Welcome back to this week’s installation of Monday Results Roundup, your one-stop option for a look at who’s ski racing around the world. I’ve already missed 50 percent of the ski races held in this country so far this season — Fairbanks kicked off U.S. citizen racing for winter 2023/2024 with a mass start skate race on November 18 (results for Town Series Race #1 here) — but maybe I can catch the rest of them. Stay tuned.
World Cup racing
There were six races held over three days in the now-traditional Ruka Triple to kick off the season. Rosie Brennan (two podiums) and Jessie Diggins (one podium, while wearing one glove, in one-digit temperatures) got the headlines, deservedly so, but there were other results highlights as well (Ben Ogden and Julia Kern in the classic sprint come to mind), and process goals and progress more broadly throughout the entire team.
You can find everything I wrote about the opening weekend in Ruka here. You can find NRK’s coverage of Ruka here, and Expressen’s coverage here. Google Translate is your friend for the latter two.
Other FIS racing
Embed from Getty ImagesA full weekend of high-level FIS racing also went off in Idre, Sweden, near-tropical climes compared to frozen Ruka (although it was also pretty cold there). There was a skate sprint on Friday, a 10-kilometer interval-start skate race on Saturday, and a 10-kilometer interval-start classic race on Sunday. You can find full results for the 2023 Idre Ford Smart Energy Cup here.
Notable results from Idre include 17-year-old Swedish wunderkind Alvar Myhlback, narrowly denied start rights for his World Cup debut in Ruka this past weekend, winning the sprint on Friday. Myhlback was born in 2006; I have Toko gloves I still use that are older than him. Myhlback was also third in Sunday’s 10km classic, ahead of athletes with Olympic and World Championships starts for Sweden.
At the other end of the chronological spectrum, the ageless Masako Ishida was third in the 10km classic for the women. Names and birth dates for the women’s podium were as follows: first, Sofia Henriksson, 1994; second, Märta Rosenberg, 2002; third, Masako Ishida, 1980.
I am a massive Masako Ishida fan because she is the only athlete still pursuing World Cup–level skiing who is older than me, taking up a flame previously carried by Caitlin Gregg and Kris Freeman. I will be sad when she retires, and am thrilled to see that she is still out there crushing. As a Serious Objective Reporter I am not supposed to play favorites, but that said I really hope that Ishida makes it to Canmore and/or Minneapolis this February so that I can see her race in person.
In the embedded image above Ishida is shown racing at the 2006 Winter Olympics, with boots and poles that now type as pretty dated. You may also enjoy perusing her World Cup results from the 2000/2001 (!) season.
Turkey Day Relays, Fairbanks, Alaska
The 60th annual Turkey Day Relays were held in Fairbanks the day after Thanksgiving. This is notable because Alaska has been a state for only 64 years; this would be like a ski race in Vermont held continuously since 1795.
The race is a 3 x 4km relay for high school and above. This year’s race was three skate legs; technique alternates from year to year.
First overall went to Mayflower Buffet Elite Team, composed of homegrown Fairbanks superstars Ari Endestad, Sam Delamere, and Ti Donaldson. Their winning time was 28:39.3. First among mixed-gender teams was UAF A-Team, featuring Aidan Hay, Luise Graef, and Josh Baurick, in 29:26.2. The first all-women’s team was Puppywuppy 10, with Anna Rozell, Ellie Abrahamson, and Tobe Announced [sic], with a time of 41:41.1.
You can find full results from the relays here. Click through for elementary school teams, middle school teams, and a lot of team names involving turkeys or pumpkins.
Elsewhere?
Fairbanks has had a white Thanksgiving for, at least, the last 120 consecutive years. West Yellowstone was not so fortunate; the West Yellowstone Ski Festival was canceled this year, for only the second time in the last thirty years, but also the second time in the last three years. Climate change is bad.
There was more than enough snow at Independence Mine, at 3,500 feet in the Talkeetna Mountains above Palmer, Alaska, to hold the annual Race to the Outhouse #1 that traditionally kicks off the southcentral Alaska ski race season. But Saturday’s race was canceled amidst warm temperatures down in town that saw rain fall on sheet ice and roads up to the mine become largely impassable. Climate change + an El Niño winter is also bad.
— Gavin Kentch
Financial real talk: I worked my butt off for the first year of this website, and took home a net profit of all of $1,500. Inspiring stuff I know. And that was only thanks to the $3,000 that I took in from readers through my GoFundMe. On the one hand, I’m not going very hard on soliciting donations right now, because this is fundraising week for the NNF’s Drive for 25, deservedly so. On the other hand, the money from the GoFundMe is the only reason that I had a profit instead of a loss for the first year of Nordic Insights, and is in turn why there is a second year of Nordic Insights that you are currently reading — I was on board with doing this for very little money out of a love for American nordic skiing, but didn’t want to lose money for the privilege of doing this.
So. If you would like to support the second year of Nordic Insights, last year’s GoFundMe is still up here. I will update this with a new fundraiser soon/once Drive for 25 ends; for the time being, just mentally substitute in “World Cup” for “Houghton” (basically the same venue tbh). All the money still goes to the same place. Thank you for your support, and thank you, as always, for reading.
