Novie McCabe of APU narrowly winning over Kendall Kramer and Alayna Sonnesyn. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
CRAFTSBURY, Vermont — Craftsbury’s SuperTour Finals 40k highlighted some awesome battles amongst the top American men and women. The women started off the day with some extremely fast conditions on the winding and punchy Craftsbury 5k loop. The men took on the course later in the morning and conditions were mostly firm besides the south facing hills.
The women’s race broke into a lead pack of 5 that held strong until a sprint finish. APU’s Novie McCabe narrowly took the win over Kendall Kramer of APU and Alayna Sonnesyn of Team Birkie. Luci Anderson of Team Birkie and Craftsbury’s own Margie Freed, both 2026 Olympic biathletes, finished 4th and 5th.
The early leaders of the women’s 40k heading up Screaming Mimi hill. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
In an interview with Craftsbury’s Sheldon Miller after the race, McCabe said that “it was really fun to ski with such a great group of girls.” In regards to her difficult last couple of seasons, McCabe said that “it’s nice to have these good days again. It’s super fun to be back racing this year.”
Margie Freed, mostly a biathlete in the last few seasons, said that “it was really nice to not carry an extra ten pounds on my back, but I was a little sad to not be able to lay down in the middle of my race.” She thanked her coaches for helping her keep track of the lap count.
Alayna Sonnesyn, the Team Birkie athlete that narrowly missed out on the Olympics, said that the top three broke away at the top of the Screaming Mimi climb. When asked how her race went, Sonnesyn said “it was great, it was so fun to be out here. Conditions were fast and furious, kind of like the Birkie this year.”
The men’s 40k leaving the stadium. (Photo: Steve Snider)
The men’s race was tight with the top 14 coming in less than 60 seconds behind the win. Gus Schumacher of APU ended up edging out John Hagenbuch of Dartmouth for 1st. Kevin Bolger of Team Birkie finished 3rd.
Jake Brown in his last race for Craftsbury Green Racing Project taking the lead up Screaming Mimi. (Photo: Steve Snider)
Hagenbuch said that he has been fighting through some illness since the Lake Placid World Cup Finals.“I didn’t win today, but I was still smiling out there and really just taking in what was my last race for Dartmouth.”
Gus Schumacher also said that the conditions were really fast and it was hard to get away from the pack. He and Zak Ketterson were pushing at the front when Zak had an unfortunate fall within the last few hundred meters: “I was given the first place position and just went for it from there.”
The award ceremony’s after the races highlighted the 40k, junior 20k and 2025-2026 SuperTour awards.
Thank you to Sheldon Miller of Craftsbury Outdoor Center for the post-race interviews with athletes.
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The SuperTour Relay start on Saturday afternoon. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
CRAFTSBURY, Vermont — The second day of racing at Craftbury’s SuperTour Finals brought on some hard-hitting team relays. The “Club Relay” had a diverse array of club skiers young and old, along with some college teams. In the afternoon, the “SuperTour Relay” featured the North American pro teams along with the top eastern college squads.
Craftsbury groomer, Eric Hanson, captured Anders Weiss of BSF and Jack Young of Craftsbury Green Racing Project skiing in front of the dump truck responsible for keeping the course open. The truck was stuck on course the d prior year and pushed off to the side with one of their Pistenbully groomers. (Photo: Eric Hanson)
The afternoon raced proved to be quite entertaining as conditions held firm. Team Birkie’s first relay squad won, upsetting APU’s first squad by 46 seconds. Alayna Sonnesyn, Kevin Bolger, Lucy Anderson, and Zak Ketterson held off the APU’s four 2026 Olympians that included Kendall Kramer, Zanden McMullen, Novie McCabe, Gus Schumacher. Craftsbury’s home team of Margie Freed, Brian Bushey, Michaela Keller-Miller, and Jack Young finished in 3rd.
Team Birkie, APU and Craftsbury’s relay teams filling the podium. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
Team Birkie was ecstatic with their win. Their second team also came within 6 seconds of the podium. BSF’s team came in 4th of the 33 teams.
Luci Anderson’s leg put on a significant gap to the APU team that they would keep through the race. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
In the morning, an additional 33 relay teams and 132 racers in total took on the 5 kilometer lap that Craftsbury staff worked hard to keep open through the recent warm spells. Hundreds of dump trucks and many more snowmobile sleds patched thinning spots on a sections of thinning snow. Eric Hanson, a Craftsbury groomer of 25 years, said that they’ve spent hundred of hours moving snow onto the race course over the last month.
33 teams starting the Club Relay in the morning. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
The Club Relay showcased the often-mentioned perk of Nordic skiing: it’s a lifelong sport. With the youngest competitors in the single digits and the oldest many decades in, it was a celebration of the sport and the joy that comes from friendly competition. While most teams donned their spandex suits, some teams added some flair with outfits that surely boosted their speed.
Ollie Burruss, Craftsbury’s Nordic Race Director, making the college skiers nervous with his lead in the first leg of the Club Relay. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
All but 7 relay teams were pairs of 2 women and 2 men. The mixed relay was won by “UVM Gold” with Owen Young, Molly Moening, Benon Brattebo, and Caleb Boyce throwing down to narrowly beat out their teammates on “UVM Green.”
Benon Brattebo of UVM leading the first leg of the Club Relay. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
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Ben Ogden, the Vermonter, taking the cake in the men’s sprint final. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
CRAFTSBURY, Vermont — Craftsbury Outdoor Center kicked off the first of the SuperTour Finals races with a classic sprint on Friday. Yesterday’s weather brought gnarly, foggy, and temperatures in the 50s. Craftsbury’s grooming crew has been putting in long hours over the last few weeks to ensure that conditions would hold on through a warmup. Overnight, they prepared the 1.5-kilometer course that baked under the strong spring sun, creating saturated spring conditions even with temperatures below freezing.
Most of the top American competitors came to cap off their long race season, many of whom are freshly off the electric World Cup Finals. Following up huge events like the 2026 Olympics and the World Cup Finals in Lake Placid, one might think that races in the quaint Northeast Kingdom of Vermont would be a quiet, less competitive affair. Today’s competition couldn’t compete with the 10,000+ fans across the state border last weekend, but it proved to be a tight and fierce battle for sprinters to finish off their season.
85 men and 63 women started the qualifier, representing an array of professional domestic teams, Canadians, Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association (EISA), and junior racers.
Ben Ogden of SMS T2 won the men’s qualifier with nearly 3 seconds over Gus Schumacher of APU. Murphy Kimball, the 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Alaska – Anchorage, qualified in an impressive eighth, only getting beaten out by elder World Cup regulars.
U20 Murphy Kimball heading to an 8th place in the qualifier. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
Erin Bianco of BSF won the women’s qualifier by over 3 seconds over second-place Canadian and Alberta World Cup Academy athlete Katie Weaver. Mia Gorman is a U16 athlete for the neighboring Mansfield Nordic Club who finished the qualifier in 27th, beating out all other junior women and making the heats with the big dogs.
Erin Bianco winning the qualifier by over 3 seconds. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
Ogden moved comfortably through the heats, eventually winning the men’s final over APU teammates JC Schoonmaker and Gus Schumacher, who finished in second and third, respectively.
Men’s final starting at Craftsbury Outdoor Center. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
Ben Ogden of SMS T2 was very happy about racing in his home state. “It’s a bit more chill” he said in comparison to the World Cup and Olympic stages that he’s been prominent on this season. Ogden also mentioned that, even though the race environment was low-key, the competition was stiff with the U.S.’s top skiers duking it out for the top of the podium.
In addition to representation from many different clubs throughout the heats, the women’s side saw a shake-up in the competition when the third qualifier, Lauren Jortberg of Mansfield Pro/NCPH, fell in the final. Canadian Katie Weaver and her Alberta World Cup Academy teammate Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt finished first and second. In an interview after the race, Weaver said “conditions were fun, crazy and a bit hectic.”
Canadians Katie Weaver and Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt embrace after their strong finish for first and second overall. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
Emma Albrecht took the top domestic position in third place with her first Supertour win in a sprint race. Erin Bianco of BSF and Alayna Sonnesyn of Team Birkie rounded off the domestic podium.
Albrecht crossing the finishing line as the first American and 3rd overall. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
Albrecht was very happy with her racing throughout the day: “The biggest feat for me is being competitive this late in the season.” When asked about her tactics in the heats with the warm spring sun softening the track, she said that she had to “find a rut and see it through.”
Logan Drevlov of Loppet Nordic Racing and Claire Serrano of Craftsbury won the junior heat finals.
Temps are forecasted to drop into the single digits overnight before 4 x 5 km team sprint competitions throughout the day. Tune in for more pictures and results tomorrow.
JC Schoonmaker (APU) and Kevin Bolger (Team Birkie) side by side in the heats. (Photo: Tryg Solberg / FasterSkier)
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A clean slate cancelation of U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s cross-country national racing calendar. That’s a piece of the collateral damage in the niche world of domestic ski racing. The cancellation includes SuperTour, U.S. National Championships, SuperTour Finals, and the Junior National Championships.
We’ll get to how these races may be replaced in a moment. First, U.S. Ski & Snowboard set forth a series of bullet points regarding the reasoning and considerations for the wholesale cancelation. They include difficult logistics in terms of race travel and the prospect of hundreds of people settling into small communities unable to properly handle a population spike during the pandemic.
One aspect all should be clear about, U.S. Ski & Snowboard is cancelling its suite of national cross-country races, not national level races in their other disciplines.
“We recognize that the nature of the sport of the Cross Country ski racing in our nation has special considerations that are often dissimilar to other U.S. Ski & Snowboard disciplines,” U.S. Ski & Snowboard wrote in a prepared statement to FasterSkier. “National-level cross country events boast big fields, with hundreds of athletes, coaches, and officials, and these events are often hosted in small communities.”
Another reason cited for the modified cross-country racing schedule was a U.S. Ski & Snowboard survey finding members preferred regional rather than national racing during the pandemic.
Ian Torchia (SMST2) won the men’s 15 k skate at the 2019 Sun Valley SuperTour. (Photo: Doug Stephen)
Behind the scenes, clubs and regions have been working towards developing high-quality regional racing. What this exactly looks like remains opaque for the time being. Yet announcing the cancellation in early September allows all stakeholders to plan accordingly for new regional races, or conversely, suspend allocating resources on intensive events like Senior Nationals and SuperTour.
“Local organizing committees, divisions, and regions are better positioned to start planning an effective and motivational race calendar for their area, potentially sanctioning races via U.S. Ski & Snowboard and/or the FIS to attract quality competition,” U.S. Ski & Snowboard stated. “Quality events can be built on a regional model.”
For local organizing committees (LOC), the costs for running events is considerable. According to U.S. Ski & Snowboard, most of the larger events require 300 or more participants to break even. Most states currently have strict limits on organized group events capping mass gatherings well below the 300 person threshold. With the cancelation and reformatting of the race season, the financial risks for LOCs are reduced.
An unknown remains: how will aspiring World Cup athletes qualify for starts via a regional race calendar. The usual pathway involves SuperTour and/or Senior National wins/podiums.
“We have the ability to consider races happening across the country, assess performances from those regional events, and name teams for international trips via discretion,” stated U.S. Ski & Snowboard. “We have already created Discretionary Selection Review Committees for all of these selections, as well as mechanisms to solicit community feedback from the divisions prior to many selections. Although this system may be imperfect, it will allow for stand-out regional and divisional competition results to be recognized and considered for international team selection. The move to utilize much more discretion in these selection criteria is intended as a fix during the pandemic only, and we will return to criteria that focus principally on objective selection when the pandemic is over.”
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FasterSkier followed up with Chris Grover, Cross Country Program Director, U.S. Ski Team to discuss the regional racing format and changes to the selection criteria for international events.
FasterSkier: Assume no SuperTour, since it has been cancelled.Can you describe the general template for what regional racing might look like? (How many regions? How many races per region?)
Cross Country Program Director, U.S. Ski Team Chris Grover at Mt. Bachelor in Bend, Ore.
Chris Grover: This is really up to the regions and divisions. From the U.S. Ski & Snowboard side, we are monitoring how many venues are currently sanctioning FIS and NRL races, and when they are scheduling them. We will work with each region to make sure that they have some quality races on the calendar spread throughout the season. In particular, we want to make sure there is something scheduled regionally in December and ideally something in the first week of January (in the U.S. Nationals timeframe) that we can potentially use for selections to various teams.
FasterSkier: How does a regional race not turn into a national race? (Any rules limiting field size or limiting athletes from chasing results at a different and presumably weaker region?
Chris Grover: We expect that some of these regional races will be very high quality given the number of talented athletes in the regions (senior, junior, collegiate, etc.). We will not attempt to limit participation at any event to athletes from outside of a region. Travel will be at the discretion of the athlete, coach, parent, etc. and will reflect their comfort levels. Field size may be limited by local and state rules governing gathering size, and of course, those are always changing. If an organizer does come up against a field size restriction, U.S. Ski & Snowboard will work with them to determine the best way to solve it.
FasterSkier: “Although this system may be imperfect, it will allow for stand-out regional and divisional competition results to be recognized and considered for international team selection.”
Referring to the above quote, can you help describe a scenario where a “stand-out” performance in say Alaska is comparable to a performance in the East?
Chris Grover: We know the athletes so we can easily gauge the quality of the field. If the race is a FIS race or an NRL race, we also have points to use in determining field quality. Then we simply look for stand-out performances. For example, someone who easily wins a sprint qualifier, or several athletes with a big gap over the rest of the field, or a junior athlete that is challenging quality senior athletes, etc. We’ll also look for patterns of quality performance by athletes over multiple race days.
FasterSkier: What if an elite team member or team (say skiers from APU), decide to ski in Europe (assuming they are granted visas) to achieve stand-out results. How would those results be considered?
Chris Grover: As in the case of domestic racing, it’s easy to judge the quality of the race by seeing which athletes are in the race and what the FIS points look like. Ideally, we’ll have many athletes racing World Cup and some of these athletes will certainly be selected to more World Cup via discretion and possibly even to the World Championships. We’ll consider all results from both domestic and international competition.
FasterSkier: Who is on the discretionary selection review committee?
Chris Grover: This is a long answer! The committees are different for each event or race series. They are already included in every criterion and are posted on our website. But here is the long portion of our upcoming letter to the community with details the committees:
Selection to the 2021 Oberstdorf Nordic World Championships
We are still waiting for the 2020-21 World Cup Calendar to be finalized in late September before this criterion can be completed. However, beyond the objective selections that will be made from World Cup competition, this criterion still includes the ability to select athletes via discretion from regional and divisional racing conducted across the country in the first half of this season. We will fill our starts at the World Championships selecting athletes via discretion from both World Cup and regional/divisional racing from across the United States during the selection period. This criterion also already includes the use of a Discretionary Selection Review Group to analyze and ratify all discretionary selections:
All discretionary selections will be documented and appropriate forms will be available for record keeping purposes. All discretionary selections will be reviewed by a discretionary selection review group comprised of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard President and CEO, the Chair of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Sport Committee, and the athlete representative from that sport who is a member of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Board of Directors. If the Chair of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Sport Committee feels that he or she needs to be recused from the discretionary selection review group due to a conflict of interest surrounding the selection of an athlete or athletes, they may delegate their role to the Chair of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Coaches’ Subcommittee. If the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Board Athlete Representative is also a currently competing athlete then another athlete, who is not actively competing, will be selected by the Athletes’ Council to be the representative in this group.
Current members of the Discretionary Selection Review Group are:
U.S. Ski & Snowboard President and CEO Tiger Shaw
Chair of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Sport Committee Cami Thompson-Graves
Athlete Representative appointed by the AAC Holly Brooks
Any athlete who feels that they may have had a performance overlooked, also has the ability to petition the Discretionary Selection Review Group directly for discretionary nomination consideration:
Athletes may also petition directly to the Selection Committee to be considered for discretionary selection by submitting, in writing, a petition including any rationale to the U.S. Ski & Snowboard President and CEO (tiger.shaw@usskiandsnowboard.org) before 8:00 AM Mountain time on January 17, 2021.
Selection to the 2020-21 World Cup
The current draft of the 2020-21 World Cup selection criterion can be found here:
Like the Oberstdorf WSC criterion, we are still waiting for the 2020-21 World Cup Calendar to be finalized in late September before this criterion can be completed. Our discretionary World Cup selection methods are already in place, understood by the community, and well-equipped to select a large number of athletes from regional and divisional racing across the country. As you may know, we have created Working Group Guidelines for discretionary selection, and they can also be found at the link above.
The Working Group for discretionary selections is:
Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess U.S. Ski & Snowboard Athlete Rep
Tad Elliott U.S. Ski & Snowboard Athlete Rep
Cami Thompson-Graves U.S. Ski & Snowboard XC Sport Committee Chair / Dartmouth College
Austin Caldwell CU
Dragan Danevski MEA
Erik Flora APU
Joe Haggenmiller CXC
Chris Mallory SVSEF
Pepa Miloucheva CGRP
Pat O’Brien SMS
Dan Weiland SSCV
Kate Barton U.S. Ski Team
Jason Cork U.S. Ski Team
Matt Whitcomb U.S. Ski Team
Chris Grover U.S. Ski Team
Nominations are then reviewed by a discretionary selection review group comprised of:
Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess U.S. Ski & Snowboard Athlete Rep
Tiger Shaw U.S. Ski & Snowboard CEO
Bryan Fish U.S. Ski & Snowboard XC Sport Development Manager
Modification of Development Competition Selection Criteria
Due to the restructuring of the national race calendar, the U.S. Ski Team Cross Country Staff and the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Sport Committee have been modifying all of our development selection criteria, including the World Junior, U23 World Champs, U18 Nordic Nation’s Champs, and Europa Cup (OPA) criteria. As in the World Champs and World Cup criteria, our goal is to ensure that the development-level criteria are viable and effective in a regional and divisional racing model. As you may know, selection to three of these development trips is traditionally conducted almost exclusively at the National Championships. Please see the finalized criteria which have been approved by the Sport Committee:https://usskiandsnowboard.org/crosscountry
Some of the first changes you’ll see in these criteria are in the formatting or general language of the criteria, where we’ve added language that more clearly mirrors that of our World Championship and Olympic criteria.
The main change is that we’ve removed language that limits our ability to use discretion to select the team (in some criterion previously no more than 25% of a team could be selected via discretion). We are now prepared for a regional racing model, and the need to use up to 100% discretion to nominate a team. We will be looking across the country to divisional and regional races to select top performers from different events, as well as potentially selecting several top-performing athletes based on results at WJC/U23s/World Cup, etc. the previous season. But in these scenarios, all or nearly all selections will need to be discretionary. To make this process fair, we’ve created a Discretionary Selection Review Committee, much like we have in place for the World Nordic Championships and the Olympic Winter Games. U.S. Ski Team coaches Bryan Fish and Kate Barton will nominate the different development-level teams as normal, and then send the nominations to the Discretionary Selection Review Committee, who will review the nominations and either approve them or reject them.
Here’s the specific language:
All discretionary selections will be documented and appropriate forms will be available for record keeping purposes. All discretionary selections will be reviewed by a discretionary selection review group comprised of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Program Director, the Chair of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Sport Committee, and the athlete representative from that sport who is a member of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Board of Directors. If the Chair of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Sport Committee feels that he or she needs to be recused from the discretionary selection review group due to a conflict of interest surrounding the selection of an athlete or athletes, they may delegate their role to the Chair of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Coaches’ Subcommittee. If the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Board Athlete Representative is also a currently competing athlete then another athlete, who is not actively competing, will be selected by the Athletes’ Council to be the representative in this group.
We’ve also added language that allows an athlete to petition the Cross Country Program Director (me) directly if they feel that they have been overlooked by the coaches in the nomination process. I will then document that petition and correspondence and take it to the Discretionary Selection Review Committee for discussion and review. This will ensure that all athletes have a chance to have their results considered.
That language is:
Athletes may also petition directly to the Selection Committee to be considered for discretionary selection by submitting, in writing, a petition including any rationale to the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Program Director (chris.grover@usskiandsnowboard.org) before 4:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on January 6, 2021. In the event that U.S. Nationals is cancelled, and the majority or all of the team must be selected via discretion, this petition period may be closed on December 20, 2020, to give nominated athletes time to procure necessary EU entrance visas.
Note that there are differences in selection dates and petition deadlines depending on which criterion it is (i.e. WJC or U18 vs. U23). Also, at this time it is possible that athletes and staff traveling to Europe this winter may need to secure a D visa from a European nation in the Schengen area to gain admittance to the subcontinent, and then observe local entrance testing or quarantine protocols. This is something that U.S. Ski & Snowboard leadership is actively exploring; we’ll know a lot more about these procedures by the time we nominate these development teams this winter. The good news is that we already are finding avenues to get into Europe.
As we look to regional racing to make discretionary selections to the WJC, U23, and U18 trips, we recognize that it is important to have regional representatives review the possible nominations prior to sending them to the Discretionary Selection Review Committee. Our goal is to make sure that no athlete from any division is overlooked and no outstanding local or divisional performance is missed. To accomplish this, we will be sending potential nominations to the divisional representatives listed below for feedback before nominating those teams. Although these Working Group members are not voting, they will be able to share opinions, raise concerns, and bring athletes and performances to the attention of the U.S. Ski Team coaching staff and the Discretionary Selection Review Committee.
