Erica Laven – FasterSkier

Feature News Racing US Nationals US Ski Team

U.S. Nationals, Day 3: Kramer thrills Anchorage crowd with first Alaskan win at Kincaid Park

Nathaniel HerzJanuary 5, 2025

ANCHORAGE — Alaskans like to think of their home state as the center of American cross-country skiing. Minnesotans might quibble. But consider the more than 200 volunteers who turned out to help host the U.S. National Championships in Anchorage this week, and the dozens of local athletes who signed up to race. There was just one problem: Through five of six of the championship events, athletes from Norway, Sweden, Colorado and Idaho had denied the...

Feature News Racing US Nationals US Ski Team

US Nationals Day 2: Jager stops chasing his friends and breaks through, while multi-sport Smith takes women’s title

Nathaniel HerzJanuary 4, 2025

ANCHORAGE — Luke Jager spent most of his cross-country ski career training and racing with a tight group of talented, up-and-coming American men — the first ever to win a gold medal in the relay at the World Junior Ski Championships. Two of Jager’s teammates on that relay squad, Gus Schumacher and Ben Ogden, have made the leap to the top-level, international World Cup, where both have collected podiums in the past two seasons —...

Feature News US Nationals

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

Nathaniel HerzJanuary 2, 2025

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...