SuperTour Finals: Supertour club relay FUN!
Your 2026 Club Relay podium (L-R): APU 1, Birkie 1, GRP 1.
The word that came up in seemingly every conversation among racers, spectators, techs, organizers around the stadiums today? Fun.
Fun, fast conditions.
Fun competition format.
Fun, dynamic racing, as legs go off the rails or charges from the back are mounted.
Fun twisty downhills.
Fun crowd.
Fun citizen’s race to open the day.
Just plain fun.
The course was as fast and firm as it was spring-like and variable on Friday – a dizzying, but welcome switch over.
APU 1 leads the scramble leg.
While we can only speculate on the amount of fun Team Birkie 1 (Alayna Sonnesyn, Kevin Bolger, Luci Anderson and Zak Ketterson) was having, they were definitely doing it fast. They led wire to wire over APU 1 (Kendall Kramer, Zanden McMullen, Novie McCabe and Gus Schumacher), and in the official standings their times were either 1st or 4th when one analyzed for gender across all the legs with Bolger and Anderson posting the fastest men’s and women’s leg times respectively and their teammates Ketterson and Sonesyn grabbing 4th.
Kevin Bolger of Team Birkie 1 leads Max Mahaffy and Zanden McMullen early on leg 2.
Team Birkie 1’s dominance is worth noting given the stranglehold that APU and SMS/T2 have had on this event among post-collegiate teams since its inception. It appears as though Team Birkie is only the 3rd post-collegiate club to take the mixed relay title (Utah took it in 2023 – in APU and SMS’ absences).
Anderson tags Ketterson.
“The future is here!” Luci Anderson joked when asked about breaking the streak. Alayna Sonnesyn was quick to jump in, “We were all born and raised in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and now we’re all back and representing the Midwest. And it’s a good spot! I sometimes think it’s under the radar.” Anderson agreed: “People sometimes look down on the Midwest as a training area, but I’ve trained there my whole life, my whole ski career, and it’s working out for me!”
Keller-Miller tags Jack Young out on leg 4.
APU 1 was 2nd all day, aside from the handoff into leg 3 after Craftsbury’s Brian Bushey’s leg briefly pushed the pride of the Last Frontier into bronze medal position. Novie McCabe’s 3rd leg pulled the team back into runner-up status and Schumacher sealed silver.
Ketterson had tons of time to celebrate.
The home team Craftsbury Green Racing Project 1 matched their previous best result (as best as anyone can tell) in the club relay with a 3rd place. The Sprigs rode a standout leg by Bushey as mentioned above – the 2nd fastest men’s leg today behind Bolger – and combined that we strong performances by Margie Freed, Michaela Keller-Miller and the rare (for 2026) race for Jack Young longer than a sprint. Freed was stoked with the day and the result: “Super awesome! We have the best team morale and that was really going for us. It’s really special to have everyone at home and have all our best friends and family here cheering us on, we love Craftsbury!”
The 2026 relay champs: Team Birkie.
While they weren’t on the official relay scoring, some interesting performances from the mixed teams legs are worth mentioning. Namely: don’t sleep on the Canadian women or Will Koch. Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt was the fastest woman on leg 1, and posted the 4th fastest women’s leg overall. Teammate Katie Weaver was 6th fastest on leg 3, and 9th overall. SVSEF’s Will Koch posted the 5th fastest men’s leg of all participants.
Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt in the mix on the scramble leg.
We were also thrilled to host the NENSA Club relays today. Thirty-three teams competed with divisions for mixed teams, single gender and age totals (over and under 100 years combined age). Find those results at the same place as the Supertour results.
Thanks to the competitors, all the volunteers and the fans that came out today – hope to see everyone again tomorrow!
[Here’s the top 10 fastest legs from today’s race that we referenced above:]
Men’s relay leg times
| FirstName | LastName | TeamName | Bib | Team Finish | Gender | LegNumber | LegTime | LegRankWithinLeg | LegTimeRankGender | Official team? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kevin | Bolger | TEAM BIRKIE 1 | 2 | 1 | Men | 2 | 00:10:31.5 | 1 | 1 | |
| Brian | Bushey | CRAFTSBURY SKI CLUB | 7 | 3 | Men | 2 | 00:10:34.9 | 2 | 2 | |
| Zanden | McMullen | APU NORDIC SKI CENTER 1 | 1 | 2 | Men | 2 | 00:10:35.2 | 3 | 3 | |
| Zak | Ketterson | TEAM BIRKIE 1 | 2 | 1 | Men | 4 | 00:10:35.6 | 1 | 4 | |
| Will | Koch | SVSEF X BSF | 22 | 2 | Men | 2 | 00:10:36.3 | 5 | Unofficial | |
| JC | Schoonmaker | APU NORDIC SKI CENTER 2 | 5 | 7 | Men | 4 | 00:10:36.9 | 2 | 6 | |
| Luke | Jager | APU NORDIC SKI CENTER 2 | 5 | 7 | Men | 2 | 00:10:37.0 | 4 | 7 | |
| Gus | Schumacher | APU NORDIC SKI CENTER 1 | 1 | 2 | Men | 4 | 00:10:37.6 | 3 | 8 | |
| Reid | Goble | BRIDGER SKI FOUNDATION | 4 | 6 | Men | 4 | 00:10:45.8 | 4 | 9 | |
| Luke | Allan | BRIDGER SKI FOUNDATION | 4 | 6 | Men | 2 | 00:10:46.0 | 5 | 10 |
Women’s relay leg times
| FirstName | LastName | TeamName | Bib | Team Finish | Gender | LegNumber | LegTime | LegRankWithinLeg | LegTimeRankGender | Official team? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luci | Anderson | TEAM BIRKIE 1 | 2 | 1 | Women | 3 | 00:11:58.5 | 1 | 1 | |
| Emma | Albrecht | BRIDGER SKI FOUNDATION | 3 | 4 | Women | 3 | 00:12:16.7 | 2 | 2 | |
| Karol | Kaleta | TEAM BIRKIE 2 | 6 | 5 | Women | 3 | 00:12:19.1 | 3 | 3 | |
| Olivia | Bouffard-Nesbitt | CANADA | 21 | 1 | Women | 1 | 00:12:19.4 | 4 | Unofficial | |
| Alayna | Sonnesyn | TEAM BIRKIE 1 | 2 | 1 | Women | 1 | 00:12:20.3 | 1 | 5 | |
| Haley | Brewster | UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT | 16 | 9 | Women | 3 | 00:12:22.6 | 4 | 6 | |
| Kendall | Kramer | APU NORDIC SKI CENTER 1 | 1 | 2 | Women | 1 | 00:12:23.5 | 2 | 7 | |
| Amelia | Tucker | DARTMOUTH SKI TEAM 1 | 9 | 8 | Women | 3 | 00:12:25.2 | 5 | 8 | |
| Katherine | Weaver | CANADA | 21 | 1 | Women | 3 | 00:12:27.9 | 9 | Unofficial | |
| Margie | Freed | CRAFTSBURY SKI CLUB | 7 | 3 | Women | 1 | 00:12:28.0 | 3 | 10 |