One familiar face and one new one notch wins as U.S. Nationals opens in Alaska

ANCHORAGE — Kate Oldham wasn’t expecting to win Thursday’s opening race of the U.S. National Championships.

It was her first competition of the season, after focusing on training in December, and she’d never placed better seventh at previous national championships.

Her coach at Montana State University, Adam St. Pierre, had other ideas about the 22-year-old senior — though he was keeping them to himself.

“I have been predicting Kate as a dark horse national champion for a couple of weeks now,” St. Pierre said. “But not talking about it with her, because she races best when expectations are low.”

Oldham, St. Pierre said, is a superb glider on her skis, with a “killer instinct” — which apparently served her well Thursday on the rolling, blazing fast, 10-kilometer course at Anchorage’s Kincaid Park.

Oldham won her first-ever national championship, edging local favorite Kendall Kramer of University of Alaska Fairbanks to win the individual-start, time trial-style skate event by 11 seconds.

University of Utah’s Erica Laven was third, 28 seconds behind.

“I did not wake up thinking that was going to happen today,” Oldham said afterward, as she fended off bear hugs from teammates and rivals. “It’s surprising. But it’s also awesome, and makes me cry happy tears.”

If Oldham’s win fell somewhere between a surprise and a shock, John Steel Hagenbuch’s victory in the men’s race was hardly unexpected — though that event was much tighter.

Hagenbuch, a 23-year-old senior at Dartmouth College, already has several national titles to his name, along with solid results last season on the international World Cup circuit.

Hagenbuch held off Andreas Kirkeng, a Norwegian racing for the University of Denver, by a fraction of a second. Walker Hall, who races for the University of Utah, was third, 15 seconds behind.

Thursday’s races were the first of three national championship events at Kincaid Park, with two more to follow over the weekend — plus a non-championship race next week.

While temperatures in Anchorage have dipped recently, to single digits Thursday morning, a rainy, low-snow December required extra work from organizers to pull the races off. Kramer, in fact, was part of a battalion of volunteers, including numerous racers, who spent some of last weekend shoveling clean snow onto dirty patches along the course.

Kramer said she planned a long ski workout that day and kept her watch going while she pitched in on a little shoveling.

“It was kind of like playing in the snow,” she said. “I don’t want to take too much credit, because I wasn’t out there for the whole four hours people were doing it. But I am very grateful, and I was inspired by all of the people who were there.”

Kramer, 22, was in the hunt for the win Thursday, with coaches telling her at one point during the race that she was in the lead.

But Oldham had the fastest times for each of her two five-kilometer laps, according to official splits. Laven was just one-tenth of a second behind her at the halfway point, though she faded on her second lap.

Oldham grew up in Colorado and spent her holiday break from school training at home, taking advantage of “incredible skiing” in Aspen instead of entering season-opening races, she said.

That plan is geared toward not peaking too soon, so she can notch her best results at the collegiate national championships toward the end of the season, in March. That plan made Thursday’s win even more of a “pleasant surprise,” Oldham said.

“I didn’t really sharpen for it,” she said. “It’s an intimidating way to start the season, because you kind of have no idea (what level) you are coming in. But it’s also really nice to go home and enjoy the holiday and just focus on training.”

Hagenbuch’s approach to the season has been sharply different: He began racing more than a month ago, on the World Cup circuit.

But after a breakout season last year — one in which he won a bronze medal at the World Under-23 Championships and also recorded a top-15 finish in a World Cup race — this year’s efforts have been uneven.

Hagenbuch started the season at World Cups in Finland and Norway, but failed to crack the top 30. Then, he returned to the U.S. and notched four straight podiums on the domestic circuit.

One challenge he faced in Europe, Hagenbuch said Thursday, was that he was having a breathing problem that appears to be a condition called exercise-induced laryngeal obstruction — where, he said, his larynx and vocal cords “seize up and close” during races.

The first time it happened, in Finland, was “definitely pretty scary — I couldn’t breath really at all, and I couldn’t speak for 15 minutes after the race. Couldn’t say a word.”

“It’s kind of multifaceted in what causes it, but I’ve been working through it and trying to figure it out and keep all those muscles relaxed, because it isn’t something you can really address by taking medication,” he said. “It’s something that has to do with controlling your muscles and reducing your stress.”

Hagenbuch said he had a little bit of breathing trouble Thursday, but managed to keep it under control.

He had the fastest first lap of the five-kilometer course, giving him a slight edge over Kirkeng.

But on the second lap, the Norwegian started creeping back.

A 24-year-old senior studying finance at the University of Denver, it’s unlikely Kirkeng would be in contention for a national championship in his home nation, the global cradle of cross-country skiing.

But in the U.S., it’s hardly unusual for European athletes to dethrone their American competitors at marquee races: In fact, Kirkeng won the 10-kilometer distance race at the U.S. National Championships in each of the past two years.

As Hagenbuch neared the finish line, coaches along the course were giving him split times that showed Kirkeng closing the gap — even though Hagenbuch had started the race conservatively.

“I underestimated how hard it was going to get,” Hagenbuch said. “I thought I was going to lose it — I was hearing the splits go from eight seconds up on Andreas, to six seconds to three seconds to even.”

Kirkeng skied his last lap four-and-a-half seconds faster than Hagenbuch. But in the end, that wasn’t quite enough: Hagenbuch’s first lap was five-and-a-half seconds faster than Kirkeng’s, and he held on to win by eight-tenths of a second.

“The margins were not on my side today. But that’s how racing is,” Kirkeng said afterward. “And it’s been the other way around a couple of times.”

Kirkeng is likely in the twilight of his career — he said he expects to retire after this season and, hopefully, find a finance job on Wall Street or in Boston. If not, he’ll probably return to Norway and enjoy more time with his family.

Hagenbuch’s career, meanwhile, is still taking off.

He said he’s looking forward to the rest of the races in Anchorage, which he expects to follow with more competitions in the U.S. — domestic SuperTour events and the college circuit, culminating in the NCAA championships.

Going back to the international World Cup circuit, he added, probably doesn’t make sense this year, especially after he missed substantial stretches of school while he traveled to races last season.

But even if this year’s European campaign didn’t pan out, Hagenbuch said, he’s not disheartened.

“I know I’m in good shape, and I had a good season of training — the hay is in the barn, if you will,” Hagenbuch said. “It’s just going to take some time for that to show itself.”

Complete Results: 2025 US Senior Nationals

U.S. Nationals continues Saturday at Kincaid Park with a classic sprint. Stay tuned for more coverage.