Schumacher and Ogden claim an Olympic silver built on community

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TESERO, ITALY — After Gus Schumacher and Ben Ogden on Wednesday won only the third-ever U.S. men’s medal in cross-country skiing at the Olympics, one of the biggest grins in the stadium was on the face of their teammate, JC Schoonmaker.

Schoonmaker, who lives in Anchorage and trains with Schumacher at the Alaska Pacific University Club Program, was basking in his teammates’ silver glow. 

But he was also already starting to dream about when he and Schumacher return home to Alaska, medal in tow.

“There’s going to be so many juniors out skiing, just so hyped. And that’s the coolest part, I think,” Schoonmaker said.

Schoonmaker, 25, had his own standout performance at the Olympics, finishing eighth in the individual sprint last week. He said he was himself inspired by the 2018 gold claimed by Americans Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins — underscoring how medals can plant the seeds of future medals. 

“I liked Nordic skiing,” Schoonmaker said. “But watching that, I was like, ‘I need this.’ That gave me such a drive.”

Eight years later, Schoonmaker’s teammates will be bringing their own hardware to their homes at far ends of the country — Schumacher to Alaska, and Ogden to Vermont.

And unlike Diggins, who is retiring at the end of the season, Ogden, 26, and Schumacher are still just getting started — with long careers, and likely more medals, still in front of them. 

Schumacher has spoken openly about competing through the 2034 Olympics, which will take place on U.S. soil in Utah.

“You just see these guys, the energy building,” Erik Flora, Schumacher’s coach in Anchorage, said in an interview in Italy after Wednesday’s race. “You have this momentum now.”

Both American medal winners were talented juniors, with Schumacher featured in news coverage at age 13. And early in their careers, each man found success in the events where they perhaps had more natural talent — Schumacher in longer distance races, and Ogden in shorter-distance sprints.

The team sprint event that the Americans medaled in Wednesday is unusual in the way it demands both the speed that’s Ogden’s strength, and the fitness that Schumacher is known for. The two athletes, and their coaches, said that the podium performance was a reflection of focused training that Schumacher and Ogden did in an effort to become more well-rounded.

The work Ogden and Schumacher did to put themselves in medal contention Wednesday didn’t happen overnight, though. It took years, with strong teammates pushing them and elite coaches to advise them — building on a foundation of years more of junior racing and playing on skis with their local clubs, said Matt Whitcomb, a longtime coach of the U.S. team.

“It’s just not about this last year’s training plan,” he said. “It’s about the very first coach, the support their parents put in, their siblings, the camaraderie there with their friends.”

Which is one of the things that Whitcomb and other team members say is great about winning an Olympic medal: the chance to share it with everyone who pitched in along the way.

Ogden, in an interview after his first medal, described feeling anxious as he worked with a press officer to draft an initial Instagram post: What if he forgot to mention someone?

“It’s so overwhelming to think of all the people you want to thank,” he said. “When the time comes, you’re just like, ‘Oh, my God. This is too many. It’s too hard.”

He added: “There were so many people that went into that success.”

Schumacher described feeling the same kind of gratitude as he crossed the finish line Wednesday — for a chance to share his elation with the many teammates, family members and others who were in Italy to witness it in person. 

Flora, his coach, said that “maybe the best thing about this Olympics is all the people that it touches.” 

“Everyone that’s been involved. Everyone that’s a fan of skiing, all the coaches that worked with all these people. All the athletes that are buddies and helped push — it’s just a very collective good feeling,” Flora said.

The Americans still have a few weeks of racing left on the international circuit after the Olympics close Sunday, capped with a final weekend of World Cup racing on home snow in Lake Placid, New York.

Then, after a chance to celebrate the medals and a few weeks away from training, it will be back to work — likely alongside newly inspired teammates.

 “Everyone’s going to be so pumped and motivated and just firing, ready to go,” said Schoonmaker, the Olympian who trains with Schumacher in Anchorage. “It’s just going to be sick.”

Fed by that kind of energy, the Americans were eager to talk about how the results might look different, and better, by the next Games. Schumacher’s charge up the final hill, where he largely kept pace with Norwegian superstar Johannes Høsflot Klæbo — who’s undefeated in five races in Italy — had his coach’s head spinning.

“To see him put his head down and try to chase him, and he was holding his own, was unbelievable,” Flora said. “That he could fight with Klæbo in the future? I think so.”

Flora added: “I think he’s just going to get better. We’re just starting to see what the potential is.”

 

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