Race day at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah offers a microcosm for the role the venue has played in US skiing. The once, and possibly future, Olympic venue is consistent, stark, and starkly consistent in its conditions, its terrain, and in the quality of the events the crew at the Soldier Hollow Nordic Center put on. The typical SoHo day starts dark, dry and frigid, before the sun crests the Wasatch Mountains and gives way to blue skies, t-shirts on course, and klister on wax benches. The course is undulating, pitched, and constantly rolling. And the venue, which just twenty years ago was cut into a long, open gully, on the Eastern Slope of the Wasatch ahead of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, has become the US ski racing communities perennial favorite place to meet up to push themselves, each other, and sport of nordic skiing, forward.
The first day of the 2024 US Cross Country Ski National Championships (colloquially “US Nationals,” or “Senior Nationals”) were classic SoHo. A field of over 400 athletes split between the Men’s and Women’s fields opened the week with a 10 k classic individual start. The three lap, 3.3 km course was a total challenge as a classic race, requiring skiers to be strong within all the nuances of striding, double-pole, and kick-double-pole. Each lap began with a climb “up the hollow,” a consistent pitch that in turn rewarded skiers who could apply consistent power across a double-pole at the bottom of the hill, and a long stride near the top. Then, the course horseshoed into a fast rolling section of the venue’s sprint loop (to be raced Thursday), before finishing with another climb up “cabin hill,” another, steeper consistent pitch that rewarded quick-tempoed striding, and, on increasingly warm artificial snow throughout the day, a well-selected klister from the wax cabin. It was a day that leaned into all the variables that make ski racing unique, underlying results that stand as a testament to the complex nature of putting together a single, great performance.
When the Women’s field began, the sun had just peeked over the Hollow, which led to fairly rapidly changing kick conditions over the course of the start order as the course warmed. Early pace-setters included Nina Schamberger (University of Utah) along with her teammates Karianne Olsvik Dengerud and Sydney Palmer-Leger. Schamberger would prove the top junior (U20) on the day, finishing seventh Overall, while Palmer-Leger and Dengerud would finish second and third, respectively.
As the busy field of racers continued to wind its way up the hollow though, a blue and gold suit with bib 46 flashed by. Over the radio of Montana State Bobcats Assistant Coach Lizzie Larkins, a voice reported that Bobcats sophomore, Tilde Baangman, had the fastest split through lap 1. Baangman didn’t relent through the rest of the race, and ended up topping the field by nearly 20 seconds over Palmer-Leger. That made things official, with Baangman taking home her first win at Senior Nationals, and Palmer-Leger (second Overall) the American national champion. For Palmer-Leger, the result marked her first national championship, one-upping a second place in last year’s 20 k classic mass start in Houghton, Michigan.
By the time the Men’s field began, Soldier Hollow had warmed up and the snow had started to transform. Whereas in the morning, there were klisters and hard wax covers and hybrids in between, the conditions had definitively crossed above freezing and into klister territory. APU skier Joe Davies set the lead pace. His 23:53.1 10 k would stand as the benchmark as the top contenders continued to push through the course before University of Denver’s Andreas Kirkeng started to trade splits with Davies. Through the entirety of Kirkeng’s race, times swung back and forth between the pair, before Kirkeng burst across the finish line to post the day’s best time of 23:50.8, just 2.3 seconds ahead of Davies. For Kirkeng, the Classic result improved upon a ninth overall in last year’s 20 k classic mass start at Senior Nationals in Houghton, Michigan, and gave him his second win at US Senior Nationals. Kirkeng, who hails from Norway, was followed in the Overall by Joe Davies, who skis under the flag of Great Britain as a British-Canadian skier, which made Luke Jager (third overall) the American national champion. For Jager, the result marked his second national championship in a distance classic race in as many years, and his third national championship Overall after also winning last year’s Classic Sprint. Jager was joined on the American podium by second place (fourth Overall) Peter Wolter (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation), and third place (seventh Overall) David Norris (Team Birkie). The top junior skier was Dartmouth Ski Team’s Jack Lange, in 17th Overall.
Action continues at US Nationals tomorrow, with the country’s best Para-skiers highlighted in a Sit Ski Sprint. That same sprint course will then play host to a Skate Sprint on Thursday. SoHo looks to be keeping to its trademark weather pattern ahead of the sprint racing action, with low lows and high highs in the forecast. Then though, there’s the possibility of snow. That might not just add to the excitement of the racing come Friday’s Skate Mass Start, but also serve to lift the spirits of the US ski community gathered from all corners of a continent that’s struggled with natural snowfall this year.
Full 10 k Classic RESULTS
Tobias Albrigsten contributed photos to this coverage of US Nationals. A full gallery from Tuesday’s 10 k Classic is available on his website here, and you can follow him on Instagram @UntraceableG.
Ben Theyerl
Ben Theyerl was born into a family now three-generations into nordic ski racing in the US. He grew up skiing for Chippewa Valley Nordic in his native Eau Claire, Wisconsin, before spending four years racing for Colby College in Maine. He currently mixes writing and skiing while based out of Crested Butte, CO, where he coaches the best group of high schoolers one could hope to find.
