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.
The April 4 event pairs a live global broadcast with on-snow programming at Tahoe XC.
The inaugural Tahoe Nordic Expo will take place April 4, 2026, bringing together some of the most accomplished names in Nordic sport for a live, global virtual panel focused on the past season, the Olympic year, and the future of the sport.
Designed as a hybrid event, the Expo centers around a live virtual panel featuring Olympic, Paralympic, and World Cup athletes across multiple Nordic disciplines, including cross-country skiing, biathlon, Nordic combined, and telemark.
Julia Kern (USA) racing the World Cup cross-country mass start in Ruka (FIN). (Photo: Modica/NordicFocus)
The panel lineup includes:
Kikkan Randall, Olympic gold medalist and one of the most decorated U.S. cross-country skiers in history
Oksana Masters, 24-time Paralympic medalist in Nordic skiing and multiple sports
JC Schoonmaker, Tahoe native and two-time Olympian
Julia Kern, World Cup medalist and Olympian
Annika Malacinski, national champion and leading voice in women’s Nordic Combined
Jaz Taylor, multiple-time World Cup champion
The discussion will be moderated by Andy Newell, a four-time Olympian and prominent voice in the sport.
The 90-minute panel will serve as a live season recap, covering the 2025–26 World Cup circuit and the Milano Cortina Olympic and Paralympic Games, while offering audiences a rare opportunity to hear directly from athletes about training, competition, and the evolving culture of Nordic sport. Virtual attendees can submit questions in advance, while in-person participants will engage in a live Q&A.
Coach Andy Newell all smiles at the 2023 BMT. (Photo: BMT)
Founder Elyse Sara created the Expo to fill a gap in the Nordic landscape – one that emphasizes connection, storytelling, and access to athletes across disciplines and levels. The event brings together voices from across the global Nordic community, from Olympic medalists to emerging leaders shaping the future of the sport.
The event also includes a limited in-person component at Tahoe XC featuring clinics, demos, a laser biathlon relay, live viewing of the virtual panel, and other community events.
In addition to its focus on sport and storytelling, the Expo also supports inclusion in athletics. Ten percent of all proceeds will benefit Move United, a national leader in adaptive sports programming.
The Tahoe Nordic Expo aims to establish a new kind of gathering within the sport – one that reflects, connects, and looks ahead.
JC Schoonmaker (USA) onhis way to finish the individual sprint in 15th place at the World Championships in Trondheim (NOR) in 2025. (Photo: NordicFocus)
ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Team USA won its first-ever mixed relay gold to close out the cross-country competition at the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on Sunday at Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Centre in Zhangjiakou, China.
Team USA’s 4 x 2.5-kilometer mixed relay featured Oksana Masters, Sydney Peterson, Dan Cnossen and Jake Adicoff guided by Sam Wood. They stormed to a 25:59.3 gold-medal finish.
China took silver in 26:25.3, and Team Canada captured bronze in 27:00.6. Defending world and Paralympic champions Ukraine finished fourth.
“I could not be more proud and more excited,” Cnossen said. “Really, it’s an honor to be part of this team knowing the caliber of athletes that I got to ski with.”
Cnossen, 41, became the most seasoned medalist for Team USA in Beijing. The gold-medal win also earned Masters a place in the history books as the most decorated U.S. Winter Paralympian with 14 career Winter Paralympic medals.
The 2022 Paralympic gold medal mixed relay team: guide Sam Wood, Oksana Masters, Sydney Peterson, Jake Adicoff, and Dan Cnossen (left to right). (Photo: Mark Reis / TeamUSA)
The relays were the only team events on the Para cross-country skiing program. The mixed relay featured four fast 2.5-kilometer laps that can be skied by an alternating team of two, three or four skiers and at least one man and one woman.
Masters raced a strong first leg to hand off to now three-time Paralympic medalist Peterson for leg two. Cnossen skied leg three to hold Team USA in fourth place. Adicoff and Wood turned up the heat for the final lap, rocketing into first place and never looking back.
“We started that so hot, “Adicoff said. “We were just really gas in the beginning, no holding back in the first part. By the time we were at the top of the course, we skied into the lead. From there, we just had to stay on our feet and bring it home. Getting that energy from our teammates for that first part of the race was critical.”
Jake Adicoff crosses the line for Paralympic gold in the 4 x 2.5 k mixed team relay. (Photo: Mark Reis / TeamUSA)
The American team competed with athletes across the sitting, standing and visually impaired classifications. The team felt confident coming into the race after strong podium performances across each classification over the last eight days of Paralympic competition.
“It’s not just one athlete carrying the load,” Cnossen said. “We have really, really strong athletes in all the categories. For me, I didn’t have some of the individual success here that I’ve had in the past, but it just goes to show when you get to be part of a team that lifts the performance.”
“It’s so much better being part of a team,” Peterson said. “There were five of us out there today, and I think all of us had great races. Thanks to everyone else supporting us back home and all the Team USA staff here supporting us.”
The team of Oksana Masters, Sydney Peterson, Jake Adicoff (with guide Sam Wood) and Dan Cnossen, take Paralympic gold in the mixed team relay. (Photo: Mark Reis / TeamUSA)
The gold-medal win fueled the 4 x 2.5-kilometer open relay, the final competition for Para Nordic in Beijing.
First-time Paralympians Max Nelson, guided by Simi Hamilton, and Drew Shea teamed up with veterans Kendall Gretsch and Ruslan Reiter for the final relay. The team placed ninth overall in 33:03.0.
“It was fun to watch everyone ski in the first race and to go out there and just give it all you got,” Reiter said.
Team Ukraine won gold in 28:05.3 thanks to a strong last leg by Anatolii Kovalevskyi guided by Oleksandr Mukshyn. France finished second for silver in 28:30.4, and Norway held onto bronze in 28:41.0.
Max Nelson, the youngest skier on the U.S. Para Nordic team in Beijing, fought for Team USA from the very start of the race in the leadoff leg.
“It was pretty crazy at the start trying to fight off a couple skiers for my spot,” Nelson said. “But I’m just honored to be here and race for Team USA. It was a great day.”
Max Nelson and guide Simi Hamilton lead off for Team The team of Oksana Masters, Sydney Peterson, Jake Adicoff (with guide Sam Wood) and Dan Cnossen, take Paralympic gold in the mixed team relay. (Photo: Mark Reis / TeamUSA)
The athletes made the most of the time on their course together in a sport that is normally focused on individual racing. Gretsch, who won three medals in biathlon and competed in all three cross-country races at these Games, said it’s exciting to see the athletes race head-to-head across the classifications.
“It is so crazy because there’s such a yo-yo between the legs of it so you can really like never count yourself out until the very end,” Gretsch said. “Everyone just has to go and give it their all for 2.5-kilometers.”
First-time Paralympian Drew Shea said this was a great way to end his first Games experience.
“This is pretty special in such an individual sport, just being able to fight for the next person who’s out there,” Shea said. “It’s not about you out there. It’s about the team so you’re just trying to make up every second and grind it out.”
Team USA’s Para Nordic skiers closed out a successful Paralympic Winter Games with 14 medals (four gold, eight silver and two bronze.)
Want to follow Team USA athletes during the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022? Visit www.teamusa.org/beijing-2022-paralympic-games to view the competition schedule, medal table and results.
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Author Bio:
Katie Grunik is a digital content creator for TeamUSA.org. She is covering her second Olympic & Paralympic Games for teamusa.org and currently serves as the digital content coordinator for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee.
Oksana Masters skis to silver in the women’s sitting middle-distance cross country event. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Team USA Nordic skier Oksana Masters (Louisville, Kentucky) skied her way into the record books on Saturday at the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.
Masters won the silver medal in the women’s sitting cross-country middle-distance at the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Center, her sixth medal of Beijing 2022 and 16th overall medal in her Paralympic career, which is the fourth-most Paralympic medals by a U.S. athlete.
A star in both the winter and summer Paralympic Games, Masters has now won eight Paralympic medals in cross-country, five in biathlon, two in Para-cycling and one in rowing. Her eight cross-country medals are the most ever by a U.S. Paralympian and her 13 overall Winter Paralympic medals ties alpine skiers Sarah Billmeier and Sarah Will as the most all-time by a U.S. Paralympian.
Oksana Masters skis to silver in the women’s sitting middle-distance cross country event. (Photo: Thomas Lovelock for OIS / Team USA)
On Saturday in warm conditions and slushy snow, Masters skied the middle-distance 7.5-kilometer course in a time of 25:24.7 — 37.2 seconds away from gold. China’s Hongqiong Yang won in a factored time of 24:47 and her teammate Jing Ma won bronze in 26:22.
Kendall Gretsch (Downers Grove, Ill.) placed sixth, with a time of 27:47.
“Today was a really tough day. The combination of the fresh snow and the warm temperatures made for a brutal race,” said Gretsch, who will head home from Beijing 2022 with three medals from her individual races. “I’m proud of my performance here. I came out every race and gave it everything I had. I wanted a little more and was hoping to do a little bit better, but I can’t be upset that I gave everything I had.”
Together, the duo of Masters and Gretsch have won nine medals across six days of biathlon and cross-country racing at Beijing 2022, and the U.S. Nordic team as a whole has won 13 medals. With individual racing now concluded, the Nordic racing action finishes on Sunday with the mixed relays on the final day of Beijing 2022.
Jake Adicoff and guide Sam Woods race the middle-distance freestyle race in Zhangjiakou. (Photo: Thomas Lovelock for OIS / Team USA)Ruslan Reiter skates to 10th place in the middle-distance standing cross country event. (Photo: Thomas Lovelock for OIS / Team USA)
In Saturday’s standing middle-distance, Jake Adicoff (Sun Valley, Idaho), with guide Sam Wood (Harpswell, Maine), placed sixth in the men’s vision impaired category. Team USA’s Ruslan Reiter (Manchester, Maine) scored a top-10 finish in the men’s standing middle-distance, placing 10th, while teammate Drew Shea (Vienna, Virginia) finished 19th.
Sydney Peterson (Lake Elmo, Minnesota) who has won two medals in Beijing 2022 in her debut Paralympic Games, led the U.S. women in the standing middle-distance with a sixth-place finish. Dani Aravich (Boise, Idaho) scored her second top-10 finish of these Games, placing ninth. Two-time Paralympian Grace Miller (Palmer, Alaska) placed 16th. In the men’s sitting middle-distance, six-time Paralympian Aaron Pike (Park Rapids, Minnesota) led the way for the U.S. with a 12th-place finish. Josh Sweeney (Glendale, Arizona) took 24th.
Sydney Peterson takes sixth in the standing middle-distance cross country race in Zhangjiakou. (Photo: Thomas Lovelock for OIS / Team USA)
To follow and watch U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing competition from the 2022 Beijing Paralympics, tune in to NBC, which features more than 230 hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, the Olympic Channel, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App.
ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Considering that March is Women’s History Month, U.S. Paralympic Nordic skiers Oksana Masters and Kendall Gretsch are certainly making their fair share of contributions to the history books.
Masters and Gretsch picked up gold and silver medals, respectively, on Friday at the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, with Masters winning the women’s individual sitting biathlon in 42:17.9 and Gretsch finishing second in 42:23.7.
It was the third time within a week the pair, who train together in Bozeman, Montana, podiumed at the Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Centre. Combined, they have eight medals at these Paralympics, more than half of Team USA’s total medal haul.
Masters is now a 15-time Paralympic medalist — tying her with John Morgan for the fifth most Paralympic medals by a U.S. athlete — and a six-time Paralympic champion. Already at these Games she had won a gold in the sprint biathlon, and silvers in the middle-distance biathlon, long-distance cross-country and sprint cross-country events.
Oksana Masters races to gold in the women’s individual biathlon during the 2022 Beijing Paralympic Winter Games. (Photo: Chloe Knott for OIS / TeamUSA)
Following her first biathlon gold, she posted on Instagram: “Some feelings can’t be put into words. I am beyond proud to stand on the podium representing the heart, fight, love, resiliency, and pure joy for two countries,” referring to the U.S. and Ukraine, the latter being her birth country.
“I not only finally got to hold my dream, but I also am sharing parts of it with my home country of Ukraine especially for the young kids with disabilities. I want to make every start line mean something, make it really count for more than a result. That’s why I will be donating proceeds of my prize money from the Paralympics here to No Child Forgotten managed by Global Giving and Bridge Kids Charity, supporting children living with physical disabilities in Ukraine – many of them with single moms.”
Kendall Gretsch skis for silver in the women’s sitting individual biathlon event during the 2022 Paralympic Winter Games. (Photo: Chloe Knott for OIS / TeamUSA)
Gretsch, who is still the reigning world champion in the individual biathlon, is now a six-time Paralympic medalist. This marked her first career silver medal, and she now has the entire collection of colors from Beijing 2022, having already won gold in the middle-distance biathlon and bronze in the sprint biathlon.“Today was an awesome day,” Gretsch said. “For me and the U.S. team it’s always fun to go one-two. We’re both shooting and skiing well, and so it was a fun race today.”
In the men’s individual sitting biathlon, six-time Paralympic medalist and former U.S. Navy SEAL Dan Cnossen was the top American finisher, taking seventh in 42:46.9. Six-time Paralympian Aaron Pike was ninth in 43:19.0. It was the third top-10 finish for both Cnossen and Pike at these Paralympics.
Dan Cnossen hits the range during the men’s individual sitting biathlon race in Zhangjiakou, where he finished seventh. (Photo: Chloe Knott for OIS / TeamUSA)
The U.S. Para Nordic skiers will return to the National Biathlon Centre on Saturday for the cross-country middle distance races.
Want to follow Team USA athletes during the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022? Visit TeamUSA.org/Beijing-2022-Paralympic-Games to view the competition schedule, medal table and results.
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Author Bio:
Stuart Lieberman has covered Paralympic sports for more than 10 years, including for the International Paralympic Committee at the London 2012, Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018 Games. He is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Team USA Para Nordic skiers Oksana Masters (Louisville, Kentucky) and Jake Adicoff (Sun Valley, Idaho), alongside guide Sam Wood (Harpswell, Maine) each won silver medals, and Sydney Peterson (Lake Elmo, Minnesota) took bronze in an exciting, fast-paced day of cross-country sprint racing at the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.
Through five days of competition, the U.S. Para Nordic team has collected 10 medals in cross-country and biathlon at Beijing 2022, with three more days of racing to go at the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Center.
Oksana Masters takes silver in the women’s sitting sprint. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
Masters has won four medals — in all four races — at Beijing 2022 and now has won 14 medals in her Paralympic career. Masters, the 2021 world champion and 2018 cross-country sprint gold medalist from PyeongChang, finished just 1.7 seconds away from gold on Wednesday.
The cross-country and biathlon star powered up the hills on the 1-kilometer course and sprinted down the finish chute to nearly catch China’s Hongqiong Yang who won gold with a time of 3:18.2. Masters finished in 3:19.9 and Panpan Li of China earned the bronze in 3:31.0.
Team USA’s Kendall Gretsch (Downers Grove, Ill.) placed fifth, in 3:37.3.
Adicoff and Wood won their second silver medal of Beijing 2022 in the men’s visually impaired category, just 0.8 seconds away from gold. The duo hammered the sprint cross-country course in a time of 3:20.3, just behind Canada’s Brian McKeever, guided by Russell Kennedy. Sweden’s Zebastian Modin, guided by Emil Joensson Haag, took the bronze in a time of 3:37.8.
The silver is Adicoff’s third medal of his Paralympic career — and he’s gunning for two more cross-country medals in Beijing.
Jake Adicoff (right) with guide Sam Wood earn a second silver medal in the visually impaired freestyle sprint, their second medal in two races at the 2022 Beijing Paralympics. (Photo: Joe Kusumoto / Team USA)
“I said it before, but I’ll say it again — ‘We’re going to gun for gold,’” said Adicoff who is a three-time Paralympian who won silver in the 10k cross-country at the 2018 Paralympic Games in PyeongChang.
“Two more to go. We’re hoping for four for four (on the podium) so we’re right on schedule,” Wood said.
Adicoff said the fun of cross-country sprints is the opportunity to cheer on his fellow U.S. Para Nordic teammates. The entire team raced on Wednesday, which began with qualification rounds, a round of semifinals and the final to determine the Paralympic medalists.
“Being with this team is so much fun. Especially on sprint day. Sprint days are the best. You get to watch everyone and it’s an absolute blast,” said Adicoff. “The team had a good day, so we’re psyched.”
Peterson, who is competing in her first Paralympic Games, won her second medal of Beijing 2022, adding to the silver she won in long-distance cross-country. She completed the sprint cross-country in 4:12.1, behind Canada’s Natalie Wilkie (4:05.1) and Norway’s Vilde Nilsen (4:08.1).
“It was a super challenging race. There were a lot of components to it going throughout the day, but I’m super excited about how it all stacked up,” Peterson said. “I had a ton of people that were out there helping and cheering and it wouldn’t have been possible without all their support.”
Grace Miller races to 14th in the women’s standing freestyle sprint. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)Visually impaired athlete Max Nelson sprints to 14th with guide Simi Hamilton. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
A total of 14 U.S. athletes competed in the day’s events. For the women’s sitting sprint, Lera Doederlein and Erin Martin finished 14th and 16th respectively while Grace Miller took 14th in the women’s standing. In the men’s sitting competition, Dan Cnossen finished just outside a qualifying spot with a 13th place finish while Josh Sweeney finished 19th. Max Nelson took 14th place in the men’s visually impaired qualification round while Drew Shae covered the course in the first round of the men’s standing for 21st.
American teammates Dani Aravich, Ruslan Reiter and Aaron Pike made their way to the semifinal round finishing the sprint competition in 8th, 12th and 12th respectively.
Aaron Pike races into the sprint semifinal, finishing 12th. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
Nordic athletes will enjoy a rest day on Thursday. Racing is scheduled to resume on Friday, with the men’s and women’s individual biathlon. To follow and watch U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing competition from Beijing 2022 on NBC, which features more than 230 hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, the Olympic Channel, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App. All events will be streamed live on NBC’s Peacock. Follow U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for daily updates from Beijing.
Kendall Gretsch takes gold in the sitting middle-distance biathlon event in Zhangjiakou. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
By Stephen Meyers
ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Team USA’s dynamic duo of Kendall Gretsch (Downers Grove, Ill.) and Oksana Masters (Louisville, Kentucky) won gold and silver in the women’s sitting biathlon middle-distance on the fourth day of competition at the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.
The U.S. Para Nordic team has now collected seven medals across biathlon and cross-country skiing at Beijing 2022, with four more days of racing to go at the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Center.
For Gretsch, Saturday’s gold medal is the fourth gold —and fifth medal overall — in her Paralympic career. She won gold in the 6k biathlon and 12k cross-country events at PyeongChang 2018 and won gold in Para triathlon at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo six months ago.
Kendall Gretsch races to the line to take gold in the sitting middle-distance biathlon event. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
The dual sport star now has two medals at Beijing 2022, as she began the biathlon competition with a bronze in the women’s sitting biathlon sprint.
After receiving a penalty in the first round of shooting in Tuesday’s race, Gretsch shot clean the remaining three rounds and skied strong, with quick shooting, in the second half of the 10-kilometer race to overtake Masters and win gold in a time of 33:12.
“I’m really excited with today‘s race. I had a good day on skis and I’m happy with our performance. Hopefully we can build on that for the rest of the races too,” said Gretsch, who praised the U.S. Para Nordic team’s culture and support.
“We have such a strong program and great support from our team. The coaching and everything from waxing our skis so they are really fast, and helping us with nutrition, all the support that we get from the staff at Team USA is huge.”
Kendall Gretsch (right) and Oksana Masters (left) go 1-2 in the sitting middle-distance biathlon event during the 2022 Beijing Paralympic Winter Games. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
For Masters, Tuesday’s silver is the third medal she’s won in Beijing and 13th overall in her Paralympics career. She again shot clean — like she did en route to winning gold in the women’s sitting biathlon sprint — and finished 9 seconds behind Gretsch, in 33:21.
“I’m excited with a silver medal. This is my second biathlon medal in the Paralympic Games. This is my second consecutive biathlon medal that I’d shot clean for, which I don’t normally do,” said Masters who also won silver in long-distance cross-country.
“I’m so proud of myself. I was doubting myself coming in here and I think now what I can do is have confidence knowing I have put the work into it and I can do it. And try to make it a little faster so I’m not just giving away time in the race trying to get that shot.”
Oksana Masters goes three-for-three, adding a silver medal to her growing collection in the sitting middle-distance biathlon competition. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
Germany’s Anja Wicker won the bronze, in a time of 35:45.
Team USA’s Lera Doederlein (San Diego, California), competing in her first Paralympic Games, placed ninth.
Dan Cnossen (Topeka, Kansas) was the top U.S. finisher in the men’s sitting biathlon middle-distance, where he placed 12th with a time of 34:10. Aaron Pike (Park Rapids, Minnesota) finished 15th in a time of 36:49.
Dan Cnossen competes in the middle-distance sitting biathlon event during the 2022 Beijing Paralympics. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
Tuesday’s racing action also included biathlon middle-distance events in the standing and visually impaired categories.
The lone U.S. athlete competing in the women’s race, Dani Aravich (Boise, Idaho) skied to 11th place in her second Winter Paralympic race. She made her Paralympic debut in track and field at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
Dani Aravich skis to 11t in the middle distance biathlon competition, her second Winter Paralympic appearance. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
In the men’s standing biathlon race, Ruslan Reiter (Manchester, Maine) placed 12th and Drew Shea (Vienna, Virginia) took 13th. Reiter is competing in his second Winter Paralympics, while Shea is making his Paralympic debut. No U.S. athletes competed in the visually impaired category.
Racing returns to the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Center on Wednesday, March 9 with the men’s and women’s sprint cross-country.
Ruslan Reiter on course during the middle-distance biathlon competition in Zhangjiakou. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
To follow and watch U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing competition from the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Games, tune in to NBC, which features more than 230 hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, the Olympic Channel, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App. Follow U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for daily updates from Beijing.
Oksana Masters races to a silver medal in the long-distance cross country sitting event on day two of the 2022 Beijing Paralympic Winter Games. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
U.S. Para Nordic star Oksana Masters (Louisville, Kentucky) won silver in the women’s sitting long-distance cross-country race on Sunday, her second medal of the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.
Masters, a cross-country skier and biathlete, also won gold in the women’s sitting biathlon sprint on Saturday and now has 12 career Paralympic medals between the winter and summer Paralympic Games. Sunday’s silver medal comes six months after winning double gold in Para-cycling at the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020.
The 2022 world champion in long-distance cross-county, Masters raced the 15-kilometer course at the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Center in a time of 43:38.8 — just 32 seconds behind China’s Hongqiong Yang, who won the gold with a factored time of 43:06. China’s Panpan LI finished with the bronze in 45:17.
Master’s silver medal matches the silver she won in long-distance cross-country at the Paralympic Games Sochi 2014.
Oksana Masters is on a medal streak, adding silver in the long distance cross country race to her gold in the biathlon sitting sprint. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
“I was trying so hard to get the gold,” said Masters, who admits she could have raced faster from the start. “I was trying to upgrade from silver in Sochi and the PyeongChang bronze, but I’m just so happy to be able to fight my way onto the podium.
“I can’t wait to see the U.S. flag being raised today at the medal ceremony [for biathlon sprint]. I was trying to not do my classic ‘go out hard and then die.’ Looking back maybe I was too reserved in the first few laps and then got to a spot where I didn’t have enough space to make up. This course is not really technical so there’s not a lot of places to make up time either. I wish there was more elements of skiing in it, but I think it challenged me in a really different way and I’m excited to see what the next few races have.”
Kendall Gretsch skis to fourth in the women’s long-distance event. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
Teammate Kendall Gretsch (Downers Grove, Ill.) finished just off the podium, in fourth, with a time of 46:26. She finished second, behind Masters, in long-distance cross-country at the Lillehammer 2022 World Para Snow Sports Championships in January. She won the bronze medal in Saturday’s sitting biathlon sprint.
Dan Cnossen (Topeka, Kansas) led the U.S. men in the sitting category, placing sixth with a time of 49:22. Former sled hockey champion turned Nordic skier Josh Sweeney (Glendale, Arizona), placed 16th in his Nordic debut. For Cnossen, Sunday’s long-distance race offered a new personal challenge.
“I don’t care what the result was today,” Cnossen said. “For me, this was a personal test. In my opinion, this is the hardest race that we do in the cross-country discipline at 18 kilometers. In the last Games we had in 2018, it was a 15-kilometer race.”
Dan Cnossen races the sitting long-distance cross country event on day 2 of the 2022 Beijng Paralympic Winter Games. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
“I’ve never done an 18-kilometer, and I just wanted that personal challenge. There’s a battle going on in your head [during the race]. And it’s against the part of me that wants to go a little easier or softer, to kind of not challenge myself as much. And so, it’s a personal test to see what I could do and I’m happy with that. I executed my race plan really well. I had gas in the tank on the last lap, which was the plan. So, success for me.”
A newcomer to Para Nordic skiing, Sweeney isn’t new to the Winter Paralympics. The retired Marine Corps sergeant earned a gold medal as a member of the U.S. sled hockey team at the Paralympic Winter Games Sochi 2014. After retiring from sled hockey, Sweeney competed for a few years in elite paratriathlon before transitioning to Para Nordic skiing in 2021 through the Challenged Athletes Foundation. He notes his experiences from the different sports aids him on the Nordic course.
“Having the different sport experience is [helpful]. Knowing, especially in the triathlon world, what good pacing can do for you and not getting too carried away with what everyone else is doing is big,” Sweeney said. “I’ve learned over all these sports that you have to trust yourself and your coaches, respect the process and just put in the work and you’ll be alright.”
Josh Sweeney races the men’s long-distance cross country sitting event on day two of the 2022 Beijing Paralympic Winter Games. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
China’s Peng Zheng and Zhongwu Mao, won gold and silver, respectively, and Canada’s Collin Cameron won bronze.
Racing continues Monday in Zhangjiakou with the men’s and women’s long-distance cross-country in the standing and vision impaired categories. Watch U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing competition from the 2022 Beijing Paralympics on NBC, which features more than 230 hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, the Olympic Channel, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App. All events will be streamed live on NBC’s Peacock. Follow U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for daily updates from Beijing.
Oksana Masters (left) takes gold while Kendall Gretsch (right) earns bronze in the sitting biathlon sprint to open the 2022 Paralympic Winter Games. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
By Stephen Meyers | March 05, 2022, 7:27 a.m. (ET)
Oksana Masters (Louisville, Kentucky) won the first gold medal for the U.S. at the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on Saturday in the women’s sitting biathlon sprint while teammate Kendall Gretsch (Downers Grove, Illinois) earned bronze on a cold, breezy day that included racing in the men’s and women’s biathlon sprint in the sitting, standing and vision impaired categories.
Masters, a biathlete and cross-country skier, won her fifth career Paralympic gold medal and 11th overall medal between the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games. Saturday’s gold was her first in biathlon; she won two silvers at the Paralympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 in the 6k and 12.5k biathlon.
“I can’t believe it, this is so amazing,” Masters said. “To be able to start off the Paralympic Games in Beijing and bring home a gold medal for Team USA is absolutely incredible. And it’s incredible because I get to do it with my teammate on the podium by my side again.”
“I think this just shows that there’s amazing stuff that’s going to happen for Team USA in the Para Nordic program.”
Oksana Masters takes her first gold of the 2022 Paralympic Winter Games in the sitting biathlon sprint. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
Masters now owns Paralympic gold medals in biathlon, cross-country skiing and Para-cycling. She won two cycling golds at the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 six months ago.
Masters finished the 6k sitting biathlon sprint race in a time of 20:51.2. China’s Yilin Shan finished 15 seconds back with a time of 21:06 to earn the silver.
Gretsch — who also won gold at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo six months ago, in paratriathlon — earned the bronze, with a time of 22:47. The medal is the fourth of her Paralympic career. At PyeongChang 2018, Gretsch won gold in the 6k biathlon and 12k cross-country events.
“That was a tough race. The sprint is so short and you’re kind of going all-out the whole time. I’m happy to have the first race done and hopefully just build off today for the rest of the races,” said Gretsch, who also races the cross-country events. “It’s crazy [being back at the Paralympics six months after competing in Tokyo] and it’s feeling very different than Tokyo conditions today. I’m trying to channel how warm I was there. It’s always exciting to be at the Paralympics.”
Eighteen-year-old Lera Doederlein (San Diego, California) made her Paralympic debut on Saturday, also competing in the women’s sitting biathlon sprint, finishing ninth. It was Masters who encouraged Doederlein, who had been competing in sled hockey, to give Para Nordic skiing a try in 2019.
“It’s a pretty incredible experience for me to race [with Masters and Gretsch] especially since I’m only 18 years old and it’s my first Paralympics. It was incredible to experience this with them,” Doederlein said.
Dan Cnossen races to fourth place in the sitting biathlon sprint. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
Dan Cnossen (Topeka, Kansas), former Navy SEAL who won six medals in PyeongChang, led Team USA’s men on Saturday in the sitting biathlon sprint, placing fourth.
“I dug deep as far as I could, and this is perhaps the best biathlon race I’ve ever had. I know it may not have been my best result, but for me, it’s more about effort and I really think I put a complete race together today,” Cnossen said.
“Biathlon is a really challenging sport in the sense that you can always ski a little bit faster into the range or you can always try to take your first shot a little bit quicker, or the shots two, three, four, five a little bit quicker. I’ve got to be happy with how I raced today. I’m also happy to be out there with my teammate Aaron [Pike] and our women who had an awesome day. I would also say I’m really happy to see the Ukraine athletes out here today getting after it. With everything they’re going through, it’s inspiring to me to see them compete. I was thinking about them today when I was out there.”
Pike (Park Rapids, Minnesota) finished eighth. A constant in the Paralympics over the past decade, Pike is competing in his sixth Paralympic Games. He raced in Tokyo for U.S. Paralympics Track & Field, competing in the marathon.
Aaron Pike races to 8th in the sitting biathlon sprint to open the 2022 Beijing Paralympic Winter Games. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
In addition, Team USA had three athletes competing in the standing biathlon sprint.
Dani Aravich (Boise, Idaho), who also competed in track and field in Tokyo, placed 13th in her first race as a winter Paralympian.
In the men’s standing biathlon race, Ruslan Reiter (Manchester, Maine) placed 12th and Drew Shea (Vienna, Virginia) took 14th. Reiter is competing in his second Winter Paralympics, while Shea is making his Paralympic debut.
Ruslan Reiter races to 12th in the standing biathlon sprint. (Photo: Mark Reis / Team USA)
No U.S. athletes competed in the visually impaired category.
U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing athletes return to competition on Sunday, as cross-country action takes the stage with the men’s and women’s sitting long-distance races.
Follow and watch U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing competition from Beijing 2022 on NBC, which features more than 230 hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, the Olympic Channel, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App. All events will be streamed live on NBC’s Peacock. Follow U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for daily updates from Beijing.
Oksana Masters crosses the finish line of a race in Lillehammer, Norway. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
By Kristen Gowdy | Jan. 31, 2022, 6:02 p.m. (ET)
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO – Following a stellar world championships performance that saw Team USA earn 13 medals in Para Nordic disciplines, U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing today announced the six women, seven men and one guide who have been nominated to compete at the Paralympic Games Beijing 2022 in March.
Veteran athletes will lead the way in Beijing as Team USA looks to build on the 16 Paralympic medals won at the Paralympic Games PyeongChang 2018. Headlined by multi-time Paralympic medalists Oksana Masters (Louisville, Kentucky), Kendall Gretsch (Downers Grove, Illinois) and Dan Cnossen (Topeka, Kansas), the athletes nominated to the 2022 team sport a combined career total of 21 Paralympic medals. Of the 14 athletes, nine have previous Paralympic experience while five athletes will make their Paralympic debut.
“We have many athletes who thrive in these high-stakes competitions, who know what it means to represent Team USA as a Paralympian,” Eileen Carey, director of U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing, said. “We are looking to them, as well as our experienced coaching staff, to lead the newer athletes into Beijing 2022. We are motivated by the combination of experience and the high quality of our Paralympic rookies as a testament to the growth and bright future of our program; their success this Paralympic quad has shown us that we can reach new heights in March.”
A 10-time Paralympic medalist and recently crowned 10-time world champion, Masters is set to make her sixth Paralympic appearance. After winning double gold in Para-cycling at the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020, Masters has continued her success on the snow, earning a medal in every world cup competition in which she has competed, as well as five medals at the recent Lillehammer 2021 World Para Snow Sports Championships. In Lillehammer, the multi-sport phenom earned her ninth and 10th career world championship titles and will look to put an exclamation point on her already historic 2021-22 season on the world’s biggest stage.
Gretsch, who is putting together a world-class resumé herself this season, also won gold in Tokyo in paratriathlon. She led Team USA in Lillehammer with three world championship titles and also added a silver as she looks to repeat the double gold she won in PyeongChang. The 13-time world championship medalist is headed into Beijing as a heavy favorite in the biathlon discipline, having won both titles in the Para biathlon events in which she competed in Lillehammer.
A six-time Paralympic medalist and retired Navy SEAL, Cnossen earns his third Paralympic team nomination in 2022. All six of Cnossen’s Paralympic medals came in PyeongChang, where he dominated in both cross-country skiing and biathlon. Cnossen is at his best on the Paralympic stage, where he will look to repeat his success come March.
Paralympic silver medalist Jake Adicoff (Sun Valley, Idaho) will team up with longtime friend and guide Sam Wood (Harpswell, Maine) to lead the U.S. in the men’s visually impaired class for his third Paralympic appearance. After taking several years off following his podium performance in PyeongChang, Adicoff accepted an invitation to join the team for a training camp last February, and hasn’t faltered since. He and Wood enter Beijing as one of the top podium contenders in the men’s visually impaired field. The duo have been putting together Adicoff’s best racing of his career, having recently combined for three medals – one of each color – in Lillehammer.
Paralympians Aaron Pike (Park Rapids, Minnesota) and Josh Sweeney (Glendale, Arizona) round out the men’s sitting class for Team USA. Pike, who recently won his second career world championship medal, a silver in the men’s individual biathlon, makes his sixth career Paralympic team. Also a prolific wheelchair racer and marathoner, Pike is peaking at the right time, having been in the podium mix in nearly all of his races this season. He is seeking his first career Paralympic medal in Beijing.
Sweeney, meanwhile, makes his first Paralympic team in Para Nordic skiing, having transitioned to the sport following a 2014 Paralympic gold medal appearance in sled hockey. The 2014 Pat Tillman Award for Service winner and retired U.S. Marine Corps Sergeant picked up skiing through the Challenged Athletes Foundation.
The final sit skiers on the 2022 roster, Erin Martin (Seattle, Washington) and Lera Doederlein (San Diego, California) are set for their Paralympic debuts. A former rock climber, Martin found Para Nordic skiing after sustaining a T4 spinal cord injury while climbing. She is also a registered nurse care manager who has served during the COVID-19 pandemic. Doederlein, meanwhile, also competes in sled hockey and Para-cycling. At just 18 years old, Doederlein, who was adopted from Russia, has found a mentor in the Ukraine-born Masters.
Standing skiers Grace Miller (Palmer, Alaska), Ruslan Reiter (Manchester, Maine) and Dani Aravich (Boise, Idaho) also bring Paralympic experience to the team. Miller and Reiter competed in PyeongChang, where Reiter’s best finish was seventh in the cross-country mixed relay, while Miller finished 10th in the 15-kilometer cross-country skiing race. Aravich made her Paralympic debut as a track and field athlete in Tokyo and along with Masters, Gretsch and Pike, will compete in her second Paralympic Games in six months.
Making their first Paralympic appearances and rounding out Team USA’s roster is standing skier Drew Shea (Vienna, Virginia), and visually impaired athlete Max Nelson (Mahtomedi, Minnesota).
Relatively new to Para Nordic skiing, Shea recently moved to Bozeman, Montana, to pursue the sport competitively with Crosscut Mountain Sports Center, his club team. A rising star in the sport, the 17-year-old Nelson made history as a high school junior last year when he became the first visually impaired Nordic skier to win an individual conference title in Minnesota.
The Paralympic Games begin on March 4, and Para Nordic skiing competition kicks off on March 5. Following record-breaking coverage of the Tokyo Paralympic Games, NBC has announced a historic broadcast schedule for its Winter Paralympic programming, which features more than 230 hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, the Olympic Channel, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App. NBC’s scheduled programming also includes the first-ever Winter Paralympic Games primetime coverage.
For media requests and photo inquiries, please contact Kristen Gowdy at Kristen.Gowdy@usopc.org.
2022 U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing Paralympic Team
Women:
Dani Aravich, women’s standing
Lera Doederlein, women’s sitting
Kendall Gretsch, women’s sitting
Erin Martin, women’s sitting
Oksana Masters, women’s sitting
Grace Miller, women’s standing
Men:
Jake Adicoff (with guide Sam Wood), men’s visually impaired
The Para World Championships wrapped up in Lillehammer, Norway on Sunday January 23rd, with a mixed open relay event bringing athletes from across genders and race categories together into one thrilling capstone event.
Rewinding to where our previous coverage left off, Saturday’s schedule featured the final individual races of the Championships, a classic spring for standing athletes, and a cross country sprint for sprint skiers. As in able-bodied fields, a sprint involves a qualification round, followed by a semifinal and grand finale to decide the medalists. The number of athletes who make the semifinal varies based on category.
Highlighting the day, Oksana Masters took gold in the women’s sitting race, her sixth medal of the Championships (two of each color) and career 11th World Championship medal. This title was not certain until the final meters of the race, where Masters put in a final surge to overtake an athlete from Belarus just before the line.
Oksana Masters (right) sprints to the finish during the women’s sitting individual biathlon. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
“It feels incredible,” Masters said in the Team USA press release. “It doesn’t feel that long ago that I was barely making finals in sprint, or I couldn’t finish a sprint without falling or breaking a pole. To be able to have a third consecutive world championship title in this event is just incredible.”
Another medal favorite based on her performances through the week, Kendall Gretsch also raced in the sitting finale, however, a late crash put her out of reach of the podium and she ended the day in fifth.
On the men’s side, Aaron Pike led the American men in the sitting sprint, placing well inside the top-12 to qualify for the semifinals. In his semi, Pike finished fifth and did not advance to the finale. Meanwhile, Dan Cnossen was 16th in qualification and did not advance to the rounds.
Dan Cnossen competes at the Para World Championships in Lillehammer. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
In the women’s standing races, newcomer to the team Sydney Peterson earned her second silver medal of the week, in addition to a third place medal. Perhaps still gaining experience, Peterson felt her first two rounds of racing were not smooth, though it came together in the final round.
“I had some mishaps the first two races this morning so I’m glad that things worked out for the finals,” said Peterson to Team USA. “I’m pretty excited that was a really fun race. It will be fun to continue racing.”
A second standing athlete, Dani Aravich, was just shy of the top-eight in qualification, meaning she was unable to advance to the semifinal for her class.
Friends, teammates, and more recently athlete-guide pair, Jake Adicoff and Sam Wood fist bump after earning a gold medal in the 10k classic at the Para World Championships in Lillehammer. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
“I’m feeling pretty good,” said Adicoff. “This is an improvement from the classic sprint in Canmore. We’re pretty happy with the result and it’s super fun racing out there. [We’re taking away] a little bit of confidence and then to be off that gold medal for two races now that’s what we’re looking for – gold in Beijing.”
On Sunday, the American squad fielded two relay teams in the mixed-gender, mixed-class 10-kilometer event. Given the variations in time based on sitting, standing, and subcategories within those groups, this makes for an interesting equation. Simultaneously, what better a way to highlight the diversity, talent, and teamwork seen across nations?
According to the daily Team USA press release, “relays were structured so that each athlete was assigned points based on their classification and gender, and the sum of each team’s total points could not exceed 335 for the mixed relay and 375 for the open relay. From there, it was head-to-head racing, and factored times did not come into play.”
Masters led an all-women’s team for the U.S., passing off to Peterson for the second leg, with Grestch racing third, and Aravich as anchor. Each of the women put together strong performances to keep their team within the top four, finishing in a cumulative time of 31:41.5.
The American women’s open relay team took fourth in the final race of the Para World Championships in Lillehammer. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
“We didn’t know until yesterday how we were going to do the relays, so when our coaches told us it was all women, we were really excited,” Aravich explained in the press release. “When we looked at the points and how it was stacked up, we probably shot ourselves in the foot a bit because we didn’t come close to maximizing the points we could have had in the race. We set our expectations to have fun and end this trip on a high note, which we did.”
On the men’s side, Adicoff and Wood raced both the second and final leg of the relay, with Pike leading the team for the first leg and Cnossen racing third. Following a strong opener from Pike, Adicoff and Wood brought the men into second place, though they slipped back in the results over the next two. They finished the race in fifth overall, however, they were issued a 30-second time penalty for one of their exchanges, which bumped them down to sixth.
Jake Adicoff and guide Sam Wood race the long-distance skate, bringing home a bronze medal. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
The next races on the Para World Cup calendar begin next weekend, running January 27th – February 1st in Östersund, Sweden. The 2022 Paralympic team will be named following these events on February 1st, leaving the team just over a month to prepare for the Games in Beijing, which kick off on March 4th.
Oksana Masters (left) and Kendall Gretstch (right) go 1-2 in the women’s 15k sitting long distance cross country race. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
It’s late January and we’re deep into the race season. As the Olympics and Paralympics draw nearer, we’ve simultaneously just wrapped up the Tour de Ski, the U.S. Cross Country Championships, and another wave of SuperTour races. Never a dull moment in the racing world, the Para World Championships are currently well underway, running January 13-23rd in Lillehammer, Norway.
Normally occurring on odd years, the World Championships were postponed from last February due to the pandemic. Nevertheless, the event was called the Lillehammer 2021 World Para Snow Sports Championships. It was a hallmark event, as it is the first time that all snow sports have competed together in one location over the same dates.
Led by well-decorated veterans like Oksana Masters, Kendall Gretsch, and Dan Cnossen, the U.S. Para Nordic Team has put together a string of outstanding results at World thus far. Events have ranged from biathlon springs to cross country distance races, with athletes competing – and cleaning up – across all disciplines and distances.
Kicking off the series of events, Sun Valley’s Jake Adicoff took home his career first World Championship medal by winning the men’s visually impaired 10-kilometer middle distance race.
“It feels great,” Adicoff said of his performance, according to the Team USA Press Release. “Lillehammer has been skiing really well so far, I’ve been having a lot of fun here. It feels great to go and get that first podium, and hopefully we can go out and get some more here.”
Jake Adicoff and his guide Sam Wood put together a gold medal performance on the opening day of racing at the Para World Championships in Lillehammer, NOR. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
Adicoff retired in 2018 after earning a silver medal in the 10k and taking 4th in the sprint, however, he is making his return with a bang in this 2021/22 season.
Building momentum throughout the first day, 19-year-old Sydney Peterson earned a silver medal in the women’s standing middle distance race, with Gretsch earning the second gold medal for team USA in the women’s sitting 7.5k middle distance event. That’s three medals, two gold and one silver, on the first day of racing, along with an additional two athletes, Cnossen and Dani Aravich, earning top-10 finishes.
Dan Cnossen hits the range during the individual sitting biathlon event at the Para World Championships in Lillehammer, NOR. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
Joining the team in Lillehammer late after testing positive for COVID-19 on New Year’s Eve, Masters made a smooth return to competition, taking second place in her first race at Worlds, the sitting biathlon sprint on January 15th. The next day, the American women took first and third in the sitting biathlon middle distance race, with Gretsch earning her second gold medal of the week and Masters adding an 18th World Championship medal to her ever-expanding collection.
On point, a perfect shooting performance contributed to Gretsch’s gold, while Masters skied her way out of a significant deficit. Experiencing challenges on the range, Master’s racked up seven penalties, but made up her shooting with her skiing. In the men’s sitting race, Master’s partner, Aaron Pike, skied his way into the Top-10, a rank he has achieved in each of his World Cup races this season, leaving him primed for a medal.
Two days later on the 18th, Masters and Gretch again took the spotlight, going 1-2 in the women’s sitting 15k long distance cross-country race. Now reaching 19 total, this marked Masters’ 10th career World Championship gold medal.
“It’s absolutely incredible,” Masters said in the Team USA press release that day. “It feels like yesterday where I was that new athlete, never thinking that I would be a world championship athlete. So, to have 10 now … is incredible and it’s a testament to our team’s hard work. It’s not just me, it’s the whole team.”
Already an historic day for the U.S., Peterson and Adicoff continued the medal streak in the long-distance cross country races, with each athlete earning a bronze medal in the standing and visually impaired divisions, respectively. Four Americans competed that day, and four medals were won. How’s that for success?
Aaron Pike races the individual sitting middle distance biathlon event at the Para World Championships in Lillehammer, Norway. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
As the final days of World Championship racing kicked off, Pike’s consistency paid off with a silver medal in the men’s sitting individual biathlon event. Missing just one target, matching the best result of the event, Pike finished 24 seconds back on the winner, Pavlo Bal of the Ukraine. This result is both a World Championship and overall World Cup career best for Pike, who is an accomplished wheelchair racer during the summer season.
“It was a tough day to be shooting out there, everybody’s missing so I was happy to come away with just missing one shot,” said Pike in today’s recap. “This is probably the windiest race we’ve had in three years. Every chance you get to put a bib on and race in a biathlon race is experience.”
Racing in the women’s sitting individual biathlon, Gretsch and Masters continued to dominate the field, taking first and third, respectively, to keep their medal streak alive and well.
Again performing well on the range, Gretsch missed just one target in four rounds of shooting and skied the second fastest time on course for a finish time of 52:25.0. While Masters skied the fastest time of day, she again faced challenges in her shooting, incurring five penalties, leaving her 3:00.7 behind Gretsch in the final results. In the women’s standing class, Aravich earned another top-10 finish in eighth.
With excellent shooting records, Kendall Gretsch puts together back-to-back gold medal performances in biathlon events. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
After a day of rest, the Para athletes have two final days of racing in Lillehammer on the 22nd and 23rd, which feature a sprint for the standing and visually impaired categories on Saturday and a Mixed Relay on Sunday. Based on the week’s results, it’s clear that they are primed for another medal run in the upcoming 2022 Beijing Paralympic Games, which begin March 4th.
Livestreams of past and upcoming events, along with links to results can be found on the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Facebook page, or you can check out the remainder of snowsport events happening this week in Lillehammer by following along here.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing today announced the five Para Nordic skiers named to the national team and two skiers named to the development team for the 2020-21 season. All seven athletes represented Team USA at the Paralympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.
“Our program is committed to developing athletes from their first-time experience to the top levels of Nordic skiing and biathlon,” said Eileen Carey, Director of U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing. “Our 2020-2021 National Team is representative of that commitment with a combination of up-and-coming athletes and those who are at the pinnacle of the sport internationally.”
The team is led by Paralympic gold medalists Oksana Masters (Louisville, Kentucky), Kendall Gretsch (Downers Grove, Illinois) and Dan Cnossen (Topeka, Kansas). At the 2019 World Para Nordic Skiing Championships, Masters won five world titles (middle-distance biathlon, middle-distance cross-country, cross-country sprint, biathlon sprint and long-distance cross-country) and garnered six total medals in Prince George, British Columbia.
Gretsch returned home as the 2019 world champion in the women’s sitting class of individual biathlon and additionally secured podium finishes in each of her events, claiming four silvers and one bronze.
Cnossen, a retired Navy SEAL, won a pair of medals at the world championships, racing to silver in the men’s sitting class of the middle-distance cross-country and cross-country sprint races. Pike secured the first world championships medal of his career – the bronze medal in the biathlon sprint – at the 2019 world championships.
Cnossen, Masters and Pike were set to compete at the 2020 World Para Biathlon Championships in Ostersund, Switzerland in March before it’s cancellation due to the on-going COVID pandemic.
The 2021 World Para Nordic Championships are scheduled to be held in Lillehammer, Norway from Feb. 11–20 as part of a historic first joint World Para Snow Sports Championships which will also include alpine skiing and snowboarding championships.
National A Team
Dan Cnossen
Kendall Gretsch
Oksana Masters
National C Team
Aaron Pike
Ruslan Reiter
Development Team
Joy Rondeau
Grace Miller
For more information, please contact Annemarie Blanco, U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing, at annemarie.blanco@usopc.org or 719-646-6921.
Kendall Gretsch (r) and Oksana Masters at the 2018 Paralympics medal ceremony for the women’s sitting 6 k biathlon sprint after winning gold and silver, respectively, on the first day of competition in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Joe Kusumoto)
Of the members of the U.S. Para Nordic team, more than half compete at the highest level in both summer and winter sports. Instead of quadrennial, their training is designed for biennial Paralympic cycles, oscillating between sports each year with an overall focus shift toward whichever Games is approaching fastest.
And the goal is not simply to compete in both rounds of the Games, it is to bring home medals.
Oksana Masters is an elite multisport athlete who competes in hand-cycling, para nordic and para biathlon . (Photo: Screenshot teamusa.org)
Illinois based Oksana Masters is a four-time Paralympian with eight medals; she earned two gold, three gold, and two bronze medals in cross country and biathlon, and a bronze medal in rowing — the first American medal in the trunk and arms mixed double scull category. After a back injury in 2014, she switched from rowing to cycling, and went on to qualify for the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where she walked away just shy of the medals, finishing 4th and 5th and hungry for more.
Kendall Gretsch is an elite multisport athlete who competes with Team USA Paratriathlon, Para Nordic and Para Biathlon . (Photo: Screenshot teamusa.org)
Her teammate, Kendall Gretsch, took home two gold medals from the 2018 Paralympics in cross country and biathlon and is a three time world champion and five time national champion in paratriathlon, an event that was not part of the Summer Paralympics for her category until the upcoming Games in Tokyo. Gretsch has been living and training at the Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Colorado Springs since March of 2019.
Under normal circumstances, there would be an 18-month gap between the summer Paralympics in Tokyo and the winter Games in Beijing. However, on March 24th it was announced that the Tokyo Games would be pushed back to August of 2021 due to health and safety concerns surrounding the global COVID-19 pandemic. For athletes also competing in Beijing in February 2022, this leaves roughly six months to change gears and prepare to again be at peak fitness, which is no small challenge.
Let’s take a step back. In mid-March when the scope of the pandemic became apparent and Europe and the United States began to rapidly shut down, Masters was in Östersund, Sweden about to compete at the World Championships in biathlon. The team had arrived a few days prior to the start for training, but plans changed at the last minute.
“Instead of waking up to a message from your coach saying, ‘Hey, it’s race day!’ Instead, it was, ‘Bad News: Sweden is cancelling all events that are 500 people or more,’” Masters told FasterSkier in a call.
Oksana Masters focused and in the moment on the range during the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Joe Kusumoto)
She recalled feeling “shocked” as her season ended so abruptly. Her plan had been to leave halfway through the World Championships in order to head to an essential Tokyo qualifying event for cycling.
Her initial reaction was frustration that she had missed valuable training time for cycling by staying with the nordic team through mid-March, but with the understanding she now has of the scope and severity of the pandemic, her perspective has shifted. That said, she is also fully aware of the challenge she now faces to peak for two separate sports in such a short period of time.
“This is way bigger than sports and the Olympics… [The organizers] made the right call [to postpone] and I’m happy with that, but in my ideal world, I wish that this never happened. I’m sure a lot of people do. Because they postponed to 2021 and my focus is to make it to 2022 as well, it made that transition window from Tokyo to Beijing from over a year to basically six months. My sports are two separate sports — they do not go hand in hand, they are complete opposite motions and I have to basically start over with my fitness, minus the endurance.”
Finding the silver lining, she added that the Olympic postponement does allow her more time to prepare for cycling.
“The good side is that because I was competing full-time on the nordic side and did the World Cup season, I missed a lot of training time on the bike where my competitors were traveling to Spain and all these warm places to get on the road and spend those hours on their bikes. So now this is allowing me to work on my bike that I’m building and at the same time just get more time on the bike and get sport specific strength.”
Kendall Gretsch is a three time World Champion in the women’s PTWC classification. (Photo: International Paralympic Committee)
Because she too needed to qualify for Tokyo, Gretsch had ended her nordic season before the World Championships and was in Florida at the main triathlon qualifier when the country began to shut down. She was slated to compete on back to back weekends, both of which were cancelled the day prior to the first race. It is currently unclear what Gretsch will need to do in order to make the U.S. triathlon team for Tokyo.
“At this point, it’s kind of just waiting to see when we’ll be able to race again. Once that’s solidified more, the international triathlon union will have to come up with new qualification criteria and then, from that, the US will come up with new qualification… I’ll definitely have to compete in a couple more international events to solidify earning a country spot for the US.”
Aside from the uncertainty regarding travel and the seemingly impossible challenge of holding the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics without furthering the spread of the coronavirus, many athletes were also unable to access facilities and resources they depended on to practice skills and adequately prepare for their sport. For Masters, the inability to access a gym impeded her training routine.
“As a Paralympic athlete, in my two sports — especially for skiing — I rely on strength training,” Masters explained. “I lift three times a week. So that took a big toll.”
Her normal spring routine would include baseline metabolic testing and training camps with her coach, who is from Germany. Since he is currently unable to leave the country, Masters is not sure when she will be able to meet with him for these measures to evaluate her training. Overall, she is hitting reset on her plan and embracing the time to change gears at a more manageable pace.
“In my case, we’re kind of starting all over and making sure the base is good in cycling,” she said. “So it’s a lot of endurance riding, a lot of time on the bike, and just adjusting back to it the right way, as opposed to coming off the nordic season, trying to make the qualifiers in June, it was going to be shortcutting all that, which is really hard to do.”
Meanwhile, life at the OTC looks significantly different than Gretsch is accustomed to, with less than twenty people remaining on the campus. Apart from not being able to train in the pool or access the biathlon range, she is no longer able to get massage or other sports medicine treatments that she could previously. She does still have access to the OTC cafeteria, but meals are now take-out, meaning the remaining athletes on campus spend much of their day isolated in their rooms.
Not being able to swim has been the biggest impact on Gretsch’s training, as this would normally be a time of building volume for triathlon. She explained that she spends ten minutes per day on a stretch band swim trainer, but it is far from replicating the stimulus of the pool. She also borrowed some kettlebells and weights from the gym so she can do some strength training from her room.
“I think the good thing is that I’m still able to do two of the three sports in triathlon,” said Gretsch. “So even though I’m not swimming right now, I have been able to bike whether it’s inside on a trainer, or outside when the weather is nice here, and the same in the racing chair.”
Kendall Gretsch racing to her second gold medal of the 2018 Winter Paralympics on Sunday in the women’s 12 k sitting cross-country race in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: US Paralympics/Joe Kusumoto)
Both athletes are feeling uncertainty about what the 2020-2021 nordic season will look like and how cycling or triathlon qualifying events will fit into the mix. Currently, a cross-country World Championship and an Olympic venue test event in Beijing are scheduled for February and March. But, seasons may need to be cut short for Tokyo qualifiers. Both athletes have found solace in the partnership between their two sets of coaches.
“I think the really awesome thing is that both my sets of coaches for nordic and triathlon are really good about being open and communicating with each other about the situation,” said Gretsch. “It’s obviously a really unique situation that no one expected to be in, but in such an uncertain time, I have a lot of confidence about the situation going well just because I know that everyone just wants to work well together and are understanding that both of these sports are a priority to me.”
Interview with Kendall Gretsch following Tokyo 2020 Paralympics postponement.
Masters echoed the sentiment, adding that no one really knows how to handle the situation.
“They’ve been really flexible,” said Masters. “Knowing each of our different circumstances and just waiting to see what the new race schedule is going to be and what the key events and races are for me to go to before they start sending workouts. It’s a little bit playing it by ear and making it up as you go.”
Moving forward, she is staying positive and doing her best to adapt with the changes as they come.
“I try to keep it in perspective. For the most part, everyone is in the same boat… You can lose energy by focusing on all the things you cannot control. It is what it is. For me, I’m just trying to do my part for this whole coronavirus outbreak and just be home, be smart with my training, and just make each day count still and get stronger in some way.”
Interview with Oksana Masters following Tokyo 2020 Paralympics postponement.
American Oksana Masters reacting to her first gold medal in her third Paralympics, after winning the women’s 1.1 k sitting sprint in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Joe Kusumoto)
This insight into training para nordic athletes comes from Martin Benes, head coach of U.S. Para Nordic skiing. Benes joined U.S. Para Nordic in August 2018 after spending five years as the nordic ski director and head coach at Sugar Bowl Academy in Norden, CA. Benes responded via. email following a team training camp in Canmore, Alberta.
Martin Benes, head coach of U.S. Para Nordic, shares insight into structuring training for para nordic athletes. (Photo: Screenshot TeamUSA.org)
FasterSkier: Before taking this job, did you have any background in or connections to para sports? What have you learned in your time with U.S. Para Nordic?
Martin Benes: I had not had any background working with para athletes. As a junior I remember para Nordic skier Candace Cable training and racing in the Truckee-Tahoe area. I’d also seen the athletes at events here and there. I’ve been with the program a little over a year and just one full competition season. I feel like I’ve been constantly learning since I took the job, and a lot of that is just learning the individual athletes and how best to support them.
FS: Do you work with and write training for the whole USA para nordic crew or only certain athletes?
MB: I’m currently working with our National Team athletes which consists of four sit-skiers and one standing skier. It’s a little bit of a mix with how specific I’m getting in supporting training plans for those athletes. Educating athletes and supporting them as they make decisions for themselves is definitely the best thing I can do for athletes of this caliber. There’s some great collaboration happening with summer sport coaches for some of our sit-ski athletes and good support from clubs around the country for standing athletes.
FS: What are some of your takeaways in regard to coaching para athletes vs. able bodied? Are there different considerations in training philosophy? Similarities?
American Kendall Gretsch (l) racing in the 4 x 2.5 k mixed relay at the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. Her team finished seventh. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Mark Reis)
MB: Fundamentally, there is a lot of overlap from a physiology perspective. With any group of elite-level athletes, in comes down to individualizing their training so they get the most out of each camp or training block. With Para Athletes, that individualization becomes even more paramount. One challenge will always be what works best for each athlete and trying to maximize their training.
In addition, we’re dealing with different types of injuries that can limit how an athlete can prepare for the competition season. So we’ve got to take those into account and first and foremost ensure an athlete stays healthy enough to train to their full potential.
FS: When leading a training session for para athletes with varying abilities and needs, how do you structure workouts to ensure everyone gets what they need from the session? Does the look of this change in summer vs. winter?
USA Para Nordic Gold Medalist Dan Cnossen shows the paddle board he uses to prepare his upper body for sit skiing. (Courtesy Photo)
MB: One of the big things that we do is allow athletes to drive the sessions. We tend to seek out a lot of athlete feedback and learn where they’re trying to improve and try to support that. It leads to a lot of interesting conversations about technique and tactics. When we do group work, which is still important, we try to be very deliberate in structuring it so that all athletes can get something out of it. Those sessions are typically either agility- and skills-based or speed-work.
In the summer our seated athletes tend to do a lot of cross-training and we avoid ski-specific movements to give them an opportunity to mentally and physically reset. They obviously are doing a lot of work with their arms and so anything to change it up is a positive and contributes to their long-term athlete health.
It’s also about learning what their strengths/weaknesses might be and then adjusting training, strength, and technique to maximize their session.
FS: What or who should people keep an eye out for this season? What is the team most excited for?
MB: We’ve got a really strong National Team going into this season, and excited to hopefully have some new athletes qualifying for World Cup racing this season in January and February at our races in Germany. Certainly our returning World Champs medalists Oksana Masters, Kendall Gretsch, Dan Cnossen, and Aaron Pike are all contenders this season and Ruslan Reiter, a standing skier, has made some big gains over the summer. We’ve got a combined race with FIS in Dresden which will be an exciting event for everyone and also Biathlon World Championships in March in Sweden.
The women’s 6-kilometer sitting biathlon podium on Day 1 of the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, with Americans Kendall Gretsch (c) in first and Oksana Masters (l) in second, and Lidziya Hrafeyeva of Belarus (r) in third. (Photo: US Paralympics/Mark Reis)
Oskana Masters focused and in the moment on the range during the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Joe Kusumoto)
For this week’s Wednesday Workout, FasterSkier reached out to Martin Benes, the newest addition to the U.S. Para-Nordic coaching staff. Benes joined U.S. Para-Nordic this August, after five years working as the nordic skiing director and head coach at Sugar Bowl Academy in Norden, California. He is still currently living in California.
Benes’s primary work is with the Para-Nordic national team: A-team members Oksana Masters, Kendall Gretsch, and Dan Cnossen, as well as B-team member, Aaron Pike. Many of those athletes compete in sports outside nordic skiing–Masters also competes in handcycling, Gretsch in para-triathlon–permitting Benes to coach remotely fairly easily through the fall.
“In the summer/fall, we’re kind of operating on a camp schedule,” Benes said during a phone conversation indicating that since late August, his primary role has been writing athlete training plans. He has also facilitated three camps for U.S. Para-Nordic national team athletes.
American Dan Cnossen racing to second in the men’s 15 k sitting biathlon individual at the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/ Maddie Meyer-Getty Images)
This first camp was in Torsby, Sweden, where national team athletes made use of the city’s ski tunnel from late September to early October.
“Then we had a camp out in Lake Placid, [New York]” Benes said. “They used their snowmaking to make us a small loop, which was really awesome of them. Obviously, with this level of athlete, it’s nice to be able to get on snow at least once a month, especially in the fall. We had a big group of development athletes there.”
Following the Lake Placid camp in late October, the athletes gathered once again, this time in West Yellowstone, Mont., for the Rendezvous Ski Festival held Nov. 20 until Nov. 24. Before returning to California, Benes stayed in Bozeman to work with the national team athletes for a week after the festival.
“I’ll be spending chunks of time up in Bozeman and be able to work with athletes up there going into race series,” Benes said.
The International Paralympic Committee’s first series of World Cup races kicks off Wednesday, Dec. 12 in Vuokatti, Finland. (For the International Paralympic Committee’s complete calendar of cross-country and biathlon competitions, click here).
Prior to this year, Benes’s primary coaching work has been with junior ski racers (he’s coached for Far West, Auburn Ski Club and Sugar Bowl Academy) and college-age athletes (he spent two years as the assistant coach for Bates College, his alma mater). On being an able-bodied coach for Para-athletes, Benes indicated that at its core, the philosophy of coaching is the same. At present, there are no former Para-Nordic athletes coaching with the program.
“The training principles don’t really change,” Benes said. “Yes there are things to be aware of physiologically, but in terms of the core principles, it’s not that different.”
Benes said that paralympic standing athletes’ development often mirrors fairly closely, that of able-bodied athletes.
“In terms of that athlete is going to have started skiing pretty young and probably trained with their club with some modifications,” he said.
There are currently two college athletes in the Para-Nordic program’s development program, Grace Miller (University of Alaska Fairbanks) and Mia Zutter (College of St. Scholastica).
Kendall Gretsch takes aim during the women’s 6-kilometer sitting biathlon at the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games on Saturday in PyeongChang, South Korea. She won the race to become the first American woman to medal in a biathlon event at the Paralympics (or Olympics). (Photo: US Paralympics/Getty)
“For the sit skiers, the biggest difference there is tactical and a little bit technical approach has to shift a little bit,” Benes continued. “It’s obviously a little bit different, but the principles are the same. And I think that obviously I’m pretty new to this program, but they’ve done a good job of codifying a lot of what has worked.”
“So I think there’s actually kind of a system in place of, these are the things that we need to deal with when people first start sit skiing and these are kind of the things that we’re looking for in potential sit-ski athletes,” he said. “I kind of had this luxury of coming into this program that has been successful in a lot of ways and has established itself as a program that’s doing a lot of things right. I have the opportunity to build on that with a strong staff in place.”
Like any other athlete-coach relationship, the biggest role Benes has is to facilitate the athlete’s own self-sufficiency within the sport.
“With this level of athlete, you’re individualizing more than maybe you would with able-bodied athletes in terms of training plans, in terms of strength plans, he said. “But ultimately you’re…helping guide them and giving them the framework to be successful and helping them be their own best coaches.”
With a little less than four years before the next Paralympics, Benes said that for now, his focus will be “taking the opportunity to try some new things and explore some new things without forgetting the pieces that have worked and building on those.”
“That’s kind of a vague answer, somewhat on purpose,” he added. “Basically this is a really good year for us to try some new things, without letting go of what has worked.”
The following text is a workout written by Benes.
***
Here is a workout I’ve used in the past at various points in the year with different levels of athletes. It was a staple with some of the senior-level athletes I’ve worked with during the summer and fall and I’ve also found it to be an effective workout during the race season if athletes are starting to feel flat racing. It’s a great workout for older juniors and up. For younger skiers, play some games instead.
The goal is to have a steady effort threshold effort and then mix in some surges/speeds where athletes are sprinting and forcing themselves to change gears and tempo from what is already a hard effort. In that respect, it is similar to a race effort where you have to change gears and respond to accelerations, especially in mass start or sprint racing. What separates it from just an all-out race effort is that the steady effort is more controlled and therefore guarantees that the athletes are able to increase tempo and speed.
I’ve used a few different modes but running with poles/bounding, rollerskiing, and skiing all are great options.Obviously, the mode depends on the time of year a little. Ideally, you have some rolling terrain so that in addition to the surges/speeds there are also some built-in recovery sections. So, onto how to set this workout up:
Find a suitable loop for running with poles, rollerskiing, or skiing. Ideally, it is gently rolling terrain. No hills that are too steep/long but with some good variety. The length doesn’t matter too much but if it’s too short it will get boring too fast. A loop that will take the athletes 4-6 minutes at threshold is good.
Aaron Pike (U.S. Paralympics Nordic) racing at the 2018 Winter Paralympics on a balmy day in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Joe Kusumoto)
On the loop, mark out (with cones, chalk, or dye) 2-4 short sections where the athletes will accelerate, do a speed, etc. You can mix up the specifics of the speeds. They could be forced technique, all-out speeds, accelerations, or any other variation. You’re looking for sections that should take approximately 10-20 seconds at speed.
You’re good to go. Depending on the athletes, you’re typically looking for 15-35 minutes of on time.
So, once it’s set up, have the athletes do a basic warm-up of 20 minutes of L1 activity, followed by 4 to 610-second speeds. Then decide how long the athletes will have for on-time. Typically, you would want to emulate a 5- to 10–kilometer race. So, in other words about 15-35 minutes of on time. Once they’re done, have them do a short cool-down and get their recovery on. Here is the step-by-step:
20-minute L1-L2 warm up.
4-6 by 10-second speeds. The focus here is quick movements.
15-35 minutes of threshold on the loop, with speeds on the marked sections. Speeds should be recognizable as a significant change in tempo/pace.
Eileen Carey congratulating Oksana Masters after a gold medal at the Paralympic Games. (Photo: Mark Reis/U.S. Paralympics)
With the 2017/2018 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to coaches of North American teams in any nordic discipline, at any level – although in an Olympic and Paralympic Games year, that’s what we focused on.
A big architect of the team’s success has been head coach Eileen Carey. It’s not an easy or simple job to coach athletes at all different levels of sport and different athletic backgrounds, and bring them all towards success.
“The diversity in disciplines and levels of athlete in our program is one of the most interesting and motivating parts of my job,” Carey wrote in an email last week. “On one hand, I love getting into the details of what might make someone a fraction of a percent faster. I love the process of breaking down a performance into parts and working with athletes to problem solve how to make a small element better. So much of that is about failure, modification, and trying again. The potential gains are so small, but so are the gaps from 4th to 1st and every once in a while something sticks and that is incredibly motivating for me. Andy [Soule]’s sprint finish [for a gold medal] in PyeongChang is a great example of that.
Oksana Masters of U.S. Paralympics Nordic is hugged by head coach Eileen Carey after her gold-medal finish in the women’s sitting 5 k cross country race at the 2018 Winter Paralympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: Mark Reis/U.S. Paralympics)
“On the other hand we have some promising new athletes in our program who are at such a different level in what they need as athletes,” she continued. “For our program, our goal is always to provide best in the world service to our athletes. For our athletes who are aiming for the podium today, that involves every detail coming together, the execution of their plan. For Grace [Miller] and Mia [Zutter] and Ruslan [Reiter], our next generation of podium-potential athletes, providing best in the world service is more about making sure they see what their medal winning teammates and competitors are doing to achieve their performances and showing them a roadmap to get to that point.”
Development coach BethAnn Chamberlain is a big piece of that effort. For the top-level athletes, Carey lives in Bozeman, Montana, where she works intensively with the sit-ski team,
“They move to Bozeman in the winters,” Carey explained. “I am with them every day from November through March, in addition to training camps that we have most months from May-October. Most of them compete in summer sports, so in the off season, there is always an individualized balance of figuring out how to optimize their preparation for skiing, while working with their goals for other sports.”
The standing and visually-impaired athletes have a different situation, and are primarily supported by clubs in their local areas. Carey works with both the athletes and their home coaches and teams to make sure they are getting the best development, but a big part of that can be training with an able-bodied ski team.
“We can help with funding, or workout ideas that might be unique to Paralympic skiing,” Carey wrote. “But at the end of the day, Jake Adicoff and Sawyer Kesselheim’s success at the Games [where they took silver in the visually-impaired 10 k classic, the first visually-impaired medal by the U.S. in modern Paralympic history] is much more about Sun Valley SEF and Bowdoin (Jake’s club/school) and Bridger Ski Foundation and Montana State (Sawyer’s club/school)… We can help fill the gaps with funding and equipment and communication with their coaches, but their best path to the podium is the same as every skier who wants to be on an Olympic podium.”
Carey and her colleagues, such as High Performance Director John Farra, have intentionally written their criteria so that standing and visually-impaired athletes can make the para-nordic national team without actually competing in para events – instead, they can make the C Team or Development team using USSA points from SuperTours, college races, or regional races. That means that they can spend more time with their home teams.
“We are lucky in that we have incredible partners in the USSA community who are really the ones developing many of our athletes,” Carey wrote. “I hope the more that coaches and clubs around the country see our athletes competing in USSA and collegiate races, the more they see opportunities for providing a ski development pipeline to even more members of their communities. As much progress as we have made as a program over the last several years, we have at least that much again to improve, and this is the next big opportunity for us as a program, and also for ski clubs and communities around the country.”
But while Carey is thinking about those big-picture goals and opportunities, she is also working one-on-one to help Americans become the best para-nordic skiers in the world.
“The fall after Sochi, we started a technique modification process to target Andy [Soule]’s speed on flats, in particular finishing speed,” she explained. “In Sochi, he was moving quickly and had great hand speed but he was not going fast compared to the athletes he was competing against. We tried and failed at so many things in the past four years to improve that. Every once in a while, we would find a mental cue or some technical detail that seemed to make a difference and we would build on that and find ways to analyze it. It can be so frustrating, because there are inevitably times when progress stalls or reverts and there rarely is a clear answer why… When he turned it on during that finishing stretch of the sprint to take the gold, that was the epitome of a plan coming together at the right time.”
A few minutes later, Oksana Masters won gold in the women’s sprint, overcoming an injury that had happened just weeks before the Paralympics. It was her first gold medal after collecting a silver and bronze earlier in the Games, to go with a silver and bronze from Sochi and a bronze from the 2012 summer Paralympics in rowing.
“Both of those races, strictly from a sport performance standpoint, were just incredible,” Carey wrote. “In addition, those two athletes have really been the architects of our program’s rise over the last quad. The two of them were at every camp and World Cup, and their instincts as athletes drove the strategies of our program. That day could not have been a more meaningful culmination of the last four years for them as individuals, for us as a program, and for me as a coach.”
Honorable Mention: Robin McKeever, Canadian Para-Nordic Skiing
Also taking home 16 medals from PyeongChang? The Canadian Para-Nordic team, which like the Americans had a big jump in both the number of medals and the number of athletes winning them. Far from being just the Brian McKeever show – although the veteran went undefeated for the third Paralympics in a row – the team also picked up multiple medals from Mark Arendz, Natalie Wilkie, and Collin Cameron, plus an individual medal by Emily Young and two relay medals.
Robin McKeever. (Photo: Noel Rogers/CCC)
Carey’s counterpart up north is Robin McKeever, who incidentally said that he looked at what Carey was doing as an inspiration in being able to recruit summer-sports athletes and successfully transform them into winter gold medalists. The two gold medals by Kendall Gretch, an American triathlete who didn’t pick up cross-country skiing until 2015, were “eye-opening”.
The para-sport landscape is slightly different in Canada, which also has a much smaller population to draw from (while at the same time having some of the same issues associated with far-flung geography). McKeever faces different development challenges, but has helmed the program towards depth and diversity in the last four years.
“It started as an eight-year process in 2010,” McKeever said in an interview last week. “At that time, we only had funding for Brian. I was given the reins to rebuild, effectively. Now there are some next-generation funds we have the opportunity to access, and now that helps build the base. In the last few years we have had a development coach on board, Kate Boyd, and that has been huge.”
Emily Young and coach Robin McKeever during a training session at the Alpensia Biathlon Centre during the 2018 Winter Paralympic Games in Pyeongchang, Korea. (Photo: Dave Holland/Canadian Paralympic Committee)
Then there was Wilkie, a teenager who came to the program after losing four of her fingers in an accident.
“We know where our pool of athletes comes from,” McKeever said. “It’s about the un-luck of athletes having trauma, which starts their Paralympic path. And it’s about luck in terms of recruiting athletes from summer sport.”
Those newer athletes in the program have veterans to look up to, whether that is McKeever’s brother Brian, or now Mark Arendz, who took home a remarkable six medals between biathlon and cross-country skiing.
“Mark was no surprise,” McKeever said. “Six medals was maybe a surprise, but he was a World Champion coming in.”
Given the limitations on how the team can find new athletes, McKeever didn’t want to be too concrete about whether the program would see a big swell in numbers coming off its recent success.
“It is still to be seen where that will go,” he said. “Some of it is a bit of luck, and some of it is really good management… A lot of staff has been around for eight years. They remain keen and excited. They stick around and are really integral to my support, and to the team’s support.”
One of the biggest highlights for McKeever, and an illustration of how the program has changed in just a few years, was the mixed relay team of Arendz, Young, Wilkie, and Chris Klebl taking silver, the first ever relay medal for Canada.
“The mixed relay is a real highlight,” he said. “Even if the full Russian contingent had been there, that would be a podium for us. I didn’t know eight years ago that the possibility was even there.”
Honorable Mention: Matt Whitcomb, U.S. Ski Team
Another team that had a huge jump this year? The U.S. Ski Team women. Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall took gold in the Olympic team sprint, the first-ever gold medal for the U.S. in the sport.
But the Olympics weren’t the only thing that happened this season. Diggins also won a World Cup, was third in the Tour de Ski, and second in the overall World Cup standings. Randall picked up a World Cup podium; Sadie Bjornsen picked up several; and Sophie Caldwell had enough to earn third place int he Sprint Cup standings. The team had more days with many women in the sprint heats, and more good distance results, too.
Matt Whitcomb with Sadie Bjornsen and Sophie Caldwell in Seefeld, Austria, this winter. (Photo: Garrott Kuzzy / LumiExperiences.com)
“It’s been a many-year goal of ours to be ranked in the top three for the women’s team and we secured that for the first time today,” U.S. Ski Team Women’s Coach Matt Whitcomb told FasterSkier of his team’s best-ever Nations Cup ranking after the final World Cup of the season in Sweden. “We’ve come into [past] finals, I believe, ranked third and then come out of finals ranked fourth. We’ve been fifth… It was really quite an achievement.”
The U.S. women all spend large amounts of time with their club teams and coaches, including at APU and Stratton. But they come together to form a national team, the strength of whose relationships are a storied aspect of building their own success. And Whitcomb is a big ingredient there, facilitating not just training but atmosphere and long-range goals.
When Caldwell secured third in the Sprint Cup, she thought back two years to a conversation she had with Whitcomb about race goals. Whitcomb wanted Caldwell to write down goal in particular: to be in the Sprint World Cup overall top three.
Brian McKeever (l) and Oksana Masters (r) are FasterSkier’s 2018 Para-Nordic Skiers of the Year. (Photos: Scott Grant/Canadian Paralympic Committee & Joe Kusumoto/US Paralympics)
With the 2017/2018 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to outstanding Para-Nordic skiers on the international circuit.
American Oksana Masters reacting to her first gold medal in her third Paralympics, after winning the women’s 1.1 k sitting sprint in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: Joe Kusumoto/U.S. Paralympics)
Undefeated in this category for the last four years of the FasterSkier awards, Oksana Masters had her best Paralympics yet this winter and overcame a major setback to do so. Just two weeks before the 2018 Winter Paralympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, Masters slipped on ice, injured her elbow and had to get surgery. Then, entirely propelled by her arms as a sit skier, the 28 year old competed in all six individual races in PyeongChang and medaled in five of them (she fell in the other and pulled out of the race shortly before the finish). In total, she racked up the first two Paralympic gold medals of her career (in her third Paralympics) plus two silver medals in biathlon — her first biathlon medals — and a bronze.
“I am absolutely truly speechless on this performance,” Masters told U.S. Paralympics after winning her second gold medal of the week in the women’s 5-kilometer sitting cross-country race (her first came in the cross-country sprint).
“I thrive and love the athlete lifestyle of eat, sleep and train,” she continued. “To put yourself to the ultimate test on that start line and seeing all your hard work come through, and not just that, it’s a whole team effort. … It’s not a one-person show. It definitely takes a village and we have an incredible team.”
Masters and her teammate Dan Cnossen accounted for 11 of Team USA’s 16 medals in nordic and biathlon in PyeongChang, which was more than five times the amount of medals the team brought home after Sochi in 2014.
Overall this season in the World Para Nordic Skiing rankings, Masters ranked first in women’s sitting biathlon and tied Germany’s Andrea Eskau for first in cross-country. In the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) overall World Cup standings, Masters placed third in both cross-country and biathlon.
Brian McKeever, Canadian Para-Nordic Skiing
Also our award winner last year, Brian McKeever became Canada’s most decorated Winter Paralympian of all time this winter with 17 career medals, 13 of which are gold. Three of those golds came in PyeongChang, and he captured bronze there with his teammates on the final day of racing, in the open relay, when Canada placed second in the mixed relay and third in the open relay for its first Paralympic relay medals.
Brian McKeever (r) follows guide Graham Nishikawa during the men’s visually impaired 20 k freestyle at the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. Along with guide Russell Kennedy, they won the race by over a minute for McKeever’s 14th Paralympic medal and 11th gold. (Photo: Scott Grant/Canadian Paralympic Committee)
This marked the fifth Paralympics for McKeever, 38, and he was accompanied by two guides, Graham Nishikawa (whom he skied with at the 2014 Sochi Games) and Russell Kennedy (who joined the Canadian Para-Nordic Team this year). Together, they won all three visually impaired cross-country races they competed in: the 20 k freestyle, classic sprint and 10 k classic.
In his first race of the Games, the 20 k distance race, McKeever, who was also Canada’s flag bearer for the PyeongChang Opening Ceremony, captured his 14th career medal — the most of any Canadian Winter Paralympian. In fact, he’s the most successful cross-country skier in Paralympic history, according to an IPC press release.
“I wasn’t aware of this record, but it is pretty cool,” McKeever told Cross Country Canada after the 20 k. “I think for me more than anything is this is a testament to our entire program. We’ve had so many great skiers leading the way for me with my brother, Robin, who is now coaching us, and Colette Bourgonje. Now it is awesome for me to be a part of a new generation that has arrived in Mark [Arendz], Colin Cameron, and the young women like Emily [Young], Brittany [Hudak] and Natalie [Wilkie], who are ready to carry the torch. I’m so excited to be around all of them this week and to be there cheering them on.”
Like the U.S., Canada tallied 16 medals between nordic and biathlon at the PyeongChang Paralympics.
Honorable Mentions: Mark Arendz (Canadian Para-Nordic) and Dan Cnossen & Kendall Gretsch (U.S. Paralympics)
Canada’s Mark Arendez gets a congratulatory hug after he won gold in the men’s 15 k standing individual biathlon race at the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: Scott Grant/Canadian Paralympic Committee)
While McKeever carried the Canadian flag at the PyeongChang Opening Ceremony, his teammate Mark Arendz was honored with waving it at the Closing Ceremony. In his third Paralympics, the 28-year-old Arendz had his best Games yet, taking a medal in all six events he competed in to make him the most successful Canadian at a single Winter Paralympics.
Arendz captured five individual medals in the men’s standing races in PyeongChang, including his first-career gold in the 15 k biathlon, silver in the 7.5 k biathlon sprint, and bronze in the 12.5 k biathlon, as well as his first Paralympic cross-country medals: bronze in both the sprint and 10 k classic, and silver in the mixed relay. He sat out the only race he didn’t medal in: the long-distance cross-country race.
“I came in here thinking I could get three medals, but to get six is incredible,” Arendz said on the last day of the Games, after his team placed second in the mixed relay for Canada’s first relay medal. “Today’s is a special one. I am happy we got this done, but there is no way I could do another race. I’m done.”
We mentioned Dan Cnossen earlier, but he’s worth mentioning again. Cnossen, 37, opened his second Paralympics with his first career medal at the Games — gold in the men’s 7.5 k sitting sprint. The next day, he placed second in the 12.5 k biathlon race, and from there, he kept up his medal streak through all six individual races. The total medal haul for the former Navy SEAL and current Harvard graduate student was one gold, four silvers, and one bronze.
Dan Cnossen of the U.S. celebrates his win in the men’s sitting 7.5 k biathlon sprint on opening day of competition at the 2018 Winter Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: Mark Reis/U.S. Paralympics)
It wasn’t an easy feat. Cnossen considered pulling out of the last biathlon race — the 12.5 k — in order to compete in the final 10 k cross-country race in PyeongChang.
“I have an excerpt that says it doesn’t matter how you feel today, it doesn’t matter what your background is or where you’re coming from, all that matters is what you can do,” Cnossen told U.S. Paralympics after finishing second in the biathlon race. “I just tried to focus on what I could do today. Not the fact that I didn’t sleep well last night, that doesn’t matter. Just go out there and perform like I know I can.”
In all, Cnossen raced about 60 k over eight days.
“I came into the Games just trying to take it one race at a time and give it my all — each and every race — and not think too far ahead,” Cnossen said after placing second in the 10 k cross-country race the next day for his sixth-straight medal. “Just focus on the here and now, and soak up the moment and be in the present.”
His teammate Kendall Gretsch, a triathlete who recently took up nordic skiing and biathlon, opened her first Paralympics with gold in the women’s 6 k sitting sprint in PyeongChang. Gretsch, who turned 26 earlier this month, also won the 12 k biathlon race the next day.
In an interview with U.S. Paralympics, she described being “unsure” of how she’d stack up in PyeongChang. Days 1 and 2 of racing pretty much settled it.
“I knew that since our last World Cup I had improved a lot, but you never know until you race,” she said after her second-straight gold. “It’s a very humbling experience being able to hear your anthem, puts everything into perspective. Knowing that you’re here not just here for yourself but for your country, it’s amazing.”
Kendall Gretsch (r) and Oksana Masters at the 2018 Paralympics medal ceremony for the women’s sitting 6 k biathlon sprint after winning gold and silver, respectively, on the first day of competition in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: Joe Kusumoto/U.S. Paralympics)
Two American flags and a Belarusian flag being hoisted to honor the medalists in the men’s sitting cross-country sprint at the 2018 Winter Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. Americans Andy Soule and Dan Cnossen placed first and second, respectively, and Dzmitry Loban of Belarus finished third. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Joe Kusumoto)
Success to failure. Failure to success. Two trends of two extremes on the performance metrics on the international cross-country skiing spectrum. There are many in-betweens: scoring World Cup points with a top 30, top 10’s, any spot on the podium. There are the Olympic and Paralympic quads featuring a four-year buildup to North America’s singular focus on bronze, silver and gold hardware.
When considering how to develop talent, placing athletes on snow with the absolute best technology available, positioning athletes to medal, the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Program is an enviable high-performance model. That became evident this winter during the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. U.S. Paralympics Nordic hauled in 16 medals in a week about a month ago.
That many medals for a single team borders on excess. Pursuing the perfection that leads to near-excess has driven the U.S. team staff and athletes for years. Back in 2006 in Torino, Italy, the U.S. Paralympics Nordic team earned three medals. In 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, they tallied one medal. In 2014 in Sochi, Russia, they claimed three. This year in PyeongChang: 16.
“I think we have a few factors to our success,” Eileen Carey, head coach of the U.S. Paralympics Nordic team told FasterSkier in a recent phone interview. “We’ve built the entire team — every athlete who has been engaged in the last several years and the staff that we have built are totally committed to the goal of the team. There are not a lot of egos. Everybody has a role. Everybody is really good at what they do, and everybody executes on race day.”
That goal and the team’s execution amounted to 11 medals total between two athletes, both sit-skiers. Thirty-seven-year-old Dan Cnossen entered six races: three cross-country, three biathlon. He medaled in each. Oksana Masters, 28, took five medals: two in biathlon, three in cross-country.
In the leadup to the Games, with buoyant media coverage of para-athletes and opportunities to brand themselves more broadly, the narrative of athletes like Masters and Cnossen were hard to miss. Masters endured a Ukrainian orphanage until she was almost 8. Cnossen is a retired Navy SEAL and a Purple Heart and Bronze Star with Valor recipient. He lost both legs above the knee after stepping on an improvised explosive device (IED) while on patrol in Afghanistan in September 2009.
Biathlon gold medalist Dan Cnossen of the U.S. celebrates his win in the men’s sitting 7.5 k biathlon sprint on opening day of competition at the 2018 Winter Paralympics on March 10 in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Mark Reis)
Stories like those of Masters and Cnossen should make us appreciate for a moment our most basic gifts. Their stories are inspiring. That, according to Carey, misses the point when it comes to understanding what exactly manifested in PyeongChang.
“Sure, the Olympic and the Paralympic mission is to inspire people,” Carey said. “But the narrative about Paralympians has historically been far more about inspiration being the central storyline versus Olympians where the essential storyline as about their athletic prowess. The comments that I have heard about these Games are about the athletic performances of the athletes. Whereas in Sochi, and a lot what I have heard before, is a lot about the inspiration.”
Cnossen is a graduate student at Harvard. He receives some support from the school’s cross-country coach, but trains most often north of Cambridge Square at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center in northern Vermont. There, Cnossen benefits from world-class biathlon instruction.
Carey explained that at last season’s 2017 PyeongChang test event, Cnossen performed better in the cross-country races there than in biathlon. As a world-class athlete, traveling several hours for countless four-day Craftsbury weekends and increasing his time spent training on the shooting range were some of the commitments Cnossen made, just like any other hyper-focused, hyper-driven athlete.
Carey also made clear what Craftsbury’s part was in developing Cnossen’s athleticism.
“As a sit skier, you don’t carry a rifle,” she explained. “When you are shooting, that means 100 percent of the time, someone is on the range loading pellets with bare hands when it’s cold outside and handing you your rifle. Dan would shoot three or four times a weekend when he was there, and they supported him 100 percent of that time. He won a medal in every biathlon event. That is Craftsbury’s success as much as anybody else’s.”
Masters’s own drama unfolded two weeks before the Paralympics when she slipped and fell on ice. She dislocated her elbow and chipped all three bones that meet in the elbow. After being operated on at The Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado, Masters remained a medal favorite in Korea.
She came to PyeongChang as an all-arounder in both biathlon and sitting cross-country. (Masters, also a multi-sport athlete, competed in rowing at the 2012 London Paralympics — where she earned a bronze medal — and cycling at the 2016 Rio Games.)
Oksana Masters (U.S. Paralympics Nordic) after winning her first-career Paralympic gold medal in the women’s sitting cross-country sprint at the 2018 Winter Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Joe Kusumoto)
In her first race in PyeongChang last month, Masters took silver in the biathlon sprint (behind her U.S. teammate Kendall Gretsch in first). Those medals, Gretsch’s first and Masters’s first in biathlon, set the stage for more gritty performances and Masters’s five-medal PyeongChang bounty. Inspiring? Yes. But more to the point, both were athletically dominant.
Masters’s dominance came with a very human off-race. On March 13, during the women’s sitting 10 k biathlon race, Masters fell in her sit ski onto her ailing arm and missed a total of six shots for six penalty laps. While she skied the extra laps, another U.S. coach encouraged Masters to pull herself out of the race. The team’s staff was concerned about her elbow and wanted to ensure her health for her three remaining races.
“I sprinted down the course and just stood in front of her in the middle of the course and pulled her off,” Carey said of how she ultimately persuaded Masters to not finish. “Oksana thought she was done midway through the Games. We X-rayed her again and came up with a plan and taped her elbow in a way that would provide more protection.”
At the 2010 Vancouver Paralympics, Andy Soule earned bronze in biathlon. His medal was the first Paralympic medal in the discipline for the U.S. team. Eight years later in PyeongChang, Soule, a 38-year-old Army veteran, who, like Cnossen, lost both his legs in Afghanistan, delivered the Paralympics equivalent to the “here comes Diggins” moment.
During the men’s sitting cross-country sprint final, Soule came into the last hill in sixth place. He then glided into fourth on final downhill before the last intensive double-poling push to the finish.
With lickety-split skis to match his upper body’s Thor-like power, Soule willed himself into medal contention. From literally out of the camera’s view and into front and center on the final stretch, Soule threw down and accelerated. Bronze, then silver, and at the line, gold came into play. The PyeongChang sprint win was Soule’s first-career Paralympic gold in three Paralympics — he also claimed bronze in the PyeongChang 12.5 k biathlon race. (Soule promptly retired from elite-level competition afterward.)
“Andy has spent a lot of time over the last four years doing a whole lot of stuff, like learning how to move fast on flats, which was something that we had identified from Sochi as being the weak link,” Carey said. “There was something otherworldly about those last 100 meters that was just incredibly cool to watch.”
Cnossen, Masters, and Soule symbolize the U.S. Paralympics Nordic team’s rise. Yet, Carey, along with the team’s high-performance director, John Farra, have been able to build a program that has positioned itself for future medals. Gretsch, 26, may be part of that future. She came to nordic skiing as a world-class para-triathlete and represents what Farra calls “talent transfer”.
“We are super proud with how our sit-ski program has evolved,” Farra said on the phone. “We are super proud that we can take athletes in a talent-transfer situation like Kendall and help her come from being a world champion in triathlon and have her transfer and learn the skills in a short period of time to now being one of the best in the world.”
In PyeongChang, Gretsch captured two golds in the first two races. She won the sitting biathlon sprint and the 12 k sitting cross-country events.
Winter Paralympic rookie Kendall Gretsch racing at the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Joe Kusumoto)
Farra explained that their medal was the first for the U.S. in a visually impaired race at the “modern” Paralympics. The VI classes were historically split between B1, B2 and B3 classes. (B1 athletes have the least amount of vision.) The different classifications are used as a descriptor of each athlete’s degree of blindness. Formerly, each classification of athlete competed against the same classification athletes. For example, in the past, only B1’s competed against B1’s. Today, that format is defunct, and all classifications currently compete against one another. An athlete’s finishing time is adjusted based on their severity of blindness.
As Farra explained, in the “modern” VI medals are harder to come by.
Adicoff, a student at Bowdoin College and a member of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF), was competing at his second Paralympics. Kesselheim was a Paralympic rookie.
“They are a team,” Carey said of the Adicoff-Kesselheim pairing. “Visually impaired athletes and guides function much more, in my view, like a cycling team as opposed to a traditional ski racer. … The medal was won by both Jake and Sawyer. In that race, they worked together more effectively than I had ever seen them work together. They were more in sync; they were skiing closer to each other. There is a lot of challenges in guiding when it comes to the communication, and Sawyer is a great communicator. He is an amazing skier and athlete, but he is a great communicator and he has no ego. He was totally bought into being on that team.”
Guide Sawyer Kesselheim leads his U.S. teammate Jake Adicoff during the open relay on March 18 at the 2018 Winter Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Mark Reis)
The first day of the next Paralympic quad began on March 19, the day after the PyeongChang Paralympic Closing Ceremony. Yet Casey and Farra kept an eye on 2022 by nurturing and investing in more Paralympic rookies by exposing them to their respective sport’s highest level of competition. Grace Miller (standing , Alaska Nordic Racing), Ruslan Reiter (standing, Outdoor Sports Institute), Joy Rondeau (sitting, National Sports Center for the Disabled), and Mia Zutter (visually impaired, CXC/St. Scholastica) participated in their first, yet most likely not their last, Winter Paralympics.
“Having a larger community of people that consider themselves para-nordic skiers is motivating,” Farra said.
In the recent past, Farra explained that identifying and developing standing athletes has been a priority. The U.S. has already been a leader in supporting sitting athletes and providing them with top-end, sit-ski technology.
“We have just scratched the surface of finding a couple of standing and a couple of VI athletes,” Farra continued. “That’s got us pretty excited about the connections they have to their local clubs and colleges, too. We were motivated to bring them to these Games so they could get a taste of what is out there and hopefully, they left absolutely motivated to live a professional athlete lifestyle and train hard with their clubs and their home college programs.”
— Alex Kochon contributed
The 2018 PyeongChang Paralympics men’s sitting cross-country sprint podium at the medal ceremony, with Americans Andy Soule (c) and Dan Cnossen (r) in first and second, respectively, and Dzmitry Loban of Belarus in third. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Joe Kusumoto)Kendall Gretsch (r) and Oksana Masters at the 2018 Paralympics medal ceremony for the women’s sitting 6 k biathlon sprint after winning gold and silver, respectively, on the first day of competition in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Joe Kusumoto)
Canada’s 17-year-old Natalie Wilkie being awarded gold after she won her first Paralympic race on Saturday, the women’s 7.5 k standing classic, in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: Dave Holland/Canadian Paralympic Committee)
2018 Winter Paralympics (PyeongChang, South Korea): 5/7.5/10 k cross-country races
Saturday marked the last day of individual racing at the PyeongChang Paralympics, and as they have over the last week, the U.S. and Canadian teams did not disappoint, with the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Team adding a gold and two silvers to its medal count and the Canadian Para-Nordic Team notching two golds and two bronze medals in the middle-distance cross-country races.
Seventeen-year-old Natalie Wilkie of Salmon Arm, British Columbia, won the women’s 7.5-kilometer standing classic race, while her Canadian teammate Emily Young placed third in that race.
Brian McKeever, 38, of Canmore, Alberta, won his third-straight race of the Paralympics, the men’s 10 k visually impaired classic race, sweeping all three races at the Paralympics for the third-straight time (he was undefeated at the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia, as well as the 2010 Paralympics in Vancouver, B.C.)
Canada’s Mark Arendz raced to bronze in the men’s 10 k standing classic race for his fifth medal of the week (including a biathlon gold) and seventh of his Paralympic career.
For the U.S., Oksana Masters won her second gold of the Games in the women’s 5 k sitting (after winning the cross-country sprint as well) and fifth medal total in PyeongChang. In three Paralympics, she has eight medals to her name.
Dan Cnossen continued his medal streak with another silver in the men’s 7.5 k sitting for his sixth medal in as many races this week (three in cross-country, three in biathlon), and Jake Adicoff achieved his first Paralympic medal after placing second behind McKeever in the 10 k visually impaired classic.
In the women’s standing race on Saturday, Canada nearly went first and second, with Young missing out on silver by 0.1 seconds. While Wilkie took the win in 22:12.2 minutes, Ekaterina Rumyantseva of the Neutral Paralympics Athletes (NPA) finished 1.6 seconds back for second, just ahead of Young in third (+1.7).
Natalie Wilkie (r) and Emily Young at Saturday’s 2018 Paralympic medal ceremony with their gold and bronze medals in the women’s 7.5 k standing classic race on Sunday in Pyeongchang, South Korea. (Photo: Dave Holland/Canadian Paralympic Committee)
“This is crazy awesome,” Wilkie said after winning the last individual race of her first Paralympics, according to a Cross Country Canada press release. “I didn’t think this would happen at all…
“The difference today was double poling,” she added. “I just kept telling myself to pretend I was elbowing my older brother.”
During the race, Young channeled her teammate for motivation.
“ ‘What would Natalie do?’ I just kept saying ‘What would Natalie be doing?’ ” Young, 27, said with a laugh to Cross Country Canada. “I was trying and trying all week to get onto the podium. I knew this race would be my big chance. I kept telling myself to get this done. There is nothing left in the tank. I didn’t want any more hills. I just wanted to get over the finish line. I left it all out there today.”
Also in the women’s standing race, Canada’s Brittany Hudak placed eighth (+1:37.4) and American Grace Miller finished 18th (+7:09.7).
McKeever spent about half the race with each of his guides, Graham Nishikawa and Russell Kennedy, to win the men’s visually impaired race by more than a minute in 23:17.8. Adicoff, of the U.S., with his guide Sawyer Kesselheim had the second-fastest time for silver (+1:13.5), while Belarus’s Yury Holub (with guide Dzmitry Budzilovich) placed third (+1:19.3).
Canada’s Brian McKeever (r) having some fun at the medal ceremony after winning gold with guides Graham Nishikawa (l) and Russell Kennedy (not pictured) in the men’s 10 k visually impaired classic race at the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: Dave Holland/Canadian Paralympic Committee)
“This feels good,” said McKeever, who has won 13 gold medals in five Paralympics. “That one was hard today and was a lot closer than the others.
Nishikawa led him for the first 6 k, helping him claw back 4 seconds on Sweden’s Zebastien Modin (and guide Johannes Andersson) ahead of him. At the race’s halfway point, the Canadians took the lead, and after Kennedy jumped in to guide McKeever, they widened their gap over the final 4 k. Modin did not finish.
“Sebastian had a pretty hard crash and I’m most concerned about him because he is a very good friend and you don’t want to win that way,” McKeever said. “It was a good fight today. We knew when to hit it and when to pull back. It’s nice to complete what we set out to do.
“Today was all about teamwork,” McKeever added. “There was a huge temperature change so we were out very early as a team testing new skis with our wax techs for 90 minutes before the race even started. It was a huge effort by everyone today.”
For Adicoff, 22, the silver marked the first Paralympic medal of his career. He had previously been awarded bronze in the cross-country classic sprint, but was relegated to fourth for a technique violation.
As for Saturday’s middle-distance race, he said the skiing was “absolutely awesome. We had great skis by our staff,” Adicoff said, according to a U.S. Paralympics Nordic press release. “I got a little bit sick a couple days ago, so going into this race I told myself to stay relaxed the first part and see if we could keep adding throughout the whole race. It ended up working out, I’m really happy about that.”
“He was really smart today, thinking about how he’s going to pace the race,” Kesselheim told U.S. Paralympics. “Taking it out not too hard and then building throughout. Really using the skis to our advantage and skiing smooth.”
In the women’s 7.5 k visually impaired classic race, American Mia Zutter (with guide Kristina Trygstad-Saari) finished ninth, 5:33.7 behind the winner, Belarus’s Sviatlana Sakhanenka (with guide Raman Yashchanka).
Oksana Masters and her U.S. coach Eileen Carey after Masters won the women’s 5 k sitting cross-country race on Saturday at the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Mark Reis)
Then there was Masters, 28, who learned Friday that she was elected as the flag bearer for the entire U.S. Paralympic team at Sunday’s Closing Ceremony. She picked up her second gold medal of the week with a win in the 5 k sitting in 16:42, 11.5 seconds ahead of Germany’s Andrea Eskau in second.
“I am absolutely truly speechless on this performance,” Masters told U.S. Paralympics on Saturday. “I was a little bit nervous because I didn’t get my full warm up in and I was yawning at the start line thinking I was a little too relaxed. I have no idea what just happened.
“I thrive and love the athlete lifestyle of eat, sleep and train,” she continued. “To put yourself to the ultimate test on that start line and seeing all your hard work come through, and not just that, it’s a whole team effort. Seeing how our amazing team between our wax tech, nutritionist, sport psych, everything just comes together at the finish line. That’s really what it’s all about. It’s that moment coming together. It’s not a one-person show. It definitely takes a village and we have an incredible team.”
In that race, American Kendall Gretsch, who won two golds earlier in the week, placed sixth (+1:04.4), Canada’s Cindy Ouellet (+4:04.6) finished 17th and American Joy Rondeu was 19th (+5:13.1)
American Dan Cnossen racing to silver in the men’s 7.5 k sitting cross-country race at the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games PyeongChang in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Mark Reis)
In the men’s 10 k sitting, Cnossen pulled off his fourth silver medal of the week (and sixth medal total), finishing 5.3 seconds shy of gold, which went to South Korea’s Sin Eui-hyun in 22:28.4.
“This is my favorite race that we do,” Cnossen, 37, told U.S. Paralympics. “It’s 20-21 minutes of effort, or thereabouts, just all out as hard as you can go. I left it all out on the course and was edged out by five seconds. I’m really happy for Mr. Sin, my South Korean competitor. He earned the gold medal.”
After what he estimated to be around 60 k of racing over the last eight days, not including training, warming up or cooling down, Cnossen said he was feeling “very fatigued.”
“I came into the Games just trying to take it one race at a time and give it my all — each and every race — and not think too far ahead,” the retired Navy SEAL said. “Just focus on the here and now, and soak up the moment and be in the present.”
Also in that race, Andy Soule of the U.S. finished fifth (+34.0) and Canada’s Chris Klebl placed sixth (+1:00.9). Also for Canada, Derek Zaplotinsky followed in 15th (+3:15.2), Sebastien Fortier placed 16th (+3:19.9) and Yves Bourque 31st (+8:47.9). For the U.S., Sean Halsted finished 23rd (+4:19.8), Bryan Price 26th (+5:35.9) and Jeremy Wagner 30th (+8:06.9).
In the men’s standing division, Arendz claimed his fifth medal in as many starts this week, placing first, second and third in the three biathlon races and earning another bronze in the cross-country sprint. (He skipped the long-distance cross-country race.)
Canada’s Mark Arendz after being awarded bronze in the men’s 10 k standing classic race at the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: Dave Holland/Canadian Paralympic Committee)
On Saturday, in the middle-distance cross-country event, Arendz finished 20.3 seconds behind the winner, Japan’s Yoshihiro Nitta, who won in 24:06.8, and 11.6 seconds behind Ukraine’s Grygorii Vovchynskyi, who placed second (+8.7).
“The focus was to come here and race in six out of the seven events,” Arendz explained. “I have one more left to accomplish in the relay, but I got done what I set out to do in biathlon and to get a couple in cross-country is extra special. This course here really suits me well and the skis have been great all week.”
With two relay races (mixed and open) remaining on Sunday, Canada has a grand total of 14 nordic and biathlon medals at these Paralympics, surpassing its previous Paralympic medal total. The U.S. team is up to 16, also record-breaking for its nordic/biathlon program.
Americans Jake Adicoff (l) and his guide Sawyer Kesselheim racing to silver in the men’s 10 k standing classic race at the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: U.S. Paralympics/Mark Reis)
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