From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.
Luke Jager leads a sprint heat at the U.S. National Championships at Anchorage’s Kincaid Park on Saturday, January 4, 2025. Jager won a national title in his hometown in front of a crowd that included his dad, his girlfriend and a childhood friend revving a chainsaw. “He’s just become a lot more confident in doing his own thing,” said Jager’s girlfriend, fellow ski racer Novie McCabe. “I think he has a much easier time rebounding from non-satisfactory races this year — he can kind of learn from it and go on to the next.” (Nathaniel Herz/FasterSkier)
ANCHORAGE — Luke Jager spent most of his cross-country ski career training and racing with a tight group of talented, up-and-coming American men — the first ever to win a gold medal in the relay at the World Junior Ski Championships.
Two of Jager’s teammates on that relay squad, Gus Schumacher and Ben Ogden, have made the leap to the top-level, international World Cup, where both have collected podiums in the past two seasons — along with J.C. Schoonmaker, another early career standout who trains with Jager in his hometown of Anchorage.
Jager, 24, has also raced on the World Cup in recent years. But by his own admission, he hasn’t kept up with the meteoric rise of his peers. So this season, he decided to stop chasing them.
Instead of racing this week at the Tour de Ski, a grueling World Cup stage race in Europe, Jager chose to stay stateside and compete on the American domestic circuit — including at the U.S. National Championships in his home city this week.
In Saturday’s classic-technique sprint race, the decision paid off with a title, as Jager beat two other Alaskans, Michael Earnhart and Murphy Kimball, for the win.
“It definitely has taken a lot of the pressure off — just being like, ‘I’m going to go out there and do my best,’” Jager said afterward. “We’re all pretty dang lucky to be doing this sport in the first place.”
Jager’s title was the second awarded in a series of three championships at Anchorage’s Kincaid Park, with the final event, a classic-technique distance competition, scheduled for Sunday. (Another sprint will be held Tuesday, but it’s not a national championship.)
The races have drawn hundreds of competitors from across the country, including a number of Europeans who have been recruited to race at American colleges. One of those recruits, Andreas Kirkeng, a Norwegian studying at the University of Denver, actually edged out Jager at the finish line Saturday, but was not eligible for the U.S. title.
Andreas Kirkeng celebrates being the first across the finish line at the U.S. National Championships at Anchorage’s Kincaid Park on Saturday, January 4, 2025. (Nathaniel Herz/FasterSkier)
The women’s race played out similarly. Two Europeans — Sweden’s Erica Laven, racing for the University of Utah, and Estonia’s Mariel Pulles, racing for Team Birkie — were the top two finishers.
But Sammy Smith, the third athlete across the line, won the U.S. title as the first American. It was just the second race of the season for Smith, who spent the fall playing soccer for Stanford University and had just 10 days of on-snow training before the championships.
“I wasn’t really sure what to expect at all,” Smith said afterward. “I’m grateful to be out here and have a chance to race.”
Erin Bianco, racing for Bridger Ski Foundation, and Dartmouth College’s Nina Seemann, finished fifth and sixth to round out the U.S. podium. Eve Duchaufour, a French athlete racing for the University of Denver, crossing the line in fourth.
Dartmouth College’s Nina Seemann leads a downhill at the U.S. National Championships at Anchorage’s Kincaid Park on Saturday, January 4, 2025. (Nathaniel Herz/FasterSkier)
After a frigid first day of racing in Anchorage, Saturday’s individual-start qualification round began with the thermometer a few degrees higher. But the warmth quickly drained out of the air as the wind picked in the afternoon, just as the skiers began their head-to-head heat racing.
Athletes draped heavy orange blankets around their shoulders like capes as they walked to the start line, dropping them just before the start of each heat.
Michael Earnhart, left, keeps warm along with other participants in his men’s semifinal heat at the U.S. National Championships at Anchorage’s Kincaid Park on Saturday, January 4, 2025. (Nathaniel Herz/FasterSkier)
Jager had the fastest qualifying time in the men’s race, then won his quarterfinal and semifinal heats. He matched up in the finals against Kirkeng, Earnhart and Kimball, along with Florian Knopf, a German racing for the University of Denver, and Middlebury College’s Jack Christner.
Erling Bjoernstad, in bib 102, is a Norwegian racing for the University of Alaska Anchorage, and he was the second-fastest athlete in Saturday’s qualifying round behind Luke Jager. Organizers disqualified Bjoernstad, however, from his semifinal heat, after he was the second athlete in that heat to false start. “I was fired up after a good quarterfinal, and I felt really good,” said Bjoernstad, who acknowledged an accidental twitch. “It was a shame.”
Jager led from the start and stayed at the front for much of the 1.3-kilometer course before Kirkeng poled past him on the final meters of the homestretch. And yes, in case you were wondering: Jager acknowledged that he was not entirely content with a national title in which one of his competitors reached the finish line first.
“I guess I was like, ‘Dang, I think I just lost like 600 bucks,’” said Jager, referring to the difference in payouts between first and second place. “I was bummed. But Andreas is so strong and I love racing against him, so I can’t complain. I was good and beat.”
Nonetheless, Jager said he’s benefited from a mental adjustment that came after some tough days of racing last season. While his teammates and friends like Schumacher, Ogden and Schoonmaker reached new heights, Jager struggled on the World Cup in his strongest discipline, the sprint — advancing out of the qualifying rounds and into the heats just once in eight starts.
“We were all young — it was so sweet and so fun and we were like this group, this cohort that was super put together. I was super proud to be a part of it. And I love those guys — they’re totally like family,” Jager said in an interview earlier this week. “But then as we got older, those guys just kept getting better and kept getting better. And it felt like I was still stuck, so I was really grasping on to trying to maintain my identity as part of that.”
The American gold-medal winning relay team at the 2019 World Junior Ski Championships in Finland. From left, John Steel Hagenbuch, Ben Ogden, Luke Jager and Gus Schumacher. (Photo: JWSC2019 / Mikaela Takala)
He added: “My focus wasn’t in the right place. I was focused on having my breakthrough so I could join the club. I wasn’t focused on performing — and, like, on myself, and what I need to do.”
Jager’s outlook was grim enough last year, he said, that there was a period when he indulged in some “mopy” thoughts about retirement.
But instead, he ended up with a new mindset and a shift in focus inward.
That included some changes to his summer training. Jager said that while there’s currently a trend toward “polarization” in training — making hard workouts even harder and easy workouts even easier — he did the opposite, making his easier workouts a little faster and harder. That change, he said, has made him more durable in races when the pace starts to ratchet up.
So far, it’s been working for Jager. In addition to Saturday’s title, he had what he described as an unusually strong fourth-place result in Thursday’s individual-start distance skate race — a format that’s historically challenged him at U.S. nationals. He also won two races on the domestic SuperTour circuit earlier this winter.
“I think every skier has their way, right?” said Erik Flora, Jager’s coach at the Alaska Pacific University club team.
Alaska Pacific University coach Erik Flora finishes waxing a ski at the U.S. National Championships at Anchorage’s Kincaid Park on Saturday, January 4, 2025. (Nathaniel Herz/FasterSkier)
Flora, a veteran coach who’s also worked with retired Olympic medalist Kikkan Randall and World Cup standout Rosie Brennan, said he wishes that athletic development could be “linear” — steadily upward and regular. But in his experience, he said, “it just isn’t.”
“Everyone goes through these gains, and they go through settles,” Flora said. “It’s just waves.”
Smith, Saturday’s women’s champion, is still riding a wave on its way up.
At just 19 years old, she’s a prodigy who’s already spent parts of two seasons racing on the World Cup — and has a world junior championships silver medal in her trophy case from last season.
Samantha Smith racing at last year’s Tour de Ski in Europe. She comes from a family of athletes, with a sister who also plays soccer at Stanford, a mother who rowed at Stanford and a father who played soccer at Duke University. In junior high, Smith played football; she also has been a competitive freestyle moguls skier. “She has always been phenomenal,” Kristin Smith, her mother, told FasterSkier last year. “She used to crawl up my body when she was less than two and sit on my shoulder.” (Barbieri/NordicFocus)
But as most of her competitors spent the fall training and sharpening for ski racing, Smith was doing something completely different: traveling the country with Stanford’s soccer team.
Smith, who plays a defensive-minded position called outside back, wasn’t a starter as a freshman this year. But she got playing time in 13 games, according to Stanford statistics, on a team that made it to the national semifinals.
Smith’s sister Logan, who also plays for the Stanford soccer team, said that because the squad competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference, players spend much of every other week on the road. They typically travel on Tuesdays to the East Coast, play games Thursdays and Sundays, and fly home Sunday night.
As for school?
“Mondays. And the weeks we don’t travel,” said Logan Smith, who was watching the races at Kincaid with her family this week.
The grueling soccer schedule meant that Sammy Smith fit in training for cross-country skiing when she could. But she described it as “the first time I was really able to focus on one thing.”
She said she expected that her first event in Anchorage, “was not going to be great” — and she finished 12th on Thursday.
On Saturday, though, she looked like a podium contender from the start, winning both her quarterfinal and semifinal heats. In the final, she said she slipped on her first four or five strides and was trailing the pack leading out from Kincaid’s stadium. But she made up ground on Duchaufour, Bianco and Seemann as the pack climbed over the big hill on the course to take home the American title.
Sammy Smith, center, starts one of her heats at the U.S. National Championships at Anchorage’s Kincaid Park on Saturday, January 4, 2025. (Nathaniel Herz/FasterSkier)
After U.S. nationals, Smith said she plans to race at world juniors in Italy and hopes to compete on the World Cup, as well.
“It’s also definitely a balance with school,” she said.
But Smith said she hopes to continue with both soccer and cross-country skiing as long as she can. And she dreams of competing in the Olympic Games in both sports.
U.S. Ski Team coaches would “love to have her pick skiing,” said Cross-Country Development Director Bryan Fish, who was on hand for Saturday’s race.
“But from a U.S.A. perspective, we’re just happy that she’s here,” Fish said. “Our job is to support her in the best way that we can.”
American cross-country skiing superstar signs an autograph in Canmore, Alberta, in advance of Friday’s race. (Angus Cockney for FasterSkier)
CANMORE, ALBERTA — Abbey Zimmer and Natalie Meinert peered over a railing out onto the course at the cross-country ski center here Thursday, where dozens of the world’s best athletes were amidst their pre-race routines.
The 14-year-olds had driven seven hours to Canmore with their parents from icy Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. They were there to ski on some snowy trails and for a weekend of watching racers that they normally only see on highlight reels.
“We just saw Klæbo,” said Zimmer, referring to Johannes Høsflot, the five-time Olympic gold-medal winner from Norway.
“Which was like, ‘Oh my god,’” said Meinert. “And we’re trying to find Jessie Diggins.”
Abbey Zimmer and Natalie Meinert, two youth skiers from Saskatchewan, watch World Cup athletes work out Thursday in Canmore. (Nathaniel Herz/FasterSkier)
Diggins, of course, was half of the team that won America’s first ever Olympic gold in cross-country skiing, in 2018.
And she is one of the stars of what is setting up to be a 10-day celebration of North American cross-country skiing, with fans expected to turn out in droves. Friday will be the first in a series of six races that mark the return of the top-level World Cup circuit to the continent for the first time since 2019 — and for the first time to the U.S. in more than two decades.
Four races are scheduled in Canmore. Two more sold-out events will take place the following weekend in Minneapolis, Diggins’ hometown, where organizers have already distributed nearly 30,000 tickets and are still getting countless requests for more.
“I wish I had a bigger urban park,” Claire Wilson, the lead organizer of the Minneapolis events, said in a message Thursday.
All the top Canadian and U.S. cross-country skiers will be competing in Canmore and Minneapolis. But one highlight of these races will be what’s known as the “nations group” — extra start spots for athletes that are granted to the countries hosting the events. (Canada and the U.S. will get the extra spots in both nations, because it’s rare that the circuit travels to either country.)
Instead of the half-dozen or so Americans and Canadians that typically compete in World Cups in Europe, as many as 12 men and 12 women from each country will start in each of the races over the next two weeks.
That means that a 17-year-old high school student from Alaska, Murphy Kimball, will be racing Saturday’s sprint alongside U.S. stars like JC Schoonmaker and Ben Ogden. Three American men — Graham Houtsma, Braden Becker and Reid Goble — and three American women — Mariah Bredal, Emma Albrecht and Margie Freed — will be making their World Cup debuts in Friday’s distance race.
Murphy Kimball, 17, and his coach, Jan Buron, discuss ski testing during training in Canmore on Thursday. (Nathaniel Herz/FasterSkier)
In interviews Thursday, the World Cup debutants said they’re aiming to treat the events like any others — though that’s easier said than done when shuttle buses are filled with foreign languages, television cameras are everywhere and the race course is lined with banners advertising Swiss cheese.
“I’m trying to think of everyone as just normal people, because that’s who they are,” said Renae Anderson, an American racing her first World Cup on Saturday. But, she added: “It’s people I’ve been watching on TV for years.”
Anderson’s family, and some of their friends, will be in attendance in Canmore, she said, making them among the many spectators at the North American events with direct connections to athletes.
That support network will be one element of a rare home field advantage for the North Americans. Top athletes from Canada and the U.S. typically spend the full winter in Europe and face jet lag of up to 11 hours upon their arrival; this week, many of them have arrived on short flights from their homes, unlike their European competitors.
“The flight, it was really good,” said Edvin Anger, a 21-year-old sprinter from Sweden. “But the first three days were horrible for me. I woke up at 3 a.m.”
Johannes Høsflot Klæbo of Norway handles a ski in Canmore. (Angus Cockney for FasterSkier)
But home races also come with some complications.
The U.S. and Canadian service staffs — the crews who help athletes test skis and waxes — might typically work with as many as 10 or 12 athletes during a weekend of racing. Now, they’re trying to coordinate as many as 24 starters for each race.
Both nations are depending on regional and club coaches who have traveled to Canmore to help test skis and wax. In the case of Canada’s squad, the extra racers and staff, plus the regulars, are spread across different places in Canmore, including some who are in their own homes, said Chris Jeffries, the team’s high performance director.
That’s forced complicated logistics like a Zoom option for pre-race meetings, complete with breakout rooms.
“We have really small moments to be able to create that team culture and that team cohesion, which is not typical,” Jeffries said. “At the same time, the athletes, I think, are in a really good place.”
Canada’s Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt skis in Canmore this week. (Angus Cockney for FasterSkier)
Not everything has gone smoothly in Canmore, however.
Early in Thursday’s training session, an up and coming Italian sprinter, Simone Mocellini, crashed on a notoriously challenging corner, flew over some protective fencing and “fell five meters down out of the track,” said Markus Cramer, his team’s coach.
Mocellini had just returned to the World Cup last month from a hand injury that kept him out of early season races. He left the venue in an ambulance and, Cramer added, has a “very complicated broken leg.”
The International Ski Federation was also forced to change the format of Friday’s race — from an individual start, time-trial style 10-kilometer race to a mass start, 15-kilometer race — after a ground crew strike at the German Lufthansa airline stranded World Cup timing equipment.
Late Tuesday, organizers began discussions with a timing company headquartered in Canmore, Zone4, about working Friday’s race, said Dan Roycroft, a former Olympic ski racer who founded the business.
The big challenge they faced was making sure that Zone4’s timing equipment would work with the television graphics systems operated by Swiss Timing, the company that typically handles both jobs.
“They normally take a month to create an interface, and we had to do it in two days,” Roycroft said Thursday, citing “amazing cooperation” with Swiss Timing. “Tomorrow, if everything goes well, then it should look like a normal World Cup.”
Roycroft said that the stranded timing equipment amounted to 18 pallets — 5,000 pounds of gear. The difference between his company’s system and the one typically used on the World Cup, he added, was underscored as he drove up to Canmore’s race venue with one Swiss Timing’s employees.
“He goes, ‘I can’t believe you can time a World Cup with stuff that just fits in one car,’” Roycroft said. He added: “It was very lucky that we’re based in Canmore, and obviously, it’s our hometown. We want this event to go as well as possible, to show what Canmore can do.”
The Chugach Mountains and a winter sunrise, seen in this file photo view from the parking lot at Government Peak Recreation Area, Palmer, Alaska, in February 2018. (photo: Gavin Kentch)
Note: FasterSkier is accepting submissions for regional race reports, including for juniors racing. If you would like to see a particular race circuit covered and have the writer with the will to do it, please have them email info@fasterskier.com. Be sure to include a link to results, and preferably a few original race photos with proper credits.
GOVERNMENT PEAK RECREATION AREA, outside Palmer, Alaska — On a day that had a decidedly old school feel, one of the state’s newest racing venues took center stage, as Government Peak Recreation Area successfully hosted the opening Besh Cup races of the 2018/2019 Junior Nationals qualifying series this past weekend on less than a week’s notice.
Saturday morning saw U18 boys and up cover 15 kilometers, on a hilly two-lap course; U18 girls and up raced 10 k, on an even hillier two-lap course. It was classic technique, it was interval start, it was cold, and the trees were draped with fresh snow. It felt like a World Cup race circa 1990.
Senior women Hailey Swirbul, Rosie Frankowski, and Lydia Blanchet. (photo: courtesy CCAK)
The comparison isn’t totally bathetic, given the overall leaderboards for Saturday’s races: Rosie Frankowski, Hailey Swirbul, and Kendall Kramer for the women, and Gus Schumacher, Luke Jager, and Hunter Wonders for the men. That’s an Olympian and a three-time World Juniors medalist for the women, and three-fourths of this spring’s breakthrough World Juniors silver medal relay team for the men. Oh, plus the 16-year-old Kramer, who was third in the junior women’s 5 k classic mass start at 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships and who may have a pretty bright future in this sport herself.
Saturday: distance classic races
Male racers set out at 11 a.m. Saturday morning from the compact stadium at Government Peak Recreation Area (GPRA), a labor of love by the Mat-Su Ski Club and the Palmer and Wasilla ski community over the past ten years. They headed out on a course that is a poor man’s Davos distance course, with consistent climbs and V2-able false flats for the first two-thirds of the loop, giving way to a working downhill and a sharp drop back to the stadium. Or to just below the stadium, actually; the course ends with a grueling B-climb immediately before the finish (see next picture, below right). The obvious challenge is to pace the uphills easily enough the first time to ski the downhills and flats efficiently, then do the same thing a second time in lap
After roughly 80 racers had covered two 7.5 k laps in the day’s first race, leaving the stadium at 30-second intervals, it was Schumacher who had done this most efficiently, covering 15 k in 43:23.11. Jager (+12.36) and Wonders (+26.53) made up the overall podium. The top three senior athletes were Wonders, Logan Hanneman (fourth overall), and Tyler Kornfield (fifth).
The top three U20 racers on the day were Schumacher, Jager, and Ti Donaldson, who was seventh overall. Leading the U18 racers were Zanden McMullen (15th overall), Everett Cason (16th), and Max Germain (19th). 50-year-old Adam Verrier, a 1994 Olympian, was the top Master in 47th. Behind Schumacher, who skis for Alaska Winter Stars, in first, Alaska Pacific University (APU) showed its depth by putting six skiers in the top 10 and 10 in the top 16.
Part of the final climb leading back up to the stadium at the end of the Government Peak comp loop, seen in this file photo view from November 1, 2018. (photo: Gavin Kentch)
The day’s second race saw 43 women, age U18 and up, take on two laps of the Davos-lite 5 k course described above. Two laps of 5 k at Government Peak is in many ways harder than two laps of 7.5 k, as the longer course adds 2.5 kilometers of gently rolling terrain near the end of the homologated (or perhaps homologation-pending) 5 k course. The 5 k course has no such recovery intermezzo, and the final climb of the first lap segues into the first climb of the second lap for a difficult extended climb with negligible recovery.
After two laps and 10 k classic, the day’s last starter, Rosie Frankowski, posted the fastest time, finishing in 32:28.01. (While snow conditions are obviously extremely variable from one venue and race to the next, making time comparisons unreliable, and Frankowski did not have World Cup skiers in front of her to chase on Saturday, the fact that Frankowski has previously skied a World Cup 10 k classic in 27:44, on a homologated course in Falun with 365 meters of total climb, suggests that the new Government Peak comp loop deserves respect.)
Frankowski’s APU teammate, Hailey Swirbul, was second on Saturday, 22.39 seconds back. Kramer (+1:42.15) was third, ahead of a top-10 otherwise composed of skiers from the University of Alaska Anchorage and local Dartmouth College skiers home for winter break.
The top three senior athletes were Frankowski, Swirbul, and Lydia Blanchet, who was fourth overall. The U20 podium was Jenna Difolco (seventh overall), Molly Gellert (17th), and Maggie Meeds (23rd). Somewhat ahead of them were the three fastest U18 skiers: Kramer, Adrianna Proffitt (11th), and Ivy Eski (14th). M4 skier Alison Arians, in 18th, was the top Master.
U16 girls Katey Houser, Marit Flora, and Victoria Bassette. (photo: courtesy CCAK)
Next out on the course were 51 U14 and U16 boys, who did a single lap of the comp loop. U16 skier Aaron Maves, like Frankowski before him, lived up to his top seeding, finishing one lap in 16:35.99. Second and third went to Konrad Renner (+18.99) and Eli Merrill (+36.83), also both U16 athletes. The top U14 skiers in this race were Skyler Amy (22nd overall), Murphy Kimball (23rd), and Aven Elsberg (26th).
Moments later came the start for the first of 49 U14 and U16 girls, as organizers efficiently put roughly 250 total athletes out on course at a venue that is a one-hour drive from Anchorage and sees a mid-December sunrise some time after 10 a.m. U14/U16 girls likewise did one lap of the 5 k comp loop.
Quincy Donley had the highest seed and final start position for this race, but 5 k later it was penultimate starter Marit Flora who took the victory. Flora finished in 18:23.47. Donley was 22.78 seconds back in second. Meredith Schwartz (+48.59) was third.
All three podium finishers were U16 girls. The top three U14 finishers in the race were Heidi Schumacher (12th overall), Sammy Legate (15th), and Zarah Laker-Morris (24th).
Sunday: distance freestyle races
After the U12, U10, and U08 skiers finished up the first day’s races, and the afternoon’s sunset time of 3:33 p.m. threatened, volunteers took down the course, coaches packed up waxing equipment, and tired racers began the trek back to Anchorage homes or Mat-Su hotel rooms. The first volunteers were officially on site by 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning to assist with parking, although doubtless some people had returned to the venue by long before then.
Day two of racing brought some differences – freestyle instead of classic, shorter distances, and slightly warmer temperatures – but more repeat podium finishers than not across the day’s races.
The first division on course was again U18 boys/U20/Seniors/Masters men, this time with 78 starters going out at 15 seconds apart. Sunday’s skate race was 10 k freestyle interval start, twice around the 5 k comp loop (precisely the same as the senior women’s 10 k classic the day before). The top three overall were unchanged from Saturday’s 15 k classic: Gus Schumacher, then Jager, then Wonders, the World Juniors silver-medal relay team united once more. Schumacher’s time on Sunday was 26:17.07. Jager (+15.56) and Wonders (+42.74) were the only other two athletes to break 27 minutes on the hilly course.
U16 boys Josh Baurick, Konrad Renner, and Aaron Maves. (photo: courtesy CCAK)
The U20 leaders on Sunday were again Schumacher, Jager, and Donaldson, who was fourth overall. The senior podium was Wonders (third overall), Thomas O’Harra (fifth), and Forrest Mahlen (sixth). Best times for U18 skiers went to McMullen (seventh), Cason (11th), and Germain (16th), precisely the same U18 podium as in the 15 k classic. Much as on Saturday, behind Alaska Winter Stars skier Schumacher in first, APU placed seven athletes in the top 10.
The first Master, among eight Masters finishers on Sunday, was M1 skier Cody Priest, 30, a former skier and runner at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, in 25th overall.
Soon after the last of the Senior men collapsed across the finish line, the first of the U16 boys headed out for one lap of the 5 k course. (All races on both days were interval-start.) First on Sunday was Renner (15:21.27), improving on his second-place finish from the day before. Josh Baurick (+9.17) was second, with Maves (+17.20) staying on the podium but moving down to third after his victory on Saturday.
Next up were 43 U18 girls/U20/Seniors/Masters women. Neither Frankowski nor Swirbul raced on Sunday, but their APU teammate Jessica Yeaton, who skis domestically with APU but competes internationally for her native Australia, did after not racing on Saturday. Yeaton was seeded third in the 5 k skate but ended up first, covering one 5 k lap in 14:47.25. Kramer (+26.15) moved up to second overall on Sunday, with Emma Tarbath (+46.32) third, barely a second ahead of Lydia Blanchet in fourth. Anna Darnell was the fifth and final woman to break 16 minutes on the hilly course.
The senior women’s podium was Yeaton, Tarbath, and Blanchet. The top three U20 finishers were Jenna Difolco (seventh overall), Molly Gellert (ninth), and Emma Jerome (21st). The top three U18 finishers were, again, Kramer (also second overall), then Ivy Eski in eleventh overall, barely ahead of Annika Hanestad in twelfth. Arians (15th) was again the first Master.
U14 boys were the next race out on the course. Sunday brought a 3.75 k skate, on a course that covered most of the 5 k comp loop used throughout the weekend, but elided one major climb and the only rolling section from the top part of the course. The technique and the distance were different, but the U14 podium was precisely the same as on Saturday: Amy (13:29.76), then Kimball (+2.05), then Elsberg (+7.19).
Finally, U14 and U16 girls headed out on the same 3.75 k loop. Marit Flora took her second victory of the weekend by a substantial margin, finishing in 12:13.98. Katey Houser (+30.59) and Victoria Bassette (+32.64) collected their first podia of the weekend.
The overall podium was again all U16 racers. The U14 leaders were Legate (tenth overall), Heidi Schumacher (16th), and Nora Hulse (24th).
Reflecting the depth of skiing in southcentral Alaska, the roughly 250 entrants for the weekend’s races included a healthy six former Olympians (Rosie Frankowski, Logan Hanneman, Tyler Kornfield, Adam Verrier, Casey Wright, and Jess Yeaton) and four World Juniors medalists (Gus Schumacher, Luke Jager, Hailey Swirbul, and Hunter Wonders), as well as additional senior national championship podium finishers, most of the rest of the APU Elite Team, a dozen or more NCAA skiers, and scads of past Team Alaska Junior National members.
Both races were FIS races, as well as certified for National Rankings List purposes by U.S. Ski & Snowboard. FasterSkier unofficially calculates the USSA penalty at a healthy 41.99 points for the men’s distance races.
Thoughts on the weekend
Two common themes emerged after talking with a handful of the weekend’s podium finishers: One, these races are a good introduction to the season and to bigger races still ahead. And two, the new Government Peak courses are great. But hard.
As two-time U18 champion Zanden McMullen told FasterSkier Sunday afternoon, “Yesterday I was definitely hurting in the race, but I was proud to come out on top. I definitely felt a lot better today. I’m pretty happy going into the season, where I am; I still have a little work to do before Senior Nationals, but I’m super excited.”
U20 men Luke Jager, Gus Schumacher, and Ti Donaldson. (photo: courtesy CCAK)
Two-time overall champion Gus Schumacher expressed similar sentiments, telling FasterSkier, “I wanted to use [these races] to get into racing more, and get some more races under my belt, so I felt better at the bigger races. But obviously, to get into good racing shape, you want to be trying to race as best you can, so that was kind of the goal, to be able to start getting my racing speed to its top level.”
Schumacher, who is undefeated in five local races this year, including the Race to the Outhouse #1 hill climb at Hatcher Pass the preceding weekend and a sprint and distance race in Fairbanks in the Alaska Nordic Cup in early December, described his current shape as “pretty good.” He elaborated that he plans to add some more intensity soon, but thinks that he is “coming into my race form, and it looks pretty good. Good to have these fast boys around me to push me every day.”
Schumacher plans to do some trials with Alaska Winter Stars, possibly collaborating with APU, before flying to Craftsbury on December 29th for senior nationals.
Two-time U18 champion (and double overall podium finisher) Kendall Kramer sounded similar notes, but was somewhat more introspective when asked what her weekend results told her about her current fitness and the upcoming race season.
“I got invited to a lot of national camps this summer,” Kramer said to FasterSkier, “and I think being exposed to so many different training groups and training styles – I really diversified how I trained this year, and so I’m happy that it’s working out for me. It’s less stressful, and I’m putting less pressure on myself.”
Kramer, who had never previously raced at Government Peak, described the new courses as “really, really tough.” She seemed to recognize that the course profile was advantageous to her, while stopping short of actually saying that she had enjoyed them when asked if she had liked the courses: “I mean, yes, being super small and light and getting up hills – I wouldn’t pick this venue, necessarily. But I think it was good for me.”
Ivy Eski, who claimed a pair of U18 podium finishes on the weekend, was more effusive.
“I love it,” she told FasterSkier. “It was really fun. I definitely want to race here again. The courses are amazing.”
Eski also praised the “really good snow and super good grooming,” calling it “overall really a great weekend.”
U18 boys Everett Cason, Zanden McMullen, and Maxime Germain. (photo: courtesy CCAK)
And McMullen, who had also never raced at this venue, similarly said of the new courses, “They’re tough, but I like them. You definitely have to be on top of it to be able to push it and go fast.”
Are they as hard as a nationals course? he was asked. “I definitely think they could be,” said McMullen, who has raced throughout the U.S. as well as in Finland. “Because if you don’t ski it correctly, you could be hurting.”
* * *
The overall success of the weekend is noteworthy only in light of two facts: That the Mat-Su Ski Club had never hosted an event at this level before, and that it did so on less than a week’s notice, as poor trail conditions throughout southcentral Alaska forced governing body Cross Country Alaska (CCAK) to have a series of competition committee meetings and teleconferences during the week of December 3 to decide where in the state to send 250 athletes and their parents for a weekend of racing. (Anchorage and Fairbanks are a six-hour drive apart, nearly the twice amount of daylight in Fairbanks in mid-December; the decision to move a race weekend is not made lightly.)
On Sunday evening, December 9, CCAK announced the decision of the Competition Committee to have the opening Besh Cup weekend at the Government Peak ski trails. Six days later, skiers were pouring into the carefully managed, not-really-large-enough parking lot for the weekend’s first race, with overflow parking stretching hundreds of yards down one side of the access road. Notwithstanding the venue’s youth and the Mat-Su Ski Club’s relative inexperience, all races on both days appear to have gone flawlessly. (Full disclosure, this reporter contributes money to Mat-Su Ski Club for grooming each year, but was not otherwise involved in organizing or supporting these races save for paying an entry fee for both days to race as a Masters athlete.)
Senior men Logan Hanneman, Hunter Wonders, and Tyler Kornfield. (photo: courtesy CCAK)
Next up
Besh Cup racing for Team Alaska selection continues with two more weekends of racing, currently scheduled for Soldotna on January 19-20, 2019, and Fairbanks on February 2-3. There are traditionally two interval-start distance races, two mass start distance races, and two sprint races throughout the six-race Besh Cup series, three races each of skate and classic. CCAK will announce future race details in advance of upcoming race weekends, after atypically starting the season with two consecutive interval-start distance races due to the last-minute move to Government Peak.
2019 Junior Nationals will be held at Kincaid Park in Anchorage from March 9-17, 2019. Recent snowfall has brought the trails there from, as CCAK recently described them, “ice/grass rinks” to skiable within the past week (that is, after the decision was made to move the races).
While relatively warm temperatures hindered the Nordic Skiing Association of Anchorage (NSAA)’s ability to make snow through the early winter, leading to NSAA running the snowmaking system for only 48 hours through November 28, the snowmaking system did survive the 7.0 earthquake of November 30 unscathed, NSAA Business Manager Erin Beam told FasterSkier in an early-December email. “NSAA has tested it since the earthquake, and there are no apparent damages or problems,” she wrote at the time. “It’s certainly incredible it wasn’t worse.” NSAA has made some snow at Kincaid within the past week or so, in addition to grooming the natural snow on most trails.
