Chris Hecker and the Moment the Sun Came Out

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If you are a parent or coach and have been responsible for waxing skis for an important race — a state championship, a Junior National Qualifier — you know how stressful that can be. Now imagine it’s the morning of the Team Sprint at the Olympics, and you are responsible for Gus Schumacher’s skis. Feel your blood pressure rising yet?

Welcome to the life of Chris Hecker, the US Cross-Country Ski Team service tech who leads the glide program and is Schumacher’s personal tech. Hecker, at this point, knows Schumacher well and that he has logged nearly 1,000 hours of training annually for years, and that he has dreamed of this specific day since the end of last season.

“One of the most stressful moments actually came [on race day], about 45 minutes before the Men’s Team Sprint. I had selected the race skis for Gus and felt confident in the decision. At the time, it was clearly the best pair for the conditions.”

Everything seemed to be playing out as Hecker had hoped, but then everything changed.

“Then, about five minutes later, the sun came out. The course started to break down and got noticeably wetter. I still had a few minutes before beginning to wax, so I decided to run one more quick test. In the ten minutes between tests, the two top pairs kept getting closer and closer in performance.”

These are the moments when experience, confidence, and a little tech magic can make or break a race. “In the end, I chose what was technically Gus’s second-best pair at that moment,” Hecker recalled. “As more athletes skied and the temperature continued to rise, there’s a good chance those skis actually became the faster option anyway.”

Hecker was quick to point out that “Gus and Ben were on another level. Regardless of which skis Gus raced on, I’m confident the result would have been the same. They were [racing] on another level.”

We may never really know, but maybe that decision did have something to do with Schumacher and Ben Ogden winning silver in the Team Sprint? For Hecker, it was a choice that was actually years in the making.

Guided by family and noted mentors

Hecker grew up in a family of skiers; his father, Mike, was a Pelton ski and Exel pole rep in the Midwest and had Chris on skis when he was just nine months old, “shuffling around and falling down.” Mike and his wife would pack the entire family, including Chris and his older brother Jeremy, and spend weekends traveling to different ski shows and venues. The parents told Chris and Jeremy it was their ‘vacation’, but in reality, it was just a family deeply invested in both the industry and the lifestyle.

“So we were skiing from a really, really early age, and then we got into racing,” said Chris. When Chris was in middle school and high school, he raced for Anoka High School, in Minnesota, a northern suburb of Minneapolis. After graduating in 2013, he headed to St. Scholastica in Duluth, where he raced for three years under Chad Salmela and, in his senior year, under Maria Stuber.

After graduating from St. Scholastica in 2017, Hecker took a job with Rex Ski Wax for the 2018 / 2019 season.

“I worked with them for a year, spent a year on the World Cup being their racing service manager and research and development, kind of lead testing for all the new products, testing all the old products, and then walking around and working with the teams and saying, What do you need from us?”

Hecker made himself available to World Cup teams, asking which products he could help with and which they thought were working well and which needed improvement. He continued this work for three full seasons before starting with the US Ski Team in 2020; this is now his sixth full season with the team.

Two brothers… “Give me something weird.”

Chris’s older brother, Jeremy, has kept the family tradition alive too, serving as a full-time employee of Pioneer Midwest and, in addition, as the domestic rep and race service lead for Rex ski wax.

“We talk multiple times a week, and we get really deep into the weeds,” says Chris, who gives his brother lots of respect and praise. “He’s a really good wax tech, and sometimes you just need an idea from an outside source.”

So when waxing domestically, Jeremy will ask his brother at the World Cup, “Give me something weird, give me something random to go out and test,” because he has all the normal, routine choices down.

“He’ll always ask me for one random suggestion to try out for some of those race weekends. And sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

For the most part, the two brothers talk about local races and how Jeremy can better support local skiers, since the products Chris is working on for the World Cup aren’t available to domestic skiers.

“But it is also fun to talk about, when we have a really good day, like in Goms, or a really good day, like in the Val de Fiemme, on the final hill climb.”

When that happens, Jeremy can spot it on the livestream and will call up Chris and ask, “Oh, what’d you guys do differently!”

A lot more than two pairs of skis… like over 100

In addition to being Schumacher’s personal tech, Chris Hecker is also responsible for Novie McCabe when she is on the World Cup and when she raced at the Olympics.

In addition, Hecker is responsible for managing both athletes’ ski fleets. For McCabe, that means 38 pairs of skis and another 65 pairs for Schumacher, but even that can be variable, “like, Gus gets a ski [from Rossignol] maybe every other weekend or every third weekend because they’re always coming out with new prototypes and new skis.”

McCabe is a Fischer-sponsored athlete, and they are admittedly a bit more controlled on allocating skis, but if Hecker and McCabe decide to “knock out a bad ski,” they can give it back to them and get another for her quiver.

The new Rossignol skis arriving can introduce many more variables for Schumacher and Hecker to consider. As Hecker says, “ it can be new base material, new grinds, new core materials… the construction of the ski can be different.”

Every little tweak has a purpose, “maybe it’s an easier kicking classic ski, maybe it’s a faster base material on a state ski.” As Hecker continues… “Maybe it’s a different laminate on a zero ski,” and what becomes quickly obvious is that all of these subtle variations make for endless possibilities.

Building a rapport

Hecker and Schumacher have been working together for two years now. Last season, Hecker was not responsible for another athlete, so he could focus on Schumacher, and the two quickly bonded.

From the beginning, “working with him was really fun,” said Hecker . “We were trying to build a rapport as a new athlete and tech combination between the two of us.”

Schumacher’s previous tech had left for the Swiss Biathlon Team, but Hecker and Schumacher found a lot of success last season with several top 10s and a podium in Falun, Sweden. As they started this season, they got right back to work.

“Then starting this year, it was like jumping right back into it.” The two had a full year of experience to build on, and the dialogue and descriptions began to get more dialed, which is critical in the relationship between a tech and an athlete.

Hecker began to know what Schumacher “likes for kick in skis, what feeling and stability he likes on skate skis,” and the two have been able to build that “innate rapport” which leads to a trusting relationship.

As Hecker puts it, “[Schumacher] is one of the most astute athletes that I’ve worked with. He always comes with a question or two on race day. ‘Do you think we should try testing over on this side of the course instead of that side of the course, because I’m really trying to execute a plan here. Can we try focusing on glide for this half of the course, and maybe do a couple of glide outs here?”

Hecker continues to describe how impressed he is with Schumacher as an athlete:

“And so he’s always equally thinking as a wax tech and as an athlete when we’re out skiing together, and he’s really trying to dissect where the best places to test are. And it’s not just my job to revive the skis for him, but it’s also his job to pick the correct skis for him. And so he needs to know almost as much as I do about his skis and what is working and why it’s working, because ultimately we have to come to the decision together. He is racing, not me, and so we have a really cool relationship together to kind of pick and choose what we want to race on as a team.”

Learning what he likes instead of what you like

At this level, picking the right ski for an athlete is not just about what is fastest. It is also about picking a ski that responds the way the athlete prefers, and that matches the way a skier races.

For Schumacher, that means a ski that is “extremely stable and forward tracking.” Hecker knows the way Schumacher skis, and how “when he pushes off to the left or to the right, and he goes fully onto one ski, he wants it to go straight.”

“He doesn’t want the tip to move at all. He just wants it to point and shoot straight.”

That isn’t a characteristic Hecker is personally always looking for in a ski, but he knows that’s what Schumacher wants. “So when I’m looking and testing without him some days, I say, ‘Okay, this ski is for sure going to be moving on because this feels better for him.’ And so we kind of have differing opinions sometimes on feeling, because I like a slightly different ski.”

For Hecker, though, what is most important is that he understands not just what will ski fast, but also what will work best for Schumacher in different conditions, based on how he will race.

“On a really firm course, he’ll look for this ski that just goes straight. And I think the reason why he likes that is that he will free skate a lot and likes being able to just push with his legs. And he’s so strong at that, and so relaxed when he does it, and so he can conserve a lot of energy.

So it’s a really cool technique change from him, because I don’t think a lot of people utilize that on the men’s field. You see a lot of people always V2ing, and you’ll see him kind of free skating in the middle of the pack, just relaxing his upper body and giving half of his body a rest.”

Inside the wax truck: how race morning actually works

On a stable day, glide testing is fairly methodical.

“We usually have four fleets of skis that go out,” Hecker explained. “Eight structure skis, eight paraffin skis, eight topping skis, and four to six application skis.”

Before any athlete even gets to the venue, there is what the service team calls a “thinking period.” Jason [Cork], Tim [Baucom], Hecker, and anyone else in the truck who wants to join in, gather around a table with wax options.

“We’ll put maybe 10 to 12 waxes in,” Hecker said. “Eli [Brown] might give us a wax. Oleg [Ragilo], our head of service, might give us a wax. Bernie [Nelson] might give us a wax. Then at the end of the table, it’s on me to narrow it down.”

Ten or twelve become eight after the team removes the overlapping options. Some are eliminated because something similar tested better earlier in the week. Predictability and durability matter as much as outright speed.

Structure follows a similar pattern. Baucom pulls 10 or 12 patterns before narrowing to eight that fit the day’s snow. The brainstorming narrows the options, then the skis go outside for testing.

When results come back, they’re measured in inches and sometimes just two or three separate first from third.

“If there are three that are really close,” Hecker said, “we might race on third place. Even if it’s two inches behind.”

Because two inches in early testing might not matter if the wax is more durable, safer, or better, as temperatures rise and the track grows glazy under the skis of a throng of World Cup skiers.

“It’s up to us to make a call,” Hecker said. “This is the wax we’re going to run today, even though it may not have won.”

Once the athletes start warming up and testing skis, the techs have to add that feedback to the equation as well. Often, Hecker has one ear tuned to Gus’s feedback and the other to the incoming results.

“When Gus is racing, a lot of these tests are going on,” he said. “I have to have my head on both testing skis with Gus, but also on the results that are coming in.”

A call might come mid-session: pair 47 instead of pair 45. At this level, it’s small changes, constant recalibration, and decisions layered on decisions.

For spectators, the race begins at the gun. For the glide team, it began hours earlier — likely in the dark — and never really stops until the racers reach the first checkpoint in the race and the team knows whether their choices put them in the race or not.

“It’s definitely the hardest part of this job.”

For Hecker, this will be his last season as part of the US World Cup service team.

“It’s been a thing that I decided at the end of the year last year,” Hecker said. “I gave a fairly big heads up to the team in Bend in April.”

This season marks the end of a third Olympic cycle for Hecker, but it is not that moments like the Olympic Team Sprint are wearing him down. That is not the hardest part of the job. The hardest part of the job is being away from his wife, Katie, family, and his dog.

“It’s time to be at home with my wife and be more with my family and be back at home with my dog. And, yeah, right now it is time to retire after this year, and we’ll see what happens after that.”

Like other staff and coaches on the US Ski Team, Hecker was able to sneak home twice so far this season, but those opportunities are few and far between.

“Yeah, it’s, it’s definitely the hardest part of this job, not that waxing isn’t hard, but being away from your family, being away from loved ones for so long. It’s really hard.”

This decision wasn’t made lightly because there are many things about being on the World Cup that Hecker will miss. Most significantly, the US Ski Team has done an amazing job creating a unified family.

“It’s hard because this team is like a second family. Being away from these guys for long stretches is tough. I love working with them. When you like the person you’re rooming with every weekend, that means something. So leaving the team feels like leaving family.

But I know it’s the right decision for me. I’m getting tired. There was a time when traveling to Europe was exciting, going to new venues, seeing new places. That was fun.

Now it’s, ‘Okay, we’re going back to Val di Fiemme. We’re going back to Oberhof. We’re driving the wax truck to Oslo again.’ Last year, I realized I wasn’t looking forward to the travel anymore. I’d be excited once I got there, but the constant moving was wearing on me. That’s when I knew it might be time.”

On another level

When the sun came out in Italy last Wednesday morning, it forced a decision. A choice was made to go with a slower pair of skis, but that decision was not a whim; it was not a swing for a bases-loaded grand slam to win the World Series. It was choosing an option that presented itself through a trusted process, through seasons of tested routines, and having the experience to trust instinct.

By the time Gus Schumacher and Ben Ogden pushed off the line in the Team Sprint, the work had already been done, in the dark, in the truck, in inches measured on a test lane. Structures narrowed from twelve to eight, waxes debated and eliminated.

The silver medal will always belong to the athletes. They were, as Hecker put it, “on another level.”

But long before Schumacher chased down Johannes Høsflot Klæbo on the anchor leg, before the crowd roared in excitement, before the final sprint up the Zorzi Climb, there was a moment when the sun came out, and a technician had to make a decision.

And one detail to remember when the story of the 2026 Olympic Team Sprint is retold for years to come is that the United States service team, on that day, was also ‘on another level.’

 

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