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Most of the athletes competing Saturday on cross-country skiing’s World Cup circuit in Minneapolis arrived at the venue on a bus, chartered by organizers to carry racers from the official event hotel.
Then, there was Adam Witkowski, 24, who rolled up with a pile of his former college teammates in an SUV blasting their favorite pre-race pump-up music: Cardi B’s WAP.
Witkowski had driven eight hours to Minnesota the day before, where he was planning to sleep in a basement with those teammates before coming out to a city park just to watch the international field. Instead, with just over 12 hours to prepare, he was called up to compete—on loaner skis and a borrowed race suit.
“He took my room, so I had to sleep in the basement—I got demoted a little bit,” said Colin Freed, 21, who hosted Witkowski on Friday night.
Witkowski, who trains with the Vermont-based SMS T2 team, was one of the U.S. alternates for Saturday’s sprint—a reserve who competes only if another athlete calls in injured or sick.
The World Cup is usually held at European venues—the Minneapolis event is the first in the U.S. in 23 years—so it’s somewhat unusual for Americans to have last-minute substitutions.
But the circuit’s rules give extra start positions to the U.S. when the World Cup travels to North America, and the team has had 24 starters each day in Minneapolis and at events earlier this month in Canada. So withdrawals have been more common—including one last week that came with less than 12 hours notice.
Witkowski had been hoping to qualify to race in Minneapolis, and his parents had even reserved a hotel room far in advance.
But this season has not gone as planned. He’s struggled with sickness, mental health and even a wisdom tooth infection, and he didn’t make the team.
His parents decided to cancel their hotel reservations, he said.
“But then they couldn’t cancel their hotel room, so my dad’s like, ‘We might as well go—it’s only a 15-hour drive,’ and they showed up yesterday,” Witkowski said Saturday.
Witkowski’s preparation for the world’s highest level of cross-country ski racing was not, exactly, by the book. This was his birthday week, so there was some celebration at his favorite bar Wednesday in Michigan, where he went to college.
Then, he did an interval workout Friday morning before the eight-hour drive to Minnesota, where he attended an SMS T2 function and a coach got a text that Witkowski “might be starting,” he said. He was back at Freed’s house, messing around with hockey gear in the basement, when the confirmation came in.
“We treated him like a king,” Freed said. “We ordered him two pizzas and played some NBA 2K, and that was his preparation for the night.”
In the morning, Witkowski took a quick jog, ate some oatmeal, then loaded into the Chevrolet Suburban with his friends and drove to the race trails.
“He just gets out and we’re honking and making a scene, ‘Go USA!’ And everybody there is like, ‘yeah!’ It was sweet,” Freed said.
Witkowski’s parents ended up getting to watch their son line up to race against Olympic medalists.
“We were down in the grandstand, watching the start and everything, waving our flags and yelling really loud,” said Dianne Witkowski, Adam’s mom.
Witkowski finished 53rd out of 72 in the sprint’s qualifying round. But in a three-minute race, he was less than four seconds from finishing inside the top 30, who advance into a series of head-to-head knockout heats.
And the experience of racing in front of thousands of American fans, plus his college teammates, was one that he will not forget, he said.
“It’s the best atmosphere I’ve ever experienced in my life — it’s up there with some big concerts that I’ve been to. The whole way around, someone’s just cheering your name, and it’s hard to get tired,” he said. “My legs really flooded by the top of the hill, but there were people on the downhills to make sure that you kept going.”
He joined his friends afterward to watch the rest of the race from the sidelines. “Why not?” he said. “It’s a beautiful day.”
(Photo: Modica/NordicFocus)
Nathaniel Herz
Nat Herz is an Alaska-based journalist who moonlights for FasterSkier as an occasional reporter and podcast host. He was FasterSkier's full-time reporter in 2010 and 2011.
