Cross-Country Program Director Chris Grover: Looking Back and Planning Ahead

In this episode, we talk with Alayna Sonnesyn (SMS T2), who is coming off of her fourth consecutive victory at the American Birkebeiner in Hayward, Wisconsin. But the path between these victories, especially over the last two seasons, has not been smooth or direct. 

Alayna has had standout results on the SuperTour, but that has not directly translated into consistent results on the World Cup, leaving her navigating the tricky waters of being what is often dubbed a “bubble athlete”. Last season, her reach goal was to make the Beijing Olympic Team, which would require putting all of her eggs into whichever race-pathway-basket was most likely to get her there. Ultimately, she was not named to the team, and a positive COVID test shortly thereafter rubbed salt in the wound. She also ended the season one FIS point shy of making the objective criteria for National Team selection in 2022.
 

Alayna has been open about all of these setbacks both on social media and her blog - in particular, how difficult they can be to process in the moment. However, on paper, she has translated this journey into a career-best season. She’s cracked into the heats of two World Cup freestyle sprints, finished 26th in a 20k skate in Davos, and clocked the 5th fastest time of day in the same event during Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski in Oberstdorf, GER. She even beat SMS T2 teammate Jessie Diggins on a downhill segment.  

Alayna talks through these experiences, where she’s at now, and of course, the Birkie during this episode. We also chat about her new podcast project, Extra Blue – which is well worth a listen – and who her dream guest and conversation would be. The answer is surprising.

Just a heads up – we did have a few connection issues which caused a few audio bumps. Thanks for listening!

In this episode, we chat with Hailey Swirbul, who took an alternate path to the World Cup this season, prioritizing her own mental health and aiming to rediscover her love for cross-country skiing along the way. Listen in to hear her discuss the challenges she's faced in transitioning into a professional athlete, along with how the Olympic experience contrasted the Olympic fantasy. She also discusses difference in summer training this year, highlights from domestic racing in period one and two, including a sweep of US Nationals in Houghton, and more. Thanks for listening. 

It’s been a minute! With the arrival of host Rachel Perkins’ second baby in July and a subsequent job shift, Nordic Nation has been on pause, but we are excited to relaunch now with the hope of producing these regularly over the coming months!

Our first guest of 2023 is the one and only Ben Ogden, who’s had a standout season of racing on the World Cup. Ben has cracked into the semifinals in four sprint races, while posting breakthrough results in distance racing also, like a 6th place finish in the 10k classic in Oberstdorf during the Tour de Ski. He finished the overall Tour in 13th, which is an historic result for the American men’s team. Following the Tour, he headed back home to Vermont, where he hopped into two EISA Carnival weekends – winning four for four – while wearing his UVM Catamounts kit for the final time. He returned to Europe in time for the Les Rousses, where Ben qualified in 7th for the classic sprint, finishing 11th after a quick trip outside the V-board in the semis. 

In this conversation, we discuss the factors that have contributed to his development as a professional skier, from mindset, to training, to an effort to make the World Cup lifestyle sustainable long term. We also discuss his recent trip back to the Northeast, what has made collegiate racing “special”, and more. 

Thanks for listening!

At 24-years-old, Julia Kern is quickly becoming a seasoned veteran in her 7th year on the U.S. Ski Team. However, her career trajectory has been stepwise, not exponential. 

After making breakthroughs during the 2019-20 season, including her first World Cup podium in a skate sprint in Planica, Slovenia, she faced injuries and setbacks heading into the following season in 2020-2021, leaving her walking away from that season feeling disappointed in both her World Cup and World Championship racing. Reflecting on her takeaways in an interview that summer, she said “Progress isn’t linear from season to season.”

Recently named the recipient of the US Nordic Olympic Women’s Gold Rush Award for her grit and grace as a professional skier, Julia has demonstrated what it takes to rebound, reframe, and move past these challenges. As she describes in this conversation, the start of Julia’s 2021-22 race season happened in fits and starts – some strong early-season results with promising body sensations followed by a series of untimely mild illnesses. After catching a cold midway through the Tour de Ski in early January, she suddenly was faced with the reality that she would not have any opportunities to race until arriving in Zhangjiakou for the Olympics over a month later – the longest race break of her career. 

Her first Olympic appearance took place in the opening event, the 15 k skiathlon, where Julia finished 53rd. The individual freestyle sprint three days later was her goal race; Julia qualified in 14th and raced a gutsy quarterfinal, ultimately finishing fourth in the heat and 18th overall on the day. A myriad of factors left her wanting more from this first Olympic experience, though she approached it without placing high expectations on herself. 

Rebounding once more after the Games, Julia began a tear of World Cup sprints in Period IV. She was 8th in the freestyle sprint in Lahti, 7th in the classic sprint the following week in Drammen, and finished just off the podium in fourth in the World Cup Finals in Falun. From there, she headed to Whistler to finish the season at the joint Canadian National Championships and US SuperTour Finals, where she took second to Jessie Diggins in Jessie’s signature 5 k freestyle event, and won the remaining three races.

During this conversation, Julia discusses the highs and lows of the season, as well as how she has been able to compartmentalize and move past setbacks over the past few years of navigating the transition to the World Cup. We also discuss her start in the sport, why the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2 Team has been a good fit for her, and how leaning into other creative outlets, passions and work helps energize her for the long haul.

Thanks for listening and thanks to New Moon Bike and Ski for supporting this podcast. 

The Olympic Dream. 

Perhaps the pinnacle of sport would not be as valued and revered were it not for the inherent scarcity of opportunities to achieve it. This year, only eight women and six men were able to represent the United States in cross-country skiing in Zhangjiakou, down from a total of twenty who were selected for PyeongChang in 2018. 

Among those who came up just shy was 30-year-old Rosie Frankowski, who has spent the last eight years training with APU. Frankowski is a 2018 Olympian and 2019 World Championship competitor, finishing inside the top-30 in both places – 21st in the 30 k classic in Korea and 24th in the 15 k skiathlon in Seefeld. 

After strong early season results that included two wins and three third place finishes in early season SuperTours, Frankowski lined up in Soldier Hollow for a two-week stretch of racing that felt like it was for all the marbles. As many women had already met the objective criteria for team selection via results on the World Cup, it was only the final one or two spots that remained open for domestic racers; in the hungry pool all fighting for these spots via some combination of U.S. Nationals, Sun Valley SuperTour, and Tour de Ski results were Frankowski, Caitlin Patterson, Alayna Sonnesyn, and Katharine Ogden. 

As Frankowski describes in this episode, her opening races – the freestyle sprint and the 20-kilometer mass start skate – of U.S. Nationals went remarkably well; despite being known as a distance specialist, she won the sprint qualifier and finished sixth in the final, then won the race for second place in the 20 k skate, behind Rosie Brennan who had dropped the field from the start. From there, Frankowski faced a series of challenges – slick skis and variable klister conditions in the 10 k classic, a fall in the classic sprint, and a sublexed shoulder in the opening race in Sun Valley. 

The official team nominations for the 2022 Beijing Olympics were released the following week, and Frankowski was named as the second alternate for the women’s team. Five months later, Frankowski finds herself at a transition point in her career. It’s not a cut and dry retirement as she has earned Period I starts on the World Cup and has other race objectives next winter, but it’s a shift in focus as she and her partner prepare to relocate from Anchorage, AK to Durango, CO. 

In this conversation, Frankowski shares the highlights and challenges of the 2021-22 race season, and provides invaluable insights into the experience of spending her career as a “bubble athlete”, fighting for international race opportunities and team selection, while juggling the financial realities of supporting her professional ski racing career. She reflects on her time with APU, and discusses defining success when surrounded by “more-accomplished” teammates, and how she expects the ratio of mountain running to ski-specific training to shift after this transition.

Thanks for listening and thanks to Concept2 for supporting this podcast. 

Last June, U.S. Ski & Snowboard announced the hiring of Greta Anderson as Development Team Coach, supporting Cross Country Program Manager Bryan Fish in “all aspects of leadership and logistics surrounding the U.S. Development Pathway, including National Training Group camps, U.S. Nationals and Junior/U23 World Championships, Europa Cup, select SuperTour and other national-level competitions, as well as working on Coaches’ Education and Certification.” (Read an in-depth interview with Anderson following the announcement here.)

As she described it, joining the U.S. Ski Team staff during an Olympic year while the COVID-19 pandemic raged on was a bit of “trial by fire”. Nonetheless, Anderson thrived in her new role, approaching the position with humility and open-mindedness as she learned the ropes. With a holistic view of athlete development, which emphasizes the importance of creating an environment where the athlete can be both happy and supported, Anderson had the opportunity to support athletes from the U16 to U23 level across the spectrum of international and domestic clubs and races. She played key roles during the 2022 FIS Junior/U23 World Ski Championships in Lygna, Norway, and had her first experience as the primary trip leader during the Opa Cup Finals pre-camp and competitions in Sappada, Italy.

In this conversation, you’ll hear more about Anderson’s contributions to the development program thus far, and she shares insights into the philosophy, projects, and initiatives the U.S. Ski & Snowboard staff are working on to continue the growth and support of athletes ascending the pathways from junior to senior racing. We also discuss standout performances of the World U23/Junior Championships, and some of the athletes who have been recently named to the 2022-23 U.S. Cross Country Team.

Thanks for listening, and thanks to Boulder Nordic Sport for supporting this podcast. 

In this episode, we have U.S. Ski & Snowboard cross-country program director Chris Grover on to discuss the tumultuous last two years of navigating the pandemic, including the many ways in which it created strain for the team, particularly as Omicron variant surged during the months leading into the 2022 Beijing Olympics. It’s been a hard two years, but this conversation extends well beyond the impacts of the pandemic. We also discuss equal distance racing, the 2022-23 roster for the U.S.Ski Team, which features a number of talented young men, team selection for World Cup, World Championship, and a new gender equity initiative proposed to the FIS by US Ski & Snowboard which incentives nations to invest in developing women ski technicians and utilizing them at World Cup events. 

This proposal was recently accepted by the FIS cross country committee, and should it be officially accepted at FIS council meetings, it would mean a new set of course bibs would be available beginning next season only to female techs.  Therefore, a country could increase the size of its service staff by investing in the development of women techs and utilizing these women at World Cups. 

Thanks for listening and thanks to Boulder Nordic Sport for their support of this podcast.  

Heading into the Olympics in February, Jessie Diggins received more media attention than ever before, landing on the cover of Sports Illustrated and having her profile featured on major news outlets like the New York Times. There was an entire category for her career highlights on the Olympic cross country ski tab on NBC’s Peacock streaming platform. 

From all of the coverage focused on Diggins surrounding the Games, one comment in particular received attention and push back from the athlete community. The line in a February 8th story in the NY Times suggested that Diggins looked “like a sprite in her racing suit,” comparing her body to her competitors’ who had “massive shoulders and thighs.” It was seen as inaccurate, inappropriate, and potentially harmful to those reading it. 

To discuss the topic of body comments in sports journalism and why they might be harmful in the broader scope of athlete mental health, the Nordic Nation podcast recently hosted a discussion among the panel of Rosie Brennan, Corrine Malcolm, Brian Metzler, and Nat Herz, who span the breadth of athlete and media representative. Following the conversation, FasterSkier received feedback that the topic had already been given enough attention, and it remained clear that there was not unanimous understanding of why commenting on athletes’ bodies was deemed problematic. 

Seeking to add clarity to this side of the story, along with her own perspective as someone who has experienced an eating disorder and since become an advocate for awareness and support in that realm, Diggins reached out to FasterSkier asking to add her voice to the conversation. To be clear, neither Diggins nor FasterSkier aims to “cancel” NY Times author Matthew Futterman, nor to attack the NY Times for running the comment. The purpose of this discussion was to consider how a comment on an athlete’s body might be triggering to a reader who is primed to fall into the eating disorder trap, and how writers, parents, coaches, and teachers can be mindful of the impact and importance of what they say. 

Diggins also reflects on the 2021/2022 race season and what was an historic string of Olympic appearances. She discusses the success of the US Ski Team as a whole, in particular, the younger generation of athletes like Novie McCabe, Sophia Laukli, Ben Ogden, JC Schoonmaker, and Gus Schumacher, who have transitioned onto the World Cup over the last two seasons and earned spots on the 2022 Olympic Team.  

Thanks for listening.

Additional Resources and Related Reading & Listening:

WithAll Foundation and the What to Say Campaign. As discussed in the episode, Diggins and Gus Schumacher participated in a live discussion with this organization on March 31st titled “What America’s Top Athletes Know About Health & Performance”, which can be viewed here.

The Emily Program: A leader in eating disorder treatment and outreach, and partner of Diggins'

Nordic Nation Podcast: A Discussion on the Media’s Portrayal of Endurance Athletes with Rosie Brennan, Corrine Malcolm, Brian Metzler, and Nat Herz

Nordic Nation Podcast: Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) and the Climate in High Performance Skiing

Brave Enough by Jessie Diggins (Reviewed on FS here, with more on her recovery and advocacy here.)

FasterSkier also shared two OpEd pieces surrounding this topic, one from our own contributor Ben Theyerl and a second from reader Ivy Spiegel Ostrom, highlighting individual responses to the NY Times comment and underlying issues of body comments in the media, and another by Rachel Bachman Perkins on the prevalence of eating disorders and disordered eating in sport. 

Last weekend, roughly 200 intrepid skiers lined up at the base of the Mount Crested Butte ski resort, awaiting a midnight race start that would send them 40 miles north through the rugged Elk Mountains to Aspen, Colorado. Among the masses, most of whom were on lightweight ski mountaineering or alpine touring setups, was a pair looking to return the Grand Traverse ski race to its cross country ski roots. The pair was Simi Hamilton and Ben Koons, wearing Fischer skate skis that had seen World Cup air time. 

For those unfamiliar with the Grand Traverse, it’s an iconic backcountry ski race put on by the Crested Butte Nordic Center with deep routes in local cross country ski lore. You’’ hear more about the race, its history, and how the night went down during the conversation, but those new to the “backcountry cross country” concept want to check out the show notes on FasterSkier for a closer look at the route and some photos that will inspire you to take up the challenge in future years.

Thanks for listening.

Though the FasterSkier team would select other highlights from the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games, one of the most read articles we produced featured the responses of members of the ski community to a story published on February 8th by the New York Times, which included the following quote:

“In a sport that has so many women with massive shoulders and thighs, Diggins looks like a sprite in her racing suit, and it’s not clear exactly where she gets her power. But the power is there, as she flies up hills, and comes off climactic turns with a burst. On the downhills, she tucks low and cuts through the air.”

Following the initial backlash sparked by the quote has prompted a number of insightful conversations – and questions – on how athletes, men and women, are portrayed by the media, whether there is room for descriptions or comparisons of athletes’ bodies to narrate a scene for a reader, and how the landscape of sports media has shifted with time.

For this discussion, FasterSkier brought together a panel that spans both the athlete and media perspective on the issue.

Perhaps needing the least introduction for this audience, the first voice you’ll hear belongs to Rosie Brennan. In addition to her role as one of the top American cross country skiers for more than a decade, Brennan is also an advocate for the organization Voice in Sport which provides mentorship for developing female athletes across all sports. And she was a member of the women’s Olympic skate sprint final in Zhangjiakou, taking fourth place just behind Diggins, the race which sparked the discussion in the first place.

The second belongs to professional trail and ultra runner Corrine Malcolm, whose first go at professional endurance sport was in biathlon, from which she retired in 2014 after experiencing overtraining syndrome, likely coupled by relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S). Alongside her athletic career, Malcolm has become a coach for other endurance athletes, while also becoming an advocate for women in sport, and has also engaged with this topic from the media side of the coin while calling some of the top ultra running events worldwide, including the Western States Endurance Run in California and the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) which begins and ends in Chamonix, France. She’s also the co-host of an engaging podcast called Trail Society, which dissects challenging topics in the trail and ultra-running space.

We’ve also got Brian Metzler, an award-winning veteran journalist and author in the endurance space who currently writes for a number of publications including Outside, Competitor, Women’s Running, Triathlete, and Trail Runner magazines. Writing with perspective from his own athletic career, Metzler is Colorado Running Hall of Fame inductee (2015) who adventures on foot, ski, and sometimes alongside a burro, throughout the high country of Colorado. 

Lastly, you’ll hear a cameo from our own Nat Herz, on lunch break from his “real job” as a full-time reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. Having written for FasterSkier from 2009 through 2015 before making a return this year as our 2022 Olympic Correspondent and co-host of the Devon Kershaw Show, Herz shares insights from his time covering cross country skiing paired with those from behind a very different desk.

Some of the talking points discussed include: 

• Initial responses to the NY Times story
• A writer’s responsibility to be informed on the sport being covered, in addition to the physical and/or mental health challenges that may be pervasive in that setting
• Differences between American and European media, and shifts in focus, norms, or trends in sports media
• Differences, or lack thereof, of covering athletes of different genders

Thanks for listening, and to this episode’s sponsor, the Craftsbury Outdoor Center. 

Please note that the Craftsbury Green Racing Project Ski and Biathlon teams and U23 summer programs are currently accepting applications for the upcoming training year, which will close on April 10th. Click here for more information.