SuperTour Finals: Last one, fast one – 40k mass start
The women’s field, led as always today by APU’s Kendall Kramer. Photo - Phil Belena
The end of the season for elite XC ski racing in North America dawned cold in Craftsbury, Vermont. Despite the calendar and the rain on Thursday’s best efforts, the course was fast and firm – the perfect setting for the last races of the Supertour.
Women
The women kicked things off and the field’s top seed, APU’s Kendall Kramer quickly took up residence at the front where she would set the pace and hold court pretty much all day. “I like being in front. I wouldn’t want to be caught behind anyone crashing or bump into people,” Kramer explained.
“She seemed really happy up front, and everyone was happy following her,” said Team Birkie’s Alayna Sonnesyn.
Kramer continued to set a tempo throughout the race. “We didn’t speed up necessarily,” she recounted, “we kept a consistent high speed and maybe some people had a struggle with that speed at points on the course.” No matter how it happened, cracks started to show about half way thru the race as the group thinned to around 6 skiers doing their best to hold on to the APU skier: APU teammate Novie McCabe, GRP biathlete Margie Freed, Team Birkie’s Alayna Sonnesyn and biathlete Luci Anderson, along with Middlebury’s Shea Brams. The selection had been made.
Brams would be the next out the door 5k later, and as the group passed thru the stadium on lap 6, it looked like they had shaken free from Team Birkie’s Luci Anderson. “On Lap 6, my legs started cramping up,” Anderson explained. “My body felt fine, but my legs just weren’t going. I got a gel from one of my coaches and a Gatorade feed and thankfully that helped me a little bit on lap 7. On lap 8 I was cramping again, but I mustered the strength to finish it up.”
Kramer still.
As the bell lap started, the remaining 5 headed out for the decisive 5k, led by Kramer as they had been all race to this point. “Going up Screaming Mimi the top girls were making a move,” Freed noted as she left the train. “I’ve had an unfortunate run of getting beat out in the sprint finish at the end of this season, so we’re working on that, but I was happy to beat my bib and be out there today.”
Freed before getting shaken loose.
Following the last big climb before the rollers to the finish, when Kramer, Sonnesyn and McCabe had pulled free of the biathlon cohort of Freed and Anderson.
The group stretched on the climb behind the cabins to the feed before the lower stadium. McCabe breaks down the day and the last half k or so: “Kendall was really strong and kind of just pulled us along the whole time and to be honest, I kind of felt I was barely holding on for most of it. I was just taking it lap by lap. And then I had super fast skis and was able to catch a draft off the top of the last hill into the finish and I had a little bit of sprint in me.”
Her “little bit of sprint” was enough for McCabe to gap her teammate Kramer with a small gap back to Birkie’s Sonnesyn. “I did use quite a lot of energy and I’m glad I had some at the end,” Kramer said, acknowledging the cost of her tactics. “But Novie was really smart today.”
McCabe.
McCabe’s path the past several years back to her place in the US ski hierarchy has been rather uneven and circuitous, but today is another good day, a possible indicator of what growth there is to come: “It feels really good to have had a good day out there. It has definitely been a challenge the past few years. Everyone always wants progress to be linear, and I am for sure the same. It’s been frustrating to feel like 3 years ago I was about to make a big step up and then just didn’t. I had some health challenges and it’s definitely been a bit demoralizing so it’s nice to have good days again and super fun to be back racing this year. We have such a strong group of girls in the US, so it’s just a good time.”
Women’s Top 3:
1) Novie McCabe, APU
2) Kendall Kramer, APU
3) Alayna Sonnesyn, Team Birkie
Women’s podium, L-R: Kramer, McCabe, Sonnesyn.
Men
The men’s race took around 10-15k before some probing attacks started to thin a big pack up front that was enjoying the fast conditions. “I pushed a little bit on the second lap, just a short push,” APU’s Olympic silver-medalist Gus Schumacher explained. “And then Zak and I pushed lap 3-ish, and then it slowed down a bit. Jake Brown strung it out up the hill once, and then it calmed down again because we realized it wasn’t going to happen with so many people together and fast conditions.”
Bolger, in front early.
Team Birkie’s Kevin Bolger concurred: “I think both of those attacks showed that skiing away was going to be pretty hard today with the fast snow and the conditions Craftsbury was able to pull together.”
Brian Bushey pulling ahead of Will Koch in the later laps.
The attacks may have calmed somewhat, but the surges had thinned the pack from 40+ skiers on the front at 10k to the around 15 or so that would be contending for the rest of the racing – and now some of the younger athletes moved to the front, still pushing to find any potential weaknesses in the later laps. “I figured it’d be more fun to try and whittle it down a bit more than sit in the pack for the last couple of laps,” Craftsbury GRP skier Brian Bushey explained. “So Will (Koch of SVSEF) and I, Tabor (Greenberg of UVM) and Jake Brown all tried to crank it up the last couple of laps. It was good fun.” When questioned whether if that tactic may have cost him at the finish, Bushey replied, “I definitely think it did, but I don’t know, I wouldn’t do it any other way.”
The laps ticked down, paces were pushed, and yet the same 15 or so skiers were at the front. “Once we realized it wasn’t going to be a breakaway, it was kind of more about conserving energy, skiing smooth, and trying to drop guys who can’t quite hang on that pace. Then everyone kind of knew to gear up for a sprint finish,” World Cup vet Bolger explained.
5k to go and 14 skiers remained to grab a spot at the US distance national champs – who would emerge from the woods to take the crown? It was World Cup athletes Schumacher, Dartmouth’s John Steel Hagenbuch and Bolger coming down the home stretch in the stadium.
Schumacher lays out the race winning split: “Tabor (Greenberg) went hard up Mimi to kick it off with a really good pace from the bottom. And then it relaxed a bit thru the rollers after. Zak went to the front, pushed up to the feed behind the cabins and planted his pole between his skis. So then it was me - I was given the first-place position and I just went for it from there. Hard tuck skate thru the stadium and I didn’t look back.”
Hagenbuch has been nursing an illness all week following the Lake Placid World Cups and woke feeling poorly. “If it wasn’t the last race of the season I probably wouldn’t have raced. I was happy to put a bib on.” Hagenbuch sat safely in the back of the pack until the last several kilometers. “First couple of laps, I was just trying to ski my way into the race feeling pretty badly, but kind of warmed my way into it. But happy with the result in the end. I think Gus is one of the best skiers in the world in every single discipline. Today, he was too strong and I can’t be too unhappy with that given that I’ve been sick. It was an amazing day here in Craftsbury. They always host some very well-organized races and it’s always great to be here at the Outdoor Center.”
Steel Hagenbuch
“It’s really bittersweet to have my last race for Dartmouth,” Hagenbuch reflected. “It’s been an amazing 4 years with a lot of races, a lot of great races, but what I’ll remember at the end of the day is the stuff in between. I didn’t win today, but I was still smiling out there and taking in what was my last race for Dartmouth and trying to enjoy it in as much as possible.” His ski future remains uncertain: “I don’t know honestly. We’ll see. I need to think about it this spring for sure.”
Between the rolling course and fast conditions sprinter Bolger was left sitting pretty in the 40k champs as the pack approached the finish – but Team Birkie also had some fast skis all weekend: “We have the legendary Randy Gibbs waxing with us and he put together some awesome boards for the classic day and the relay. Going back to the classic day, you get 2 Birkie boys in the final and Alayna – you have to have good skis for that. And then the same to win the relay - it was pretty cool to put down the fastest lap time yesterday for sure. Especially when you look down the results list and everyone’s a senior and I’m a master now!”
Men’s Top 3:
1) Gus Schumacher, APU
2) John Steel Hagenbuch, Dartmouth
3) Kevin Bolger, Team Birkie
Men’s podium, L-R: Steel Hagenbuch, Schumacher, Bolger.
Randoms
Team Birkie’s Luci Anderson, talking about her role as an elite biathlete and skier, and which discipline has her heart:
“I’ve been enjoying the bouncing back and forth as long as it works out and keeps teams happy and happy with me. I don’t want to make anybody mad, but I don’t think that’s possible. As of now, biathlon is where most of my goals are. But I definitely want to keep a foot in the Nordic world because I pretty sure there’s another Minneapolis World Cup coming up in a couple of years and that’s my home course. So I want to do the fun Nordic races and I’d love to do a full Tour de Ski at some point in my career, but definitely focusing on biathlon with doing some Nordic as well.”
Craftsbury GRP skier Jack Young, talking about his personal best distance race at a national level:
“I was 13th in NCAA 7.5k CL last year and I was 13th today. This is definitely a higher level than that race, so I think this was my best national level distance race ever.”
COC - “What do you attribute that too?”
Young – “I hit a really good training block after the Olympics, so I came into Period 4 in really good shape. Even though I was just sprinting I had some good training under my belt and I was also really rested and excited to keep racing. My skis were running great so I could save some energy in the pack. I just had a lot of fun.”
Will and Bill Koch, talking about a project Bill and Zach Caldwell have taken on to revive some of his Rossignol skis from his competitive days for his son Will Koch.
Will competed on a pair of these from 1983 in Friday’s sprint heats.
Will, after his heat on Friday:
“Those skis are from the early 80s. When my dad first started skiing on and working for Rossignol, he developed the skis himself. He tried every camber profile imaginable, and that’s one of the skis he would race on. Back in world champs and world cups back in the day. Today, they were the fastest ski in my test and they were the fastest ski of anyone in my heat.
This is the first weekend we’ve tested anything. Zach Caldwell our local ski guy and family friend back in Vermont, he and my dad kind of collaborated to put modern grinds on some of my dad’s old skis and see if they could compete. Going into it, we thought “Maybe it’ll be close.” But they’ve been sitting in our basement for over 40 years, so like they couldn’t be that close. But pulled them out today and they were the fastest.”
Bill, after Sunday’s 40k:
“After I looked at Will’s fleet, I started thinking they may not be all that great. He was having some trouble in classic skis. So I thought “Why not?” and I approached Zach, and he was all over it. I wasn’t really expecting anything, and being surprised they were even in the running. And then, they were the best of anything he had. And then fastest leg of his heat, against other brands, so you have to wonder how much have skis really evolved?”
Rossi’s finest…from the early 80s.
Will Koch letting some current era Rossis run in the men’s 40k.