the relay, helping the U.S. finish in 16th position.
Sean Doherty racing in the mixed relay at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic earlier this year. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
The 2014/2015 season was a large jump for Doherty who graduated from biathlon’s youth category into the more competitive junior realm. It appears he took well to the transition, earning a third-place finish in the 2015 IBU Junior World Championships sprint in Minsk, Belarus. Doherty was the top North American in the event’s other two races, finishing 11th in the pursuit and 14th in the individual.
U.S. Biathlon Association CEO Max Cobb sung the 19-year-old’s praises after his impressive bronze medal. “That Sean was able to win the Junior World Championship bronze medal with one penalty as a first year junior in Minsk speaks volumes for his dedication to excellence and the great support of the coaches and team around him,” Cobb told FasterSkier in an email. “It’s a huge accomplishment to succeed like this as an American in Europe’s favorite winter sport.”
The biathlete didn’t stop there. He joined the American team at the 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland in March as the team’s youngest memeber. His placement of 45th in the pursuit marked his best-ever result at the World Cup level.
Doherty was recently named to the USBA A-team. If his performances in recent years are any indicator of the future, there’s more success to come from face of America’s young biathletes.
Erik Bjornsen (Alaska Pacific University) celebrates his team’s victory in the 4 x 5 k mixed relay on Tuesday at 2015 SuperTour Finals in Sun Valley, Idaho. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)
SUN VALLEY, Idaho — It felt more like winter and less like spring at the third day of SuperTour Finals. Tuesday’s national championships 4 x 5-kilometer mixed relay were marked by blustery winds and heavy snow, which left conditions slow and deep on the two lap course.
The trying weather wasn’t enough to prevent Alaska Pacific University (APU) from claiming the top two spots on the podium. APU’s first team, consisting of Sadie Bjornsen, Lex Treinen, Chelsea Holmes, and Erik Bjornsen, claimed victory in 58:52.5. The win is APU’s second in two years after it won the inaugural U.S. Distance Nationals mixed relay last year in Anchorage, Alaska, ahead of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2 team and APU’s second team, respectively.
On Tuesday, APU 2, with Becca Rorabaugh, Reese Hanneman, Rosie Frankowski, and Scott Patterson, finished 21.6 seconds back to give APU an unprecedented 1-2 finish. The Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2’s first team of Annie Hart, Andy Newell, Katharine Ogden, and Simi Hamilton finished third, trailing the winners by 25 seconds.
Craftsbury 1 (+44.1) finished fourth, while the University of Utah (+47.3) placed fifth.
The race began with New Mexico’s Emilie Cedervaern and Sadie Bjornsen pushing a fast pace, with Craftsbury’s Liz Guiney, University of Colorado’s Maja Solbakken, and Hart following close behind. As the first leg progressed, Team Le Misfits’ Liz Stephen powered from bib 27 to make contact with the leaders. By the end of the 5 k, Stephen tagged teammate Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess in first, while New Mexico came through in second and APU 1 in third.
“I think today was a challenging day to be leading,” Bjornsen said after notching her third win in as many races at SuperTour Finals. “It was especially hard to make some gaps. From the beginning I tried to make a gap and then they all caught me on the downhill. Our following legs did a good job of opening up some gaps but not working so much harder than everyone else.”
Blackhorse-von Jess strode through the deep snow to keep the Le Misfits in the lead for just over a kilometer, but Treinen and New Mexico’s Aku Nikander soon caught him on the first major climb of the course. Colorado’s Rune Ødegård joined the three skiers at the top of the course and took the lead in the final kilometers. Entering the second exchange, Ødegård pulled ahead to gain a 14-second gap on Treinen, who tagged off to Holmes in second position.
“I was feeling really good on the uphill so I was just staying behind those first two people,” Treinen said. “I was waiting for the uphill to make my move and I gave it everything I got. I just tired to hold on until the finish.”
Holmes quickly made up ground on the two skiers in front of her. After almost 2 k, Holmes had a roughly 10-second gap on New Mexico’s Eva Severrus.
Two skiers behind them, APU 2’s Frankowski and University of Utah’s Veronika Mayerhoffer, weren’t about to let the podium slip away and picked off the places until they reached second and third. In the last kilometer, the two closed the gap to Holmes, and in the final meters, Mayhofer blew by Holmes to enter the final leg in first. Holmes tagged Erik Bjornsen in second while Frankowski tagged Patterson in third. Ogden, who started in eighth, skied the third-fastest time of leg three to bring SMST2 1 into fourth and 14.7 seconds from third.
“I blew up a little at the last k,” Holmes said. “I was rather amped so I went out at pretty much my sprint race pace. I think I just blew up a little and it’s hard to recover when you’re up this high. I just tired to hold it together as much as I could.”
The APU skier added that she had extra motivation from the fact that Rosie Brennan was originally slated to start as the team’s third skier. Due to illness, Brennan withdrew and gave her spot to Holmes.
“I had some big shoes to fill,” Holmes said. “That’s all I was trying to do, just go as fast as I could.”
Bjornsen took no time in passing Utah’s Nick Hendrickson as the last leg began, and increased APU’s lead throughout the rest of the final 5 k lap. Clocking the second fastest time of the leg, Bjornsen brought his team across the line with no other skiers in sight. Hendrickson attempted to stay with the U.S. Ski Team athlete for the first kilometer, but fell behind and was eventually passed by Patterson.
SMST2’s Hamilton skied smoothly and efficiently to continually make ground on Patterson throughout the 5 k. Hamilton finished just short of second, depleting the 14.7-second difference to APU2 to 3.5 seconds and bringing SMST2 1 across the line in third.
“From the start I knew I needed to hammer,” Bjornsen said. “Patterson was coming up from behind and I knew this course would be good for Simi, so I went out as hard as I could and tried to hold onto it.
“It was a little more exciting this year than last so that makes the win even better,” he added, referring to APU’s 2014 win in the same event.
APU Head Coach Erik Flora was nothing but smiles after the finish of Tuesday’s relay.
“It definitely surpassed my expectations,” Flora said. “I’m super proud of those guys. Our game plan for team one was to see if we could see if we could spread the field out, but with the [soft] snow, it kept everyone together, which made for an awesome race. It kind of came to the later legs to do their things.”
According to Flora, the 1-2 APU finish demonstrates the depth of the program, especially with the absence of many of the team’s top skiers due to sickness or nonattendance.
“It shows our depth,” Flora said. “Because even today, we have David Norris and Rosie Brennan and Kikkan Randall and Holly Brooks that aren’t here so the depth of our program, to be able to do what we did last year with first and third, and then to turn it around with the change in the teams to go 1-2, it’s awesome. It’s really exciting.”
The U18 men’s 3 x 2.5 k classic relay on the last day of 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics) All profits from photo sales will be donated to the National Nordic Foundation.
The 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals came to a close Saturday with the 3 x 2.5-kilometer classic relays at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif., where New England and Midwest both tallied two relay wins. At the end of the weeklong series of races, New England took the overall team title, the Alaska Cup, by 167 points over Midwest. Intermountain placed third overall, 43 points out of second.
Photos from Saturday’s relays and a complete gallery, courtesy of Mark/Nadell/MacBeth Graphics. All profits from photo sales will be donated to the National Nordic Foundation (NNF).
(Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U16 women’s podium from Saturday’s 3 x 2.5 k classic mass relay at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
(Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U16 men’s podium from Saturday’s 3 x 2.5 k classic mass relay at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U18 women’s podium from Saturday’s 3 x 2.5 k classic mass relay at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U18 men’s podium from Saturday’s 3 x 2.5 k classic mass relay at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U20 women’s podium from Saturday’s 3 x 2.5 k classic mass relay at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
Thomas O’Harra won the day after his 19th birthday, and Brooke Dunnagan, Katharine Ogden and Emily Hyde repeated as 2015 champions on the third day of racing at U.S. Junior Nationals, in which the 5-, 10- and 15-kilometer classic mass starts took place on Friday at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif.
Below are some podium and race photos, courtesy of Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics (minus the U18 and U20 women). Check out his complete gallery here.
Junior Nationals wrap up Saturday with the women’s 3 x 3 k and men’s 3 x 5 k classic relays. Live timing | Live stream
The U16 women’s podium from Friday’s 5 k classic mass start at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U16 men’s podium from Friday’s 5 k classic mass start at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U18 men’s podium from Friday’s 10 k classic mass start at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U20 men’s podium from Friday’s 15 k classic mass start at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The second day of 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals featured the 5- and 10-kilometer freestyle individual starts, with the U16 men and women skiing two laps of a 2.5 k course, and the U18 and U20 men and women racing four laps.
Racing resumes again on Friday with the 5/10/15 k classic mass starts. Race schedule
Below are some podium shots from Wednesday at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif., courtesy of Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics. View his complete gallery here.
The U16 women’s podium from Wednesday’s 5 k freestyle at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U16 men’s podium from Wednesday’s 5 k freestyle at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U18 women’s podium from Wednesday’s 10 k freestyle at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
New England’s Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School) racing to a 26.8-second win at the 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals in Wednesday’s 10 k freestyle at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U18 men’s podium from Wednesday’s 10 k freestyle at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
Mid-Atlantic’s Karl Schulz (New England Ski Educational Foundation) racing to a 5.3-second win at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals in Wednesday’s 10 k freestyle at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U20 women’s podium from Wednesday’s 10 k freestyle at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The U20 men’s podium from Wednesday’s 10 k freestyle at 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)
The 2015 Junior World Championships concluded on Sunday in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and left the U.S. team with a lot to celebrate.
Seventeen-year-old Katharine Ogden, of the Stratton Mountain School, in particular had a standout week, finishing sixth in the 10-kilometer skiathlon (for the best American distance result at Junior Worlds since 2002) and 11th in the 5 k freestyle. Northern Michigan University’s Ian Torchia finished 11th in the men’s 20 k skiathlon, while earlier in the week Thomas O’Harra of Alaska Pacific University was 14th overall in the classic sprint. The U.S. capped off Junior Worlds with its women’s squad placing eighth in the 4 x 3.3 k relay and the men taking 11th in their 4 x 5 k relay.
Below are several photos from American athletes and coaches of their week in Almaty.
From l-r, Vivian Hett (NMU), Kristen Bourne (NMU), Julia Kern (CSU), and Hailey Swirbul (Aspen Valley) after the classic sprint at Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Vivian Hett)
Thomas O’Harra (APU) races in the classic sprint quarterfinals at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. O’Harra would place third in his heat and 14th overall. (Photo: Thomas O’Harra)
Kristen Bourne (NMU) overlooking the ski jump and the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan (shrouded in smog) from the course at Junior World Championships (Photo: Vivian Hett)
From l-r, Alayna Sonnesyn (UVM), Vivian Hett (NMU), and Kristen Bourne (NMU) doing some casual training on the course at Junior Worlds in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Vivian Hett)
The view overlooking the course and the stadium at Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Julia Kern)
From l-r, Julia Kern (CSU), Hailey Swirbul (Aspen Valley), and Katharine Ogden (SMS) cheering on the U.S. U23 team at World Chamionships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Kern and Ogden were named to the U.S. Ski Team’s “D” team this spring. (Photo: Julia Kern)
Kristen Bourne (NMU), Alayna Sonnesyn (UVM), and Vivian Hett (NMU) enjoying some time away from racing at the Junior World Championships by exploring a bazaar in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Vivian Hett)
Julia Kern (CSU) on her way to 38th place in the 10 k skiathlon at Junior Worlds in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)
17-year-old Katharine Ogden’s sixth-place finish in the women’s 10 k skiathlon at the 2015 Junior World Championships was the best American result in a distance race since 2002 (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)
Katharine Ogden (10) on her way to a sixth-place finish in the women’s 10 k skiathlon at the 2015 Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)
Ian Torchia (NMU) on his way to an 11th-place finish in the 20 k skiathlon at the 2015 Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Bryan Fish)
The view at sunset from the U.S. team hotel at the 2015 Junior World Championships reveals smog permeating the valley over Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Thomas O’Harra)
U.S. Ski Team Development Coach Bryan Fish being glittered up by Hailey Swirbul at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Julia Kern)
Julia Kern (CSU) racing against a backdrop of smog in the first leg of the 4 x 3.3 k relay at the 2015 Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The American team would go on to place eighth. (Photo: Logan Hanneman)
The venue in Almaty, Kazakhstan, was faced with problems of snow shortages during Junior and U23 World Championships in early February. Here, American Thomas O’Harra (back left) staying with the leaders during the first leg of the junior men’s relay; his team would go on to finish 11th. (Photo: Logan Heinemann)
Hailey Swirbul of the Aspen Valley Ski Club races the anchor leg while guiding the American team to eighth place in the 4 x 3.3 k relay at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 2015. (Photo: Logan Hannneman)
Do you have photos from Junior World Championships or U23 World Championships that you’d like to share? Email info@fasterskier.com with a high-resolution photo attached and photo caption/credit information.
Julia Kern (CSU) races the first leg of the 4 x 3.3 k relay at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The American women’s team would go on to place eighth. (Photo: Logan Hanneman)
The American junior women’s team wrapped up a successful week at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan, by placing eighth in Sunday’s 4 x 3.3-kilometer relay. They finished 2:11.0 minutes behind the winning Norwegian team (35:04.0).
Norway erased an 11.1-second deficit after the second leg to claim victory with a time of 35:04.0 and beat the Russian team by 0.4 seconds. Germany used a strong final leg from Victoria Carl to overcome Sweden and take third (+35.3).
Julia Kern (Cambridge Sports Union) set up the American women’s squad by posting the fifth-fastest first leg and putting the team just 8.6 seconds behind Slovenia, the leader at the time.
Kern wrote in an email that the mass start today was not as chaotic as during Friday’s 10 k skiathlon, but was still fast and aggressive. “In these international races, people go hard from the start, leaving it all out there,” she wrote.
The 17 year old added that it was encouraging to be able to ski with the lead pack and be with the top skiers.
“It was relatively fast for the warm conditions, with a few icy spots,” she wrote. “My skis were fantastic, I didn’t slip once and also had really fast skis.”
Northern Michigan University’s Vivian Hett, who skied the second leg, wrote in an email that she felt okay about her race despite falling on an icy corner.
“The ski conditions today were getting a little tricky. The morning started out really foggy but the sun began to shine right after the race began! It has been really warm here so klister was needed for the classic legs,” she added.
17-year-old Katharine Ogden, of the Stratton Mountain School – who placed sixth in Friday’s skiathlon and tied the best American distance result at a Junior Worlds since 2002 – skied alone for the fifth-fastest third leg of the day. However, the team was still 1:16.4 minutes behind Norway and 24.7 seconds out of seventh going into the final leg.
“The people ahead of me were far ahead and the same with the people behind me,” Ogden wrote in an email.
Hailey Swirbul (Aspen Vally SSC) races the anchor leg while guiding the American team to eighth place in the 4 x 3.3 k relay at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Logan Hanneman)
Hailey Swirbul’s anchor leg was also fairly uneventful, the Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club member explained in an email.
“A pack of teams in front of us had created a gap in the previous leg, so it was my job to hold off the Finnish team behind us. It was a painful but lonely anchor leg for me!” Swirbul wrote.
She explained that conditions on the course were great considering the warmth Almaty has experienced over the past few days, and “the skis were ripping fast as usual thanks to our hard working techs.”
Overall, the American women were satisfied with their result.
“I thought that our team skied really well today. Other than a little crash on the second leg everything went smoothly and everyone gave it their all,” Ogden wrote.
“I was really excited about how our team did today,” Kern wrote. “We had bib 10 and we moved up to eighth, so that was exciting!”
Though Swirbul was happy the team improved on its 10th-place ranking from 2014, she explained that she is confident the team will only get better in years to come.
“It has been great to see the U.S. really mixing it up this year in multiple events, so I am looking forward to improving that relay result in the future,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, the Canadian women’s team finished 10th (+3:04.0). Katherine Stewart-Jones skied first and left the team in ninth, 37.5 seconds back. However, her leg could have gone a lot better.
The 19 year old Nakkertok and Canadian National Junior Team skier – who was 14th in Friday’s skiathlon – wrote in an email that her leg started off well, and she was in fourth after the first lap.
“Then I got tangled up and fell,” Stewart-Jones explained. “I got up as quickly as I could but realized I had lost my ski and that my binding was broken. I ran with one ski until one of the coaches gave me a new one.”
By that point, she had lost a lot of time and had fallen back to ninth place.
“It is obviously a little disappointing but skiing as a team is always a lot of fun anyway. It was great to be able to watch my teammates hammer their legs and cheer them on!” she wrote.
Russia wins again; Canada cracks top 10
On the men’s side, Russia continued to assert their dominance by winning the 4 x 5 k relay in 45:11.0. They were essentially tied with the French team going into the final leg, but Russian Alexey Chervotkin had too much speed for France’s Louis Schwartz, and Russia won by 17.3 seconds.
Norway was never within striking distance of the Russian or French skiers and finished third (+1:01.5).
The leading pack: (l-r) Russia, France, Norway, Sweden, and Finland during the 4 x 5 k men’s relay on Sunday at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. (Photo: Logan Hanneman)
The Canadian men’s team took 10th (+3:40.9), while the American men placed 11th (+4:51.4).
“I thought that we did pretty alright,” American Thomas O’Harra (Alaska Pacific University), who skied the first leg, wrote in an email. “We were hoping to get into the top 10 at least, or even higher, but we couldn’t quite make it.”
O’Harra explained that he moved into fifth place during the first loop and pushed hard to stay with the leaders, but the pace caused him to blow up approximately 300 meters into the second loop.
“I moved backwards through the pack until we were pretty far down on the leaders,” he wrote. “Then, in the tag zone, something weird happened and Ian fell right after I tagged him.”
However, O’Harra was happy to see the team not get lapped and hold on for 11th.
Juniors reflect on week in Almaty
The North American athletes had mostly positive things to say about their experiences at the 2015 Junior World Championships.
Ogden explained that her goals coming into Junior Worlds were mainly to obtain valuable international racing experience and earn a top-20 result. She certainly got those results: In addition to her sixth-place performance in the skiathlon, she also placed 11th in Wednesday’s 5 k freestyle.
“I was really stoked to be able to meet and even exceed my goals,” she wrote.
She added that one of her favorite memories took place on Sunday when all the teams – wearing coats, hats, and suits from their own countries – were conversing and trading their specialized items of clothing.
“It was just so cool to see all of the teams come together like that,” she wrote.
Kern was disappointed that she missed the sprint heats by 0.4 seconds on Tuesday, but wrote that otherwise she had a fantastic week.
Thomas O’Harra (back left) staying with the leaders during the first leg of the men’s relay at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. (Photo: Logan Heinemann)
“One of my favorite memories was relay day. We all put glitter on all our faces and then went to track down all of our coaches and wax techs who all received glitter on their faces as well!” she wrote.
Swirbul reflected on World Juniors by writing that the week has been an “important and successful step” in her skiing career.
The 16-year-old Swirbul was 35th in the skiathlon and 40th overall in Tuesday’s sprint.
She wrote that she began her season with a goal to qualify for Junior Worlds, and after achieving that goal, she arrived in Almaty feeling little pressure and with a mindset to learn as much as possible.
“I was able to achieve my goals to absorb as much as I could from the elite athletes surrounding me, and learn from their race strategy and the way they carry themselves at competitions,” Swirbul explained.
O’Harra wrote, “The smog in Almaty is pretty bad, but the people are all really nice, and the food is good … I’ve met a lot of really cool people here, and I’m looking forward to racing with and against them in the future!”
Katharine Ogden (10) of the Stratton Mountain School on her way to sixth place in the women’s 10 k skiathlon at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. With that result, Ogden tied Kristina Tryggstad-Saari for the best Junior Worlds distance result since Tryggstad-Saari placed sixth in the 5 k freestyle in 2002. (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)
It may be Katharine Ogden’s first-ever Junior World Championships, but the 17-year-old Stratton Mountain School (SMS) skier is having a week to remember.
Ogden placed sixth in Friday’s 10-kilometer skiathlon in Almaty, Kazakhstan, following an 11th-place finish in Wednesday’s 5 k freestyle. The American finished just 13.2 seconds behind winner Sofie Nordsveen Hustad of Norway (27:02.8) and was 6.4 seconds from the podium.
“I am beyond stoked about my race today!” Ogden wrote in an email. “Going into the race I was originally hoping for a top 20, but after the 5 k on Wednesday I was really hoping for a top-10 result.”
Ogden explained that the race went smoothly, as she was able to avoid crashing during the hectic mass start. She was then able to maintain a position in the top 20 for the majority of the classic portion.
“It was really cool to be able to ski with some fast, aggressive Europeans and to experience a crazy, Euro-style mass start for the first time,” she wrote.
Katharine Ogden’s sixth-place finish in the women’s 10 k skiathlon is the best American distance result in a Junior Worlds race since 2002. (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)
Germany’s Victoria Carl broke away during the first lap of the skate portion, and Ogden joined the pack chasing her down. By the second of two skate laps, the lead group had dwindled down to six skiers and was fairly spread out, Ogden explained.
“Katharine would charge on the climbs, leading the pack uphill and the Russians would immediately react over the climbs and pull in front,” U.S. Ski Team Development Coach Bryan Fish wrote in an email to the press. “It was a hard fought battle on a challenging 2.5 k skate course.”
Ogden would finish in the back of the lead pack, but was just 2.2 seconds behind fifth-place Anastasia Sedova of Russia (+11.0).
“This was a really good, encouraging result for me, and going forward it is really awesome to have the learning experience from my first international mass-start race,” Ogden wrote.
“Both Katharine and Ian’s results are in a very small group in the history of U.S. Junior World cross-country ski results. Historically, we have had strong results in junior sprinting and U23,” Fish explained in an email to FasterSkier.
U.S. Women’s Head Coach Matt Whitcomb posted on Facebook that Ogden’s result tied the best women’s Junior Worlds distance result, men or women, after Kristina Tryggstad-Saari placed sixth in the 5 k freestyle in 2002.
“The future is bright for the U.S.!” Whitcomb wrote.
Fish added that there is no special way the U.S. team prepared for the skiathlon – they just treated it like any other distance race.
Julia Kern (41) of the Cambridge Sports Union on her way to 38th place in the 10 k skiathlon at Junior Worlds in Almaty, Kazakhstan. (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)
“The athletes often do two-a-day training where one ski discipline is in the AM and another in the PM, so the body is already somewhat accustomed to it. Certainly, practice is necessary to transition from classic to skate back-to-back,” he explained.
Fish added that based on Ogden and Torchia’s results, “the whole team is riding a high. We’re going to feed off this energy tomorrow for the U23 skiathlon races.”
Meanwhile, Canadian National Junior Team and Nakkertok member Katherine Stewart-Jones cracked the top 15 in 14th (+1:34.0) and Anne-Marie Comeau (CNEPH/NST-Junior) was 25th (+2:02.0).
Stewart-Jones wrote in an email that she was very happy with Friday’s result, as she accomplished her goal of earning a top-15 finish in a distance race at Junior Worlds.
“It is my last individual race I’ll get to do as a junior at Worlds and so I couldn’t be happier with how it finished,” the 19-year-old wrote.
She explained that the race was chaotic from start.
“There were girls falling everywhere and breaking poles. I just focused on staying on my feet, avoiding trouble, and skiing relaxed. I got myself into a good position at the end of the classic leg and was skiing with a big group of girls,” she wrote.
She explained that she felt strong heading into the skate, and was leading the large group of skiers behind the lead group. The other skiers would draft her on the downhills, which made it hard to break away, so Stewart-Jones knew she would have to make her move on the final hill.
From l-r, Canadians Annah Hanthorn, Katherine Stewart-Jones, Anne-Marie Comeau, and Maya McIssac-Jones, after the 10 k skiathlon at Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. (Photo: Lisa Patterson/CCC)
“The last kilometer is a blur. I just skied as hard as I could and didn’t think about anything else,” she wrote.
During that last kilometer, she distanced herself from the large group and held on during the final stretch to take 14th.
“All in all, it is such a great feeling to have improved from last year’s 31st place and this is definitely some motivation for the next races and training season!” she wrote.
Comeau managed to avoid getting tangled up at the start and was 29th after the classic portion and 58.5 seconds behind Carl, who led after the classic (13:00.7). However, she picked up the pace after the transition and had the 14th-fastest skate, beating Kazakhstan’s Angelina Shuryga by 0.3 seconds to earn a top-25 finish.
After Hustad, the other podium spots were filled by Carl in second (+2.0) and Sweden’s Ebba Andersson in third (+6.8).
“After the classic [portion] I was in fourth or fifth place, so I didn’t expect to become a champion today,” Hustad told the International Ski Federation (FIS). “I had amazing skis, I just glided into the finish line.”
Andersson said to FIS, “The course is very tough and fun at the same time. I really did not expect that I would be on the podium. Of course I am very happy today!”
Other North American skiers included Americans Hailey Swirbul (Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club) in 35th (+2:45.4), Julia Kern (Cambridge Sports Union) in 38th (+3:19.1), and Alayna Sonnesyn (University of Vermont) in 50th (+4:56.2).
Canadian Maya Macisaac-Jones (Rocky Mountain Racers/NST-Junior) finished in 45th (+4:00.9) while Annah Hanthorn (Whitehorse) was 47th (+4:36.2).
Hanthorn was faced with some unusual adversity, as Canadian High-Performance Development Coordinator Lisa Patterson told Cross Country Canada.
“Annah had her skis taken from the exchange box by a Finnish skier. Annah wasted at least 30 seconds searching and then skied on the Finn’s skis. At the end of the race she was extremely polite and showed no anger, and actually congratulated the Finnish racer. On a positive note, both said their skis were fast,” Patterson said.
Junior Worlds finish in Almaty on Sunday with the men’s 4 x 5 k relay and the women’s 4 x 3.3 k relay.
Katharine Ogden (SMS) placed 11th in Wednesday’s 5 k freestyle in the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)
American Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School) made the most of her World Junior Championships debut, placing 11th in the women’s 5-kilometer freestyle individual start on Wednesday in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The 17-year-old Stratton Mountain School T2 Team athlete was the top North American skier and finished 24.5 seconds behind winner Victoria Carl of Germany.
Ogden is coming off a U.S. Nationals performance where she placed sixth in the 10 k freestyle and won the juniors’ 5 k classic mass start.
Ogden wrote in an email that her strategy was to ski hard throughout the race and focus on the uphills – where she thought she could make up the most time. Going into the race, she was hoping for a top-20 result but wrote that she did not know what to expect.
“I skied the whole race pretty hard because everyone was saying that the people here go out really hard and keep going really hard,” Ogden explained, adding that she skied alone except when she briefly skied with a Swiss skier who started in front of her.
Ogden wrote that the experience at Junior Worlds has been incredible.
Victoria Carl of Germany (50) tops the podium after winning the women’s 5 k freestyle at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Anastasia Sedoiva of Russia (66) was second and Natalia Nepryaeva was third. (Photo: FIS)
“Everything here is new and exciting and different … I love skiing with all of the people from different countries and learning from them as well as learning from my amazing and talented teammates from the U.S.,” she wrote.
Race-winner Carl skied to a time of 13:26.9 and gapped the field by over five seconds to earn her second victory of worlds. She also won Tuesday’s 1.3 k classic sprint.
“It’s a big and very important moment for me personally and in my career. The day is unbelievable. It’s a very, very big success for me. The course is great! I would also like to thank my coaches and everybody, who supported me today,” she said in a post-race interview with the International Ski Federation (FIS).
Rounding out the women’s podium were two Russians – Anastasia Sedova was 5.3 seconds off pace in second, while Natalia Nepryaeva finished 5.9 seconds behind to take third.
“The course was hard and difficult, but I was well prepared for today’s race. I had some troubles with my legs, but I coped with it,” Sedova told FIS.
Nepryaeva explained to FIS that the course was difficult, but her training at the venue this season was a large factor in her second third-place finish in as many days.
Meanwhile, Katherine Stewart-Jones (Nakkertok) led the Canadian women in 25th (+1:05.0)
The race comes a day after Stewart-Jones earned a 19th place performance in Tuesday’s 1.3 k classic sprint. The 19-year-old found success at the international level prior to Kazakhstan. She earned 15th in the freestyle sprint at the 2014 Junior World Championships freestyle sprint in Val di Femme, Italy.
Stewart-Jones wrote in an email that she was happy with the result, especially when recalling a 56th-place finish in the same event at Junior Worlds two years ago.
“I felt a lot better than I thought I would and sort of expected to have to push to keep the same pace during the second half, but that wasn’t the case,” she explained, adding that while coaches were giving her splits she was not focused on her place during the race.
Stewart-Jones maintained a consistent pace throughout the race, as she was also 25th at the 1.7 k split.
Teammate Anne-Marie Comeau (CNEPH/NST) crossed the 1.7 k split in 21st but eventually fell to 39th (+1:23.2). Two fellow Canadians finished back-to-back – Annah Hanthorn (Whitehorse) was 44th (+1:35.8) and Maya Macisaac-Jones (Rocky Mountain Racers/NST) placed 45th (+1:36.6).
American Vivian Hett of North Michigan University (NMU) was right behind in 46th (+1:42.8), followed by two teammates – Kristen Bourne (NMU) in 51st (+1:53.6) and Alayna Sonnesyn (University of Vermont) in 52nd (+2:04.2).
Dumas Cracks Top 30 to Lead North Americans
Russian skiers dominated the men’s 10 k freestyle, snagging the top four places, while Canada’s Alexis Dumas (CNEPH/NST) was the lone North American skier to finish in the top 30. The 19-year-old took 30th, and crossed the line 2:09.3 minutes behind winner Alexey Chervotkin (23:36.4).
Desis Spitsov was 15.9 seconds back from his teammate to take second, while Alexander Bakanov trailed by 34.4 to take third. The Russian trio told FIS that their sweep was indicative of Russian skiing and that they were pleased to share the podium with teammates.
Russians Alexey Chervotkin, Denis Spitsov, and Alexander Bakanov swept the podium in the Junior World Championships 10 k freestyle in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: FIS)
“We are extremely glad to stand on the podium together,” Chervotkin said.
“I’m glad to stand here with my teammates also. I hope the other days of competitions will be successful for the Russian team too,” Bakanov added. His third-place performance comes off a second-place finish in Tuesday’s sprint.
Meanwhile, Dumas wrote in an email that his plan was to start strong, as he is typically a slow starter.
“In an event like World Juniors you cannot afford to be conservative. You have to hammer as hard as you can and if you fade, at least you tried,” he wrote.
Dumas started strong, and was 21st overall at the 1.7 k split. He later faded to 34th after 5 k. He explained that his race went well but he felt there was a potential for a better result, as he felt he could have skied with more speed on the last lap and on the course’s downhill section.
Dumas added that he likes the difficulty of the course along with its long climbs.
“You have to be strong in your head to continue pushing hard. I think I’m good with dealing with the pain and that really helped me today because I definitely felt pain all through my body,” he wrote.
Dumas improved on his results from the 2014 Junior Worlds in Italy, where he finished 60th in the 20 k skiathlon and 46th in the 10 k classic.
“My experience from last year in Val di Femme definitely helped me. I was a lot more confident. Last year, I wasn’t feeling good at all, but I learned a lot and this year I was ready to perform,” he explained.
American Ian Torchia of Northern Michigan University of was the next North American finisher, taking 35th (+2:20.2), and Canada’s Philippe Boucher (CNEPH/NST) was right behind in 40th (+2:24.4). Thomas O’Harra of Alaska Pacific University – who placed 14th overall in Tuesday’s sprint – finished 49th (+2:36.3).
After the sprint was pushed back on Tuesday due to air-quality concerns, the air was clearer on Wednesday, according to Ogden.
She wrote that since the race started at 11 am, the pollution was fairly under control, as the smog remains in the valley and the city of Almaty in the morning before gradually rising into the mountains throughout the day.
“I didn’t notice it during the race, although afterwards I did have a bit of a weird cough,” she added.
Nakkertok Head Coach Kieran Jones wrote an email on Tuesday, “That stuff is out of our control. That’s always been the message — control what you can, and don’t worry about anything else.”
Racing in Kazakstan continues Thursday with the U23 10/15 k freestyle interval starts.
— Chelsea Little and Lander Karath contributed reporting
Rosie Brennan (APU) celebrates her definitive win in the women’s 1.5 k classic sprint on Tuesday at U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich., where she notched her third national title. (Photo: Jake Ellingson)
HOUGHTON, Mich. — As Rosie Brennan plowed through the fresh powder and tried to pick out what she thought was the best lane for the women’s 1.5-kilometer classic sprint at U.S. Cross Country Championships on Tuesday, she thought, this is brutal.
Not only did she have to start first in the qualifier, which began at 10 a.m. after nearly half a foot of fresh snow had fallen since two hours earlier, when the groomer last passed over the Michigan Tech course, but Brennan had nobody starting directly behind her, either. Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg/Madshus) in bib No. 2 had scratched.
“I had no idea how fast I was going relatively, plus I was plowing the tracks for everybody so it actually was kind of unfortunate,” Brennan recalled with a laugh. “But I just tried to tell myself that if I skied well, that I had to be moving fast enough and just hope for the best.”
The Alaska Pacific University (APU) veteran ended up second in the qualifier, 1.16 seconds behind Eliška Hájková, a 2013 University of Colorado Boulder graduate and current Boulder Nordic Junior Racing Team coach, who clocked the fastest time of 5 minutes, 18.63 seconds.
After the race, several described it as more like a prologue or even a distance race than a typical sprint. At least for many, it felt that way.
“I kind of felt like I was doing a 5 k,” said Brennan’s APU teammate Becca Rorabaugh, who qualified 10th.
Fortunately for the racers, the track got faster by the time the heats rolled around at 12:30 p.m., and there were more options that the one track Brennan picked to lead 136 women out in the qualifier.
The organizers re-groomed the loop after the men’s qualifier ended at 11:50, and with wet snow from a northwest wind off Lake Superior about 10 miles north, the course set quickly before the women’s quarterfinals started 40 minutes later.
It was still about 7 degrees with a biting wind shooting across the stadium start and finish, but racers seemed unfazed once they got moving. With the snow still falling, as long as they could find a skied-in track, they were generally happy.
Rosie Brennan leading her quarterfinal in Tuesday’s 1.5 k classic sprint at U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich. (Photo: Christopher Schmidt)
The blizzard let up by the afternoon, right about the time Brennan started to come into her own. With three SuperTour victories out of four races on the circuit this season (and a national podium on Sunday), she had the confidence — and she soon realized she had the ski speed as well.
“I thought it would be more prudent to be patient basically on top of the big climbs because it’s still half a [kilometer] to the finish,” she explained, “But I just noticed how fast my skis were.”
Seeing that, the 26-year-old Park City, Utah, native decided to take advantage of the gap she had created and extend her lead on the downhills then up the final gradual climb to the finish.
Brennan won her quarterfinal by 2.55 seconds over 17-year-old Katharine Ogden of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) in second. In the semifinal, she again stole the show ahead of 16-year-old runner-up Hannah Halvorsen (Sugar Bowl Academy) and Anne Hart (SMST2), who advanced as the lucky loser in third, 1.18 seconds behind Brennan.
Ogden in fourth — ahead of Erika Flowers (SMST2) in fifth and another New England skier, Julia Kern (Cambridge Sports Union) in sixth — did not advance. The three women went head-to-head in the B-final (along with Hájková, Michigan Tech’s own Deedra Irwin, and APU’s Rosie Frankowski), where Ogden bested Hájková by nearly a second to win the heat and tie her best-senior-nationals result in seventh.
Stratton’s Katharine Ogden (l) winning the women’s classic-sprint B-final for seventh overall on Tuesday, ahead of Eliška Hájková (Boulder Junior Nordic Racing Team), at U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich.
“I kind of went in with not a lot of expectations, just hoping to do the best I could and I was pretty psyched with how it ended up,” Ogden said. “It’s also really cool to see Julia Kern [who qualified in third], is a junior; she was in my heat, and Hannah Halvorsen is even younger than me and she [was] in this A-final.”
Six women lined up for the A-final, four of them ages 23 and under. Brennan and Rorabaugh were the most experienced in the group, and Hart had raced one national A-final before, but none of the other three — Halvorsen, Liz Guiney (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) and Heather Mooney (Middlebury College) — had previously made it that far in national sprint.
“At that point, it was just very exciting,” Halvorsen recalled. “I wasn’t really worried — I just wanted to have fun out there. It was just an honor to get to race with those super-fast girls and go as hard as I could.”
For Brennan, it was a matter of business. She wondered if she had the snap she needed to win her third national title, especially given how long the course felt and how cold it was.
“It’s hard to feel great all the time,” Brennan said. “I really just tried to trust the fitness that I’ve built and try to keep skiing and not look back and just keep going.”
That’s exactly what she did, and to no one’s surprise in the final.
Rosie Brennan (2), leads Liz Guiney (4), Anne Hart (15) and Hannah Halvorsen (23) shortly after the start in the women’s 1.5 k classic sprint final at U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich. (Photo: Christopher Schmidt)
“I knew Rosie was just gonna blow it out of the water so I just tried to hang on,” Rorabaugh said with a laugh.
Brennan did just that, surging to front of the pack out of the start, slightly ahead of Rorabaugh and Guiney, and directly in front of Hart before the downhill out of the stadium. According to Rorabaugh, Brennan attacked on the course’s two steeper climbs — most notably on the slight downhill in the middle and on the second hill about two-thirds of the way through.
“It’s kind of like training, like, ‘Oh, Rosie’s going away on a hill again, this is my chance to hang on,’ ” Rorabaugh said.
But unlike some training sessions in Anchorage, Alaska, this time, Brennan dropped Rorabaugh and the rest of the field for good.
“I actually was putting most of my time in over the top of that first uphill and in the downhill,” Brennan said. “And then I guess the second uphill, I just surged to the top of that and then just tried to relax and ski it in.”
Becca Rorabaugh (10) leads Heather Mooney (l) and Liz Guiney (4) into the finish in the semifinal of the U.S. Cross Country Championships women’s 1.5 k classic sprint on Tuesday in Houghton, Mich.
Just like each of her preceding heats, she won the final comfortably by 6.82 seconds in 4:52.72.
Rorabaugh sensed a couple women gunning behind her for second, so she sped up on the final gradual climb before the stadium straightaway.
“I figured they were close enough that I should just go as hard as I could, so I was happy that the finishing stretch was striding today,” she said of the still-dragging conditions.
After securing the win, Brennan looked behind her to welcome her teammate and the rest of her competitors (including Guiney as a former Park City teammate) across the line. She and Rorabaugh embraced after delivering the 1-2 APU punch, and Guiney, who finished 3.67 seconds later, stayed 2.4 seconds ahead of Hart for her first national podium in third.
“[I’m] tired, cold. I’m ecstatic, honestly,” Brennan said with a laugh after. “Last year, I technically got the national championship [in the classic sprint], but I was second [to Russia’s Natalja Naryshkina] so to win outright is that much sweeter. I really like classic sprinting so it was just good — good course and good skiing for me.”
“It’s hard to feel great all the time. I really just tried to trust the fitness that I’ve built and try to keep skiing and not look back and just keep going.” — Rosie Brennan (APU), two-time national classic sprint champion
APU’s Rosie Brennan (c) and Becca Rorabaugh (l) on the podium in first and second, respectively, and Liz Guiney (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) in third in the women’s classic sprint at U.S. nationals in Houghton, Mich. (Photo: Christopher Schmidt)
It was also her fourth win out of six SuperTour races this year. Rorabaugh said she was happy the two could team up to take first and second.
“We work really hard together all the time so it’s really great to have it play out like this,” she said.
Guiney, a 23-year-old, first-year senior who qualified in fourth, placed ninth the last two years at nationals in the classic sprint (in 2013) and freestyle sprint (in 2014).
“It’s really exciting,” said Guiney, who won her quarterfinal ahead of Frankowski and placed third in her semifinal behind Brennan and Rorabaugh, respectively. “It’s kind of a cool realization for me that I can be up there.”
Hart improved upon her best nationals finish (which was fifth in the 2013 skate sprint) in fourth on Tuesday, about 13 seconds behind Brennan, and explained her main goal after qualifying in 15th was to keep an open mind and chip away at the heats.
Anne Hart (SMST2) leads her quarterfinal ahead of Middlebury’s Heather Mooney (16) and Northern Michigan University’s Vivian Hett (6). (Photo: Christopher Schmidt)
“It was really anyone’s day out there,” she said. “When you look at [Sunday’s 15 k] skate race with Kyle [Bratrud] having such a standout race, you just have to remember that anything can happen.”
Hart won her quarterfinal by 1.32 seconds over Mooney, advanced out of the semifinal in third, and by the time the final rolled around, she was mostly aiming to stay in front of her fellow U23 competitors.
“[Stratton coach] Pat [O’Brien] gave us stunningly fast skis today, so all of the starts the plan was, I figured Rosie was going to be the fastest out there,” Hart recalled. “I was just like, if I can just get myself right behind her and stay on her as long as possible…”
She did so on the first climb, but by the second hill, she thought, “ ‘OK, maybe not,’ ” Hart said. “From there on out, it was just kind of battling for spots and with U23’s, every spot matters, so I was just willing myself to the finish line.”
Her father was cheering her on from the sidelines, which helped, she said.
“I graduated from Dartmouth last year and the first year out of college, I’ve been told a million and a half times by everyone and their mother that … it’s really different,” Hart said. “I just had what I call a bunch of vanilla races [to start the season], and so it’s just a confidence booster to say, ‘I’m doing this for a reason, I can do this.’ … So it’s gonna help me sleep better at night I think.”
“It’s just a confidence booster to say, ‘I’m doing this for a reason, I can do this.’ ” — Anne Hart (SMS T2 Team), fourth
Sixteen-year-old Hannah Halvorsen celebrates her quarterfinal win on Tuesday in the women’s 15 k classic sprint at U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich.
Halvorsen in fifth (+15.16) said her parents also buoyed her throughout the day.
“My parents were really believing in me so I decided I’d give it what I have and I was pretty surprised that I was able to do really well in the heats,” Halvorsen said. “I had a lot of fun skiing with some fast girls.
“I’ve been training this year with World Juniors kind of on my mind, but just trying to focus on the process and ski as well as I can,” she added. “So we’ll see what happens and how the points play out.”
Twenty-year-old Mooney in sixth (+15.36), in her senior year at Middlebury, improved upon her two eighth-place finishes at nationals in the classic sprints in 2013 and 2011.
“I was in the A-final at Spring Series when I was a J2, same race, but I was psyched [about today],” she said after qualifying 16th. “[I] tried to go into it without any expectations … definitely was intimidated by a six-minute sprint course, but just took each one as it came.”
As for her goals for the rest of the season — and whether U23 World Championships are at the heart of them — Mooney said not necessarily.
“This sounds really silly — I’d like to race fast enough to be among the top U23’s, but I love college racing and this is my last year and I’m really excited to try to race really consistently and be at the top of the college circuit, focusing on NCAAs,” she said. “I’d love to make [U23 World Championships], but also I’m going to spend the winter in the East and I’m excited for that.”
Note: The defending freestyle sprint champion and 2013 classic sprint champion, Jennie Bender of the Bridger Ski Foundation crashed out of contention while leading up and over a climb near the end of her quarterfinal. She placed fifth, 7.8 seconds behind Rorabaugh as the quarterfinal winner, and did not advance to the semifinals.
“I was leading, then I was on my face,” Bender recalled in an email. “Knocked the wind out of me. … I am pretty disappointed, because I came into this race with high hopes, but that’s sprint racing. Looking forward to the skate sprint.”
Caitlin Gregg (l) of Team Gregg/Madshus leads Rosie Brennan (r) of APU on in the final lap of the 10 k freestyle at the 2015 U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich. Gregg won the race, while Brennan earned third place.
HOUGHTON, Mich. – Individual starts are often considered less exciting than their mass start counterparts, but the women’s 10-kilometer freestyle at the 2015 U.S. Cross Country Championships proved they can hold just as much exhilaration.
Caitlin Gregg of Team Gregg/Madshus won the race with a time of 30:31.5, roughly 12 seconds ahead of the next competitor. What the results don’t say, however, is how Gregg earned her first victory of the season.
Two of the competition’s favorites, Gregg and current Super Tour leader Rosie Brennan, of Alaska Pacific University (APU), started 30 seconds apart with Brennan donning 283 and Gregg 285. Gregg would have to gain on Brennan if she had any hope of winning, while Brennan needed to ensure that Gregg didn’t make up any ground.
At roughly 1 k into the race, misfortune hit Brennan as she planted a pole between in her ski and fell face-first into the snow. Getting up quickly, Brennan tried to pole again but face-planted for a second time before realizing her pole was broken.
While she retrieved a replacement, it was too big, causing her to ski in a lopsided manner. She didn’t receive a smaller one until two or three k later when she passed her APU coach, Erik Flora.
At that point Gregg had already made up the 30-second deficit.
“I was definitely a little flustered and then Caitlin caught me as a result. I tried to just relax and tell myself that she could be winning by a minute,” Brennan said in a post-race interview.
Now skiing together, the two competitors worked in tandem to battle the slow terrain resulting from cold temperatures and blowing snow.
Rosie Brennan (APU) skis with an oversized pole in the first lap of the women’s 10 k freestyle at the 2015 U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich.
“I was really fortunate because Rosie Brennan had a crash and broke her pole and so I caught her. Skiing behind someone is a lot easier so I got a good ride with her. We switched on and off,” Gregg said after the race.
After the two reached the middle of the second 5 k lap, Brennan explained that she decided there was nothing to lose, and took off in an attempt to earn back the 30 seconds she lost to Gregg.
“I felt a lot better in the second lap. I pulled myself together and I found the fitness I was looking for,” she said of her last-ditch effort.
While she pulled away and finished a sizable distance ahead of Gregg, it wasn’t enough to bridge the 30-second gap, and Brennan ultimately finished 12.6 seconds back for third place behind Gregg and APU teammate Chelsea Holmes in second.
“It makes me feel frustrated, but also happy that I have the fitness I thought I did,” Brennan said of the day.
Flora, who has coached Brennan for several years, explained that he was proud of his skier even though she was unable to demonstrate her full potential.
“She is in good racing form. The pole thing, that is unfortunate, but I guess that is racing. She did well, really well considering everything,” he said after the race.
Attributing much of her success to the fast skis and her ability to fight in adverse conditions, Gregg explained she’s often at her best on a restless course like Houghton’s and that slow conditions like Sunday’s bring out her best skiing.
Gregg, who recently returned stateside after competing on the World Cup this fall, said that she hasn’t felt like herself this year but that Sunday’s race was a step in the right direction. She explained that after being near the back of the pack in Europe, seeing her name at the top of the result sheet was a confidence booster.
“The idea of being towards the front of the result sheet – that’s a lot better for sure, psychologically.” She said pointing out that she’s still searching for her highest gear but that she’s “optimistic in the sense that this year can really get better.”
Prior to Sunday’s race, Gregg explained that a possible reason for her poor results on the World Cup came in the form of shingles. Having contracted the illness upon arriving in Europe, Gregg said that she often felt drained of energy while racing against the best in the world.
“It wasn’t until the second weekend in Davos, when it was a 10K Skate race at altitude and should have been my best race, that I realized the virus might have zapped me a bit more than I thought. I am still not sure if it had any affect on my race results though?” she wrote in a previous email.
Gregg explained the 10 k at nationals marked an improvement in her energy — in Europe she would often tire after 3 k of racing while in Houghton she said it was after 7 k where her drive started to wane.
In second place, Holmes (+12.1) also said that Sunday’s race didn’t “feel great,” but chalked it up to the slow snow and arctic winds. She explained that the near zero-degree temperatures motivated her start and finish her race as fast as possible, so that she could stay warm.
Chelsea Holmes (APU) finished second in Sunday’s 10 k freestyle individual start at the U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich.
Holmes joined the APU squad this fall after skiing for Sun Valley in the 2014 season. Flora said that while fall is often too late for skiers to join his team, the combination of familiarity with Holmes and her roots in Girdwood, Alaska, won him over.
“She’s awesome; lots of energy, good enthusiasm, hard trainer, and brings a lot of really good distance skills to our group and so it helps balance the team. We have a few good sprinters, a few good classic skiers, and a few good skaters, so having Chelsea on our team is great,” he said of the 27-year-old Holmes.
Caitlin Patterson (+32.2) of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project finished fourth, and said that she was hoping for a better performance. She explained that unusually icy conditions in her hometown of Anchorage, Alaska, had her used to fast skiing with long glide, resulting in a rough transition to the slow snow in Houghton.
“It’s interesting coming from Anchorage where we were skiing on ice. That snow was so fast and I was working on V2ing up the hills and feeling like I could glide a lot. Here it’s hard to get a sense of whether I’m actually moving, when I’m feeling like I’m not gliding at all on the uphills,” she said.
Fifth-place finisher Jessica Yeaton (+32.8) cemented APU’s dominance in the women’s 10 k delivering the team’s third finish in the top five. Yeaton, who graduated from Montana State University in the spring of 2014 is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Australia. After racing in the southern hemisphere this past summer she is now a member of the national team who trains with the APU squad in Alaska. Later this winter she will compete abroad in several World Cups and the 2015 World Championships in February.
Yeaton, who had a self-described slow start to the season in the West Yellowstone and Bozeman SuperTours, said as soon as she caught 18-year-old superstar and eventual sixth place finisher Katherine Ogden, she realized she was having a good race. The pair skied together for the remainder of the competition playing what Yeaton called a “game of cat and mouse.”
And while the races in Houghton mean nothing for qualification or points for Yeaton, she explained that they were good practice for later in the season.
“I’m using U.S. nationals as good training races and it doesn’t really matter how I do here, but it does in the sense of building confidence,” she said.
With three skiers in the top five, Flora said his team’s success was attributed to the athletes’ motivation and camaraderie
“Today was probably the training, good teammates pushing each other, and all that good stuff,” he said. “Chelsea and Rosie we definitely expected them to be in the fight for the podium, but I think the big success of the day is Jessie Yeaton,” he said.
On day two of the NENSA Eastern Cup Opener, the courses at Rikert Nordic Center were fast and covered with a dusting of fresh snow. The day was chilly, with temperatures at 25, and flurries throughout the morning and into the afternoon, causing racers to whip out their glasses to see through the snow.
The Bill Koch League racers got to lead the packs today and they competed in freestyle races, the first of the day. Highlighting the BKL events, and indeed the day, was Olympian and USST member Andy Newell of Stratton t2 handing out the BKL awards. The other racers participated in mass start freestyle races. First, the U16 girls, then the U16 boys competed in a 5-kilometer race, and then there was the 10-kilometer race for the women, and finally, the men, whose race was 15-kilometers, finished off the day.
Mae Chalmers (14:23) of Stratton Mountain School set the pace for the U16 girls who raced first for the day, with Kirsten Miller (14:27) a close second, and Alia Sanger (14:49) bringing in the bronze.
The U16 boys were again dominated by Stratton Mountain School, with Russell Boswell (12:22) in first and Adam Witkowski (12:24) in second, and Walker Bean (12:26) from Green Mountain Valley School in third.
Katharine Ogden (25:43) from Stratton Mountain School again topped the podium for the women, with Erika Flowers (25:48) of the SMS t2 team in second and Jennie Bender (26:18) of NE Nordic finishing in third place.
Finally, Patrick Caldwell (33:07) of Dartmouth cleared the way for the men’s race, with Gordon Vermeer (34:24) of Craftsbury Nordic and Jack Hegman (34:27) of UVM taking second and third, respectively.
Although each mass start race tends to be a little hectic, it was definitely rather chaotic for the men’s and women’s races, with pile-ups in both as the racers headed down the first hill.
Caldwell avoided these tussles, and ended up winning the men’s race by a long shot. “It was really fast skiing out there, the fresh snow didn’t slow it down at all, it was a fun race and a good crowd, and fun to have almost 200 people start at once!”
“What a great weekend to kick off our 2014-15 EasternCup Series!” said NENSA executive director, Zach Stegeman. “We enjoyed two days of tremendous racing. We had deep an talented fields across the board, and Saturday’s exceptional men’s field boasted impressive points and the unque opportunity for our New England athletes to race with Olympian, Andy Newell. The Rikert Nordic Center crew did an outstanding job preparing the race courses. If you listened to Pete Davis interview Andy Newell this morning, Andy talked about Rikert having some of the best skiing anywhere right now – coming from the World Cup circuit, that is saying something! Frost Mountain Nordic were terrific hosts, putting on an event as sweet as those maple syrup prizes from Sunrise Orchards. All in all, this sets the stage for a great season of racing ahead.”
Mike Hussey, the director of Rikert Nordic Center did a great job helping to put on the race at Rikert. “The race went great! Thank you Santa Claus for bringing a weekend of great weather and we might have even had a record number of racers for an Eastern Cup Opener, and everything went really smoothly thanks to the Frost Mountain crew, the NENSA crew, and the Rikert crew, and all the volunteers who helped put this on. It was a huge effort, and it was really well done, so thank you all!”
Rikert Nordic Center & Frost Mountain Nordic Host Successful Opening Day of Eastern Cup Racing
Rikert Nordic Center and host club, Frost Mountain Nordic pulled out all the stops to put on an amazing race on a pristine day at the Breadloaf campus of Middlebury College. The trails were beautifully groomed, the conditions were impeccable, and the sun decided to show its face as well, making for a lovely day of skiing and a fun time for all.
The races today started off with a 5-kilometer classic individual start for the U16 boys. Next up were the women, who skied a 5-kilometer classic individual start as well, and finally, the men, who did a 10-kilometer classic individual start. Stratton Mountain School and the SMSt2 Team combined for a Stratton sweep of the top step of the podium to kick off the 2014-15 Eastern Cup campaign.
Adam Witkowski (14:28) and Russell Boswell (14:31) combined to open the EasternCup season with a one-two punch for Stratton Mountain School, edging third place, Adam Gluek (14:35) from Ford Sayer in the boys U16 race.
Katherine Ogden (14:55) of Stratton Mountain School set the pace in the Women’s field, with Middlebury’s Heather Mooney (14:59) skiing to second on her home course ahead of Erika Flowers (15:18) of SMSt2.
In the men’s race, U.S. Ski Team and Stratton t2 Team member Andy Newell (24:44), skied to the top of the podium ahead of Craftsbury Green Racing Project’s Gordon Vermeer (24:57) and David Sinclair (25:04), skiing for Green Mountain Valley School.
It was a great day for racing, with blue skies, temperatures around 25 degrees, and the sun keeping everybody who was spectating nice and warm. Bill Rogers put it nicely. “How could anyone be disappointed in today, with sunshine all day, beautiful snow for late December skiing, and really first-class competition!”
There were two racers who joined the ranks from the SMS t2 team, Andy Newell and Erika Flowers. Erika seemed pretty excited to have joined in on the race today. “The course today was pretty awesome, it was fast which made for a quick race, it was pretty speedy out there and sunny, there was definitely some ice around those corners, so you had to ride it on the outside, but it was good practice, and made for a fun day!”
Ogden, the winner of the women’s 5k classic, had a great race. “My skis were awesome, thanks to and incredible crew of Stratton wax techs and it was just really awesome to ski on the beautiful Rikert trails on a perfect day!”
Thanks to all the volunteers and race coordinators for a wonderful first day of races!
Look familiar? We saw this all-Norwegian podium twice, except with Therese Johaug (r) as the winner and Marit Bjørgen (c) in second in the 5 k freestyle on Day 2 of the Lillehammer World Cup mini tour. On Day 3, Bjørgen won it outright over Johaug, and Heidi Weng (l) was once again third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
And he wasn’t the only one repeatedly in the headlines of the IBU and FIS World Cup and U.S. SuperTour coverage this past weekend. We got used to Norwegian winners like Marit Bjørgen and Martin Johnsrud Sundby, and Alaska Pacific University’s Rosie Brennan — who’s won three out of four SuperTour races this season.
A pumped Martin Johnsrud Sundby (Norway) after winning the men’s 15 k classic pursuit for the overall Lillehammer mini-tour title on Sunday in Norway. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Then there were consistent top performers in the Lillehammer World Cup mini tour: Alex Harvey of the Canadian World Cup Team placed fifth in last Friday’s skate sprint and ended up 10th overall in the three-stage series, and Sadie Bjornsen led the U.S. Ski Team in 18th overall.
Also in Lillehammer, Bryan Fletcher of the U.S. Nordic Combined team rose from 36th to eighth on Sunday for a season best. His teammate, Adam Loomis notched a career-best 35th.
At the five-race IBU World Cup in Östersund, Canada’s Megan Heinicke rose to a career-best 12th in the women’s 15 k individual last Thursday.
“I have never started the season so relaxed and feeling so little pressure,” Heinicke explained after the race, in which she shot 19-for-20. “I wasn’t even sure if I should start this season and I think the low expectations (from myself and others) really helped me lose that nervous ‘I have to hit’ feeling.”
After placing ninth and 12th, respectively, in Saturday’s sprints, Canadians Nathan Smith and Rosanna Crawford qualified for the Östersund pursuit, where Smith was on track for a possible top-four finish before missing his first three shots of the day in the final standing stage.
FasterSkier was on site for the second SuperTour the season in Bozeman, Mont., as racers weathered unseasonably warm temperatures on Saturday and Sunday — well above 40-degrees Fahrenheit.
Rosie Brennan (APU) double poling to the women’s SuperTour classic-sprint victory last Saturday at Bohart Ranch near Bozeman, Mont.
But with freezing temperatures overnight, the 5 k distance course became fast and icy Sunday morning, and organizers postponed the classic mass starts an hour to let the snow thaw. Still, Brennan dreaded what awaited her in the women’s 10 k.
She called the conditions her least favorite, in fact, “her worst nightmare,” she said. But the Anchorage, Alaska, resident used the race as an opportunity to conquer some fears. Brennan ultimately edged APU teammate Chelsea Holmes by five seconds for the win.
“She just crushes me in double pole,” Holmes said, “Which is good — I see her go by and I go as hard as I can to keep up with her, and maybe one day I will be able to.”
The next-closest finisher, 17-year-old Katharine Ogden finished 1:20 back in third. She called the conditions “an extra challenge,” but was glad to have kick that lasted throughout. “Our skis were really fast,” she said.
In the men’s race, Matt Gelso of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team racked up his third SuperTour podium of the season so far, finishing third behind winner Mads Strøm (University of Colorado) and SVSEF teammate Miles Havlick, respectively.
At Canada’s opening domestic biathlon races (and Youth-Junior World Championships Team, as well as IBU Cup Team trials) in Canmore, Alberta, Sarah Beaudry won back-to-back sprints to punch her ticket to the IBU World Cup this coming weekend in Hochfilzen, Austria.
Race organizers delayed the start of the women’s SuperTour 10 k classic mass start by an hour Sunday at Bohart Ranch near Bozeman, Mont., in order to let the course thaw.
BOZEMAN, Mont. — Rosie Brennan of Alaska Pacific University (APU) overcame what she called her “least favorite conditions” to notch her third-straight SuperTour victory on Sunday in the women’s 10-kilometer classic mass start at Bohart Ranch.
Saturday’s 45-degree temperatures left the course fast and icy upon freezing overnight, making the numerous corners even trickier. Race officials delayed Sunday’s race by an hour to allow for the 40-degree weather to help thaw the course.
But the conditions did not stop Brennan, 26, and teammate Chelsea Holmes from immediately breaking away from the rest of the pack. They maintained a safe distance throughout the two laps, and Holmes completed the first 5 k lap with a 1-second lead over Brennan.
Caitlin Patterson (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) holds a slim lead over Becca Rorabaugh (APU) for fourth place during a sprint to the finish of the Bozeman SuperTour women’s 15 k classic mass start.
However, Brennan would take over on the second lap, cruising into the stadium with the lead and finishing in 31:07. Holmes’s final charge came up 5.2 seconds short.
Katharine Ogden, 17, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) – who was second at last weekend’s 10 k freestyle in West Yellowstone – finished in third, 1:20 behind the APU skiers. Caitlin Patterson (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) was in fourth (+1:30.8), narrowly beating APU’s Becca Rorabaugh by 0.3 seconds in a sprint finish. Sloan Storey of the University of Utah was sixth (+1:59.4).
Holmes said she lost her small lead on the second lap due to Brennan’s strong double poling up the long climbs.
“She just crushes me in double pole. Which is good – I see her go by and I go as hard as I can to keep up with her, and maybe one day I will be able to,” Holmes said. “If not, I’ll work in the meantime on making up time on the uphills.”
Brennan described the conditions as her “worst nightmare,” but said that it was time for her to “conquer some fears” and ski confidently down the icy, technical hills.
“It gives you confidence for skiing in weaker conditions,” she said.
Katharine Ogden (SMS) cruises to a third-place finish in the Bozeman SuperTour women’s 15 k classic mass sprint.
Ogden, who maintained third place while trying to catch the two leaders and was 33 seconds behind Holmes after the first lap, said she was “really psyched” about her result.
She explained that while the course was slippery, “that added to the fun of it. It was an extra challenge.” She recalled agility training on rollerskis last summer, saying it probably helped her in navigating such a technical course.
Meanwhile, she said her wax techs’ work gave her “kick that lasted the whole race.”
“Our skis were really fast,” she said. “So despite the tricky conditions, they made it work.”
Rorabaugh’s fifth-place finish was an improvement over Saturday’s sprint, where she was relegated to last (sixth overall) by a jury decision after double poling too aggressively (i.e. skating) outside of the tracks.
Sunday’s race got off to a rocky start for Rorabaugh, as the basket popped off her pole right out of the gate, and she could not get a new pole until “about half a kilometer” into the race. This left her “kind of behind,” she said, though she made up time on downhills and the double-pole sections.
“I wasn’t super confident in my kick, so I double poled a lot of gradual uphills and really, really tried to make it up on the downhills,” she said.
After a holiday break, the next stop on the SuperTour is U.S. nationals from Jan. 4-10 in Houghton, Mich.
Women’s 15 k class mass start top ten | full results
1. Rosie Brennan (APU) 31:07
2. Chelsea Holmes (APU) +5.2
3. Katharine Ogden (SMS) +1:20.0
4. Caitlin Patterson (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) +1:30.8
Ida Sargent racing to a career-best fifth in the classic sprint at the World Cup opener last Saturday in Kuusamo, Finland. She placed 51st in the 10 k classic the next day. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
Ruka and West came and went like the went, but the biathletes are just getting things going in Östersund, Sweden. The 2014/2015 International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup season kicked off Sunday with the mixed relay, where the U.S. pulled out its best performance in the last several years in seventh.
And Susan Dunklee, Annelies Cook, Tim Burke, and Lowell Bailey were just 17 seconds off fourth.
“I don’t remember our exact place here last year, but we definitely weren’t that close to a podium finish,” Burke said. “We were in it all the way until the end. It gives us good confidence going forward.”
The men get after it again in Östersund on Wednesday in the 20-kilometer individual race, starting at 17:15 CET (11:15 a.m. EST). The women’s 15 k individual will be held Thursday at the same time.
But before we launch into more biathlon, then more cross-country World Cup in Lillehammer, Norway (with three days of action Friday through Sunday) and SuperTour stop No. 2 in Bozeman, Mont., here’s what happened in the last week — starting with West Yellowstone on Friday, Nov. 28.
Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess holds off Mads Strøm during the A-final of the SuperTour men’s skate sprint in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Toko)
Things got a little stalled on Day 1 at the Rendezvous Trails with timing, but at the end of the day, Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess and Alysson Marshall emerged as the definite winners.
“West Yellowstone’s a hard place,” Blackhorse-von Jess said of the early-season race, after edging the University of Colorado’s Mads Strøm by 0.9 seconds in the men’s skate sprint. “I’m tired, everybody’s tired.”
Then there were two Canadian women that dominated the women’s sprint: Marshall in first and Heidi Widmer in second, teammates on the Alberta World Cup Academy and Canadian National Development Team. Marshall won the 1.5 k final by a boot length.
Day 2 saw Rosie Brennan outlast 17-year-old Katharine Ogden in the women’s 10 k individual start, and the win meant everything to her after facing some tough times this summer. In the men’s 15 k, Matt Gelso put himself in contention for domestic World Cup starts in just over a month with a nearly 10-second win over Brian Gregg.
The International Ski Federation (FIS) Cross-Country and Nordic Combined World Cup seasons also got rolling last weekend at the Ruka venue in Kuusamo, Finland. There, Ida Sargent was the biggest thing going for North America after a career-best fifth in the classic sprint — the U.S. Ski Team’s first race of the season. The next day, Sadie Bjornsen skied to 17th to lead the Americans in the opening 10 and 15 k distance races.
“Finland loves Ida Sargent and I know that Ida loves Finland!” former U.S. Ski Team member Holly Brooks wrote on Facebook. “So impressed w/ @sadzarue who skis fast & studies hard! Currently presenting senior thesis while racing WC in NOR!”
Alex Harvey put down two top-15 performances for Canada, including seventh in the 15 k classic, and teammate Devon Kershaw wasn’t far behind him in 14th on Sunday. Canadian development-team member Emily Nishikawa struck a career-best World Cup result in Europe, placing 38th in the 10 k.
Noah Hoffman did not finish a race for the first time in his career after crashing hard off the trail and into a fence with slightly less than 2 k remaining in the 15 k. After seeking immediate medical attention, he learned he broke his fibula, according his blog post, and headed home to the U.S. on Monday for further evaluation.
Also in Ruka, the NoCo guys got after it in the large-hill individual competition and team sprint, where Bryan Fletcher led the U.S. in 17th on Day 1 and was 13th with brother Taylor Fletcher on Sunday.
![Annie Hart leads Annie Pokorny, Mary Rose, Jessie Diggins, Deedra Irwin, Katharine Ogden, Kelsey Phinney, Hannah Halvorsen, Sophie Caldwell, and Hailey Swirbul during a rollerski session near Lake Placid, N.Y. (Photo: Bryan Fish)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/09/unnamed-31.jpg")
![Rosie Brennan (APU) leads Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg/Madshus) at the 2015 U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich. The two skiers will join the USST B-team in the 2015/2016 season.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Rosie-Brennan-APU-leads-Caitlin-Gregg-Team-GreggMadshus.jpg")
![Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg/Madshus) skis to a nearly three minute win in the 2015 U.S. Distance Nationals 30 k in Sun Valley, Idaho.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/gregg_second-to-last-lap.jpg")
![Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) hugs her husband, Brian, after her large win in the 30 k freestyle mass start at the 2015 SuperTour Finals in Sun Valley, Idaho.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/SMF0112.jpg")
![Rosie Brennan, USST, skis 30th place in the 2015 World Championships 15 k skiathlon. (Photo: flyingpointroad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/SMF8630.jpg")
![From l-r, Julia Kern (CSU), Hailey Swirbul (Aspen Valley), and Katharine Ogden (SMS) cheering on the U.S. U23 team at World Chamionships in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Julia Kern)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/image1-2.jpg")
![Katharine Ogden (10) on her way to a sixth-place finish in the women's 10 k skiathlon at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/IMG_4382.jpg")
![Several members of the U.S. Ski Team lift up Kikkan Randall after she won her third-straight World Cup sprint Crystal Globe a the end of the 2013/2014 season. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/03/Randall140314mf151.jpg")
![Andy Newell is one of two men on the USST A-team in the 2015/2016 season. Here the SMST2 skier is racing in the 15 k classic individual start at the 2015 Super Tour Finals in Sun Valley, Idaho.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/newell-classic.jpg")
![Liz Stephen racing to 11th in the 15 k skiathlon at the 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden. Stephen will headline 12 returning and four new athletes on the 2015/2016 U.S. Ski Team. (Photo: flyingpointroad.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/SMF8372.jpg")
![17-year-old Katharine Ogden's sixth-place finish in the women's 10 k skiathlon at the 2015 Junior World Championships was the best American result in a distance race since 2002 (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/IMG_4354-e1423596964403.jpg")
![Sean Doherty and Katharine Ogden are FasterSkier's Junior Skiers of the year.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/05/FS-Awards-2015-JUNIORS.jpg")
![New England's Katharine Ogden (Stratton Mountain School) racing to a 26.8-second win at the 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals in Wednesday's 10 k freestyle at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/unnamed-9.jpg")
![Sean Doherty racing in the mixed relay at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic earlier this year. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/Doherty06022015cm146.jpg")
![Erik Bjornsen (APU) celebrated his relay team's victory in the 4 x 5 k mixed relay at the 2015 SuperTour Finals in Sun Valley, Idaho. (Photo: flyingpointroad)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/SMF6703.jpg")
![One of the men's 3 x 2.5 k relays on the last day of 2015 U.S. Junior Nationals at Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif. (Photo: Mark Nadell/MacBeth Graphics)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/unnamed-101.jpg")
![Julia Kern races the first leg of the 4 x 3.3 k relay at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Zazakhstan. The American team would go on to place eighth. (Photo: Logan Hanneman)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/IMG_7194.jpg")
![Hailey Swirbul races the anchor leg while guiding the American team to eighth place in the 4 x 3.3 k relay at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Logan Hannneman)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/IMG_7227.jpg")
![The leaders -- (l-r) Russia, France, Norway -- during the 4 x 5 k men's relay at Junior Worlds in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Logan Hanneman)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/IMG_7244.jpg")
![Thomas O'Harra (back left) staying with the leaders during the first leg of the men's relay at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Logan Heinemann)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/IMG_7239.jpg")
![Katharine Ogden's sixth-place finish in the women's 10 k skiathlon is the best American result in a Junior Worlds race since 2002 (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/IMG_4354.jpg")
![Julia Kern, wearing a mask because of air-quality concerns, on her way to 38th place in the 10 k skiathlon at Junior Worlds in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Bryan Fish/USSA)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/IMG_4356.jpg")
![From l-r, Canadians Annah Hanthorn, Katherine Stewart-Jones, Anne-Marie Comeau, and Maya McIssac-Jones, after the 10 k skiathlon at World Juniors in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: Cross Country Canada)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/Jr-Ladies-Skiathlon-KSJ-14th.png")
![Katharine Ogden (SMS) placed 11th in Wednesday's 5 k freestyle in the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/IMG_3959.jpg")
![Victoria Carl of Germany (50) tops the podium after winning the women's 5 k freestyle at the Junior World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Anastasia Sedoiva of Russia (66) was second and Natalia Nepryaeva was third. (Photo: FIS)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/64280_G08_W01.jpg")
![Russians Alexey Chervotkin, Denis Spitsov, and Alexander Bakanov swept the podium in the Junior World Championships 10 k freestyle in Almaty, Kazakhstan (Photo: FIS)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/64285_G08_W01.jpg")
![Rosie Brennan (APU) celebrates her definitive win in the women's 1.5 k classic sprint on Tuesday at U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich., where she notched her third national title. (Photo: Jake Ellingson)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Brennan_Sprint.jpg")
![Rosie Brennan leading her quarterfinal in Tuesday's 1.5 k classic sprint at U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich. (Photo: Christopher Schmidt)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Rosie-Brennan-leading-her-quarterfinal-Christopher-Schmidt.jpg")
![Katharine Ogden (SMS) winning the women's classic-sprint B-final on Tuesday at U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Ogden3.jpg")
![Rosie Brennan (c), leads Liz Guiney (l) and Anne Hart shortly after the start in the women's 1.5 k classic sprint final at U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich. (Photo: Christopher Schmidt)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Brennan-Liz-Guiney-and-Anne-Hart-early-in-the-final-Photo-Christopher-Schmidt.jpg")
![Becca Rorabaugh (10) leads Heather Mooney (l) and Liz Guiney (r) into the finish in the semifinal of the U.S. Cross Country Championships women's 1.5 k classic sprint on Tuesday in Houghton, Mich.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Rorabaugh_Mooney_Guiney.jpg")
![APU's Rosie Brennan (c) and Becca Rorabaugh (l) on the podium in first and second, respectively, and Liz Guiney (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) in third in the women's classic sprint at U.S. nationals in Houghton, Mich. (Photo: Christopher Schmidt)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/womens-classic-sprint-podium-with-Rorabaugh-Brennan-Guiney-Christopher-Schmidt.jpg")
![Anne Hart (SMST2) leads her quarterfinal ahead of Middlebury's Heather Mooney (16) and Northern Michigan University's Vivian Hett (6). (Photo: Christopher Schmidt)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/hart-leading-her-quarterfinal-Christopher-Schmidt-.jpg")
![Sixteen-year-old Hannah Halvorsen celebrates her quarterfinal win on Tuesday in the women's 15 k classic sprint at U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/halvorsen_1.jpg")
![Caitlin Gregg (l) of Team Gregg/Madshus leads Rosie Brennan (r) of APU on in the final lap of the 10 k freestyle at the 2015 U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich. Gregg won the race, while Brennan earned third place.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Gregg_brennan2.jpg")
![Rosie Brennan (APU) skis with an oversized pole in the first lap of the women's 10 k freestyle at the 2015 U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Brennan4.jpg")
![Chelsea Holmes (APU) finished second in Sunday's 10 k freestyle individual start at the U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/holmes.jpg")
![Look familiar? We saw this all-Norwegian podium twice, except with Therese Johaug (r) as the winner and Marit Bjørgen (c) in second in the 5 k freestyle on Day 2 of the Lillehammer World Cup mini tour. On Day 3, Bjørgen won it outright over Johaug, and Heidi Weng (l) was once again third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/12/unnamed2.jpg")
![A pumped Martin Johnsrud Sundby (Norway) after winning the men's 15 k classic pursuit for the overall Lillehammer mini-tour title on Sunday in Norway. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/12/unnamed-33.jpg")
![Rosie Brennan (APU) glides to a first-place finish during the women's SuperTour classic sprint at Bohart Ranch near Bozeman, Mont.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/12/IMG_0141.jpg")
![Race organizers delayed by an hour the start of the women's SuperTour 10 k classic mass start at Bohart Ranch near Bozeman, Mont., in order to let the course thaw.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/12/IMG_0158.jpg")
![Caitlin Patterson (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) holds a slim lead over Becca Rorabaugh (APU) during a sprint to the finish of the Bozeman SuperTour women's 15 k classic mass start.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/12/IMG_0174.jpg")
![Katharine Ogden (SMS) cruises to a third-place finish in the Bozeman SuperTour women's 15 k classic mass sprint.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/12/IMG_0173.jpg")
![Ida Sargent racing to a career-best fifth in Saturday's classic sprint at the World Cup opener in Kuusamo, Finland. She placed 51st in the 10 k classic the next day. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/12/unnamed-9.jpg")
![Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess of Bend Endurance Academy pushes in front of the University of Colorado's Mads Stroem during the A-final of the SuperTour men's skate sprint in West Yellowstone, Mont. (Photo: Toko)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/11/Dakota_1.jpg")