Fewer years ago than you may realize, since everyone involved in this story is still just 23, a young man named JC Schoonmaker was finishing high school at North Tahoe High and trying to find a home for college skiing. He hoped to join rising star Ben Ogden on the other side of the country at the University of Vermont, but recruiting is an inexact science, his potential was perhaps not as apparent as Ogden’s at the time, and the kid from Tahoe ended up taking his talents north to the University of Alaska Anchorage, where he happily skied for all four years. The two men would finish first and third at 2022 NCAA Championships, Ogden 13 seconds ahead after 20km of racing.
That was then. This is now. Saturday morning in the classic sprint in Östersund, in the third weekend of the 2023/2024 World Cup season, Schoonmaker and Ogden skied alongside each other all day. They were third and fifth in the qual, which presaged some darn good things for the day for the Americans and their skis. They were first and second in their quarterfinals, then first and second again in their semifinal. And when they lined up to start the sprint final they were by definition among the top six athletes, already a career highlight for both men no matter what happened over the next three minutes.
Reader, they were not just happy to be there. Three minutes later, Schoonmaker crossed the line in third, after taking it to Klæbo in a gutsy performance. Ogden was close behind in fourth. From Tahoe to Anchorage or from Landgrove, Vermont, to Burlington, Vermont, there’s a lot of different ways to get to the top. And both men arrived there Saturday with a bang. And some tears. For them, and for pretty much everyone who watched.
It’s not hyperbole to say that no one was happier for Ogden today than Schoonmaker, and vice versa.
Here’s Ogden on his day:
“I think it goes to show that Americans are so much stronger together. Today I never would have made it as far as I did if JC wasn’t there and I bet he feels the same. It was a truly spectacular day and it will make us want to do it all again that much more.”
And here’s Schoonmaker:
“This first podium just means so much to me that it’s hard to even describe. It’s been a dream of mine for a long time so to get up there today and have Ben really close right with me is just such a sweet feeling.
“To be a part of this team right now is an honor. Ben and I have both been looking to make it to the final now for a while and both of us getting it done on the same day is a dream scenario. I’ve been excited for U.S. skiing and U.S. men’s skiing for a while now but today has really stoked the flame and I feel more motivated to keep it up and more proud to be a part of it than ever before.”
(Both quotes are in writing to multiple media outlets.)
Ski like an American. Stronger as a team. Sometimes we use hashtags because they are true.
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I should probably tell you more eventually about how these men got there (TLDR: lots of hard work, deep teams of friends and family and supporters who believed in them, some supportive coaches, some great teammates, a lot more hard work, a little luck at times, did I mention hard work), but I want to take a step back a little and survey what today meant to people. Here is a representative sampling of ski world social media this morning (all comments from Instagram posts or stories):
Jessie Diggins (in a post): “I can’t stop crying happy tears for @isaschoon with his first podium and @ben.0gden with his best result! 🥹🤩❤️ Seeing those boys in the final together brought back the kind of goosebumps, passion for sport and joy that I didn’t even know I was missing. Beyond proud of them, this team, our techs and also @rosiewbrennan crushing! I can’t even put into words what it feels like to be part of something this special, but damn it’s powerful and I am incredibly grateful to be here for feelings like this!! ❤️🔥”
Diggins (in a story): “Actually still bawling my eyes out over this 😭😭😭”
Rosie Brennan: “A day to remember💗💗💗. Despite a final mishap, I had my best classic sprint ever and then turned around to watch @isaschoon and @ben.0gden light up the men’s final. There is something unbelievably special about watching someone put in the work, go through the ups and downs, and then see them on a podium🥹. This is a team that lifts one another, pushes through the 💩, and carries on and a team I am so happy to be a part of 💗.”
(I should note that Brennan and Diggins, by the way, were fourth and fifth, respectively, in their race. More on that later, once this reporter stops sniffling. Good day for the U.S.)
Luke Jager: “These two guys! Work hard every day, be nice to everyone, humbly believe in yourself and this is what you get. Thanks to these guys for putting on a hell of a show for us and getting American men back on the podium! That was a race I’ll never forget watching.”
Zanden McMullen: “Tears of f*cking joy today.” “I’m emotionally not ok.” (Same, Zanden, same.)
Martha Schoonmaker (if you can’t quote happy family members why are you even doing this): “I am so proud ♥️ Tears of joy flowing 💪🇺🇸”
Leann Bentley (USSS press officer): “here I am crying for the 4th time today.”
Stacey Herhusky (mom of former UAA teammate): “this has me crying.”
Okay, your turn: Sound on, watch this, and see if you can keep a dry eye. Good luck.
Bottom line, believe me that I spend a *lot* of my life limning the zeitgeist of American nordic skiing social media. Of course people are happy when someone does well. But I will warranty that happy to the point of crying is atypical. A lot of people out there believe that these are both supremely nice guys who are deeply supportive of themselves and others and who have quietly put in the work to get here. A lot of people out there are right.
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Okay, here’s the brief version of what happened on Saturday: Ogden was third in qualifying and Schoonmaker was fifth, which told you something right there about how both men were feeling, and about how well the tech team had done.
INTERRUPTION TIME FOR ANOTHER VIDEO THAT WILL MAKE YOU CRY THIS ONE FROM THE TECH TEAM THAT PUT FOUR ATHLETES IN THE TOP FIVE TODAY:
Anyway, they both crushed qualifying. Oh, and Klæbo won the qual… by 3.38 seconds over Erik Valnes in second… and 4.53 seconds over Ogden in third… which should provide some clues as to the Norwegian’s current fitness as he continues his return from Covid and his planned assault on the top of the World Cup overall standings.
Put another way, the gap from third to 25th in the qual was less than the gap from first to third. Klæbo at full strength in a classic sprint is a force of nature.
Both Americans had some close calls on their way to the final. Schoonmaker went hard off the front of his quarterfinal heat to open a gap, only to be caught by Jules Chappaz of France and Even Northug within the final minute. In the three-up sprint that ensued it was Northug across the line first, Schoonmaker a single hundredth of a second back in second. Chappaz’s time in fact held up for one of the day’s two lucky loser spots, but no one knows that in the heat of the moment.
Ogden got out fast in the ensuing quarterfinal but by the two-minute mark was at the back of the five-man field (Marcus Grate of Sweden had sustained an injury seconds into the heat), having perhaps opted to prioritize kick over glide and lost a little on the downhill as a result.
But the heat was three minutes long. The leaders perhaps eased off the gas slightly on the ensuing flat, and Ogden adroitly maneuvered his way into second. He was in third with 25 meters to go in the finishing straight — but had enough daylight to move in front of then-second-place Matz William Jenssen of Norway approaching the finish, taking up the lead position in that set of tracks. Ogden would in fact win this heat, ahead of Lucas Chanavat of France. Jenssen saw his day end in third. It was a savvy move from an athlete who was still racing NCAA Carnivals earlier this calendar year.
Both Americans ended up in the second semifinal. Ogden was in the lead almost instantly, and held that position through the first uphill. By 45 seconds into the heat, Schoonmaker had come up to join him.
By 1:15 into the heat, first Ogden and then Schoonmaker were skiing away from the field. The race was hardly over, and much of the field caught back up, ish, on the next downhill — but it was also the case that, two-plus minutes into a World Cup men’s semifinal, it was Schoonmaker first and Ogden second, with such obscure names as Håvard Taugbøl, Lucas Chanavat, and Even Northug somewhere in arrears. Do you believe yet?
Schoonmaker ran away from the field and won the heat. Even as he crossed the line, he was looking to his right to see where Ogden was, extending a congratulatory fist when he saw that Ogden had come in second and so would also advance.
Put another way, in literally the moment that he punched his ticket to his first career World Cup final, Schoonmaker’s concern was for his teammate. And now I’m tearing up for the 17th time this morning.
On to the final. From viewer’s left to right in the start gates: Even Northug, JC Schoonmaker, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, Erik Valnes, Ben Ogden, and Håvard Taugbøl. That’s Norway and America, and no one else.
It will not surprise you if I tell you that Klæbo won this classic sprint. He has done this far, far more often than he has not throughout his career. But this time he had some company (before, okay, the near-inevitable result).
At the top of the first hill in the final, it was Klæbo and Schoonmaker in the lead, Ogden and Northug right behind, Valnes at the back. At the top of the second hill, it was Schoonmaker coming over the top first, then moving over to nip in front of Klæbo. “What I really like about this American men’s team is they really haven’t been shy to put it out there” said the commentator, an obscure athlete named Kikkan Randall who might know a thing or two about standing up to established nordic powers.
Two minutes into the race, Schoonmaker and Klæbo, in that order, were running away from the field, Ogden chasing hard in third. Ten seconds later came the nearly de rigueur moment in every classic sprint when Klæbo runs up a hill, pushes over the top, and drops everyone on the downhill before soloing in for victory, the only suspense left being how bored he will look when he crosses the finish line. Behind him, it was now Valnes second, Schoonmaker third, Ogden in fourth. The gaps involved were not small.
Everyone kept their feet on the ensuing downhill: your podium was therefore Klæbo, Valnes, and Schoonmaker, in that order. Schoonmaker knelt across the line, overcome by emotion. Ogden came through in fourth, and immediately opened his arms to hug his teammate. You can see why everyone was crying.
[Read and listen more: podcast episode 4, Ben Ogden Unfiltered]
“I’d say from Ruka to now I’ve just got a bit sharper and some better feelings,” Schoonmaker told Nordic Insights after the race when asked what was different. “In Ruka I didn’t feel bad or anything, but I didn’t feel like I had some of my top gears and today I felt like I found them plus some new ones I didn’t know I had yet. Today just clicked for me and I think part of that is that we got Ruka and the first race effort done.”
Both of today’s finalists were racing on this course, and at this venue, for the first time. “I was a little nervous about the new course and venue because it had a long hard climb in the beginning and then a downhill corner into the finish which doesn’t always suit my strengths,” Ogden wrote to Nordic Insights. “That said in the quarter I was proud that I kinda hung in the pack and saved energy. This made me able to double pole the finish better than I ever have which was a nice feeling. As the day progressed things just got better and better. Me and JC pushed the pace in the semifinal and were able to make the final and then we did It again. When it was all over JC got on the podium and I got fourth! What a treat.”
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There were some other Americans in the race today, although clearly they pretty much all just wanted to talk about JC and Ben, understandably so. Gus Schumacher was 39th in the qual, Zanden McMullen 43rd, Luke Jager 52nd, Kevin Bolger 59th, and Will Koch 68th. All quotes from these athletes are in writing to Nordic Insights.
“I love them,” McMullen wrote when asked if he liked the sprints (this was the second ever World Cup sprint start for the 22-year-old primarily known as a distance skier).
“It’s a different aspect to our sport than just distance racing. The margins are so much smaller and you have to learn to be a perfectionist. I think it will only help my distance skiing to learn to sprint better. Hopefully I can make the heats sooner than later to experience the true part of sprint racing. But more importantly, I love watching them when some of my best friends are skiing so damn fast and well! There is a lot I can learn from them to become a better skier.”
I’d similarly asked Schumacher, also traditionally more of a distancer skier on the World Cup, if he anticipated racing sprints more broadly.
“It’s more of a piecemeal thing for now,” he wrote, “but hopefully some solid qualifiers here can get me opportunities later in the year! Today felt solid, nothing crazy special. It definitely felt like a good course for me to qualify on, just because it was a bit longer and generally hard, but I skied a little tense and struggled to make my skis work well on the hills. Not that stoked with how I skied it but man it was so cool to watch JC and Ben ski so incredibly well all day!!!”
And finally, I asked Jager how he keeps his spirits up and stays focused on the process when he is grinding away through the dark and cold of Period 1 and, frankly, not qualifying. Here’s Jager, who is clearly thrilled today, with some perspective on what today means for the team:
“I tell myself nothing else in the world matters when your team is doing what they’re doing right now!! I felt like I was watching the Moon Landing live today during the men’s final. And Jessie/rosie just causally both being top 3 in the overall?! These people show us over and over again that if you do your best every day and you are nice to everyone, good things will happen. I couldn’t be happier for the success of the team, and I trust that the process will work out for those of us who aren’t skiing as well right now.
“I remember JC telling me in October, after 4 weeks of sickness, that he wasn’t sure about this season and was having a hard time believing in himself and he just did that! Hard to not be inspired by watching what happened today.”
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I also reached out to Schoonmaker’s college coaches for thoughts on today. Here’s Adam Verrier, longtime volunteer assistant coach for the UAA ski team:
“Since JC’s arrival at UAA as a freshman, his whole M.O. has been about consistency and hard work. His progression has been, for the most part, linear. He’s been following the same pattern since I’ve known him: He quietly does the hard work of raising his game. But he’s also a curious and reflective guy. When he races, he always reviews his performance critically, and then actively takes steps to adjust his tactics or shore up the weaknesses that he finds.
“I’m not surprised at his result today; I’ve been expecting this. He’s reaching a level that he’s been working toward for a number of years now. I’d expect him to become a more and more consistent presence on the World Cup podium in the future. I think this Östersund course profile was definitely one that suits his strengths. But I think as he keeps working on his weaknesses, he’ll become a more consistent podium guy.
“In his first couple of years at UAA, he frequently surprised me with his improvements. But anymore, though I’m really impressed, I’m no longer surprised. I’ve been so thrilled, for many years, to have been able to witness firsthand JC’s progression as a skier, and all the work he’s been putting into this for a long time.”
(I’d personally believe Adam Verrier on just about anything when it comes to UAA skiing, but here is a superb blog post from five years ago this month in which Verrier notes many of these same characteristics vis-à-vis a very young looking JC Schoonmaker. He had just finished 14th in a pair of Alaska JNQ races (Besh Cup results: skate, classic), if you’re curious how far some people progress as an athlete in five years. “He” here meaning Schoonmaker, of course; Verrier and I can both be found in those linked results, but were also both a long ways from 14th.)
And here’s UAA head coach Trond Flagstad:
“In addition to Adam’s remarks which is right on and [as] you said it takes a village. In addition to JC just being one of the nicest guys you’ll ever know, he’s got integrity, he cares about his team and teammates and he really loves to train and compete and keeping it fun.
“Being consistent in training and believing in himself when things are not going his way has been what puts him in the top 10 race after race and getting on the podium is a natural consequence of that.
“Back to the village, UAA was and is a stepping stone for young up and coming athletes like JC. We are happy to do our part along with Will Sweetser at [Sugar Bowl Academy], the US Ski Team coaches and now APU. He has successfully navigated his career between this teams and coaches and that’s the village for you.
“P.S. his favorite thing to do is to play a game of hockey with his UAA teammates, that might just have been the thing that did it.”
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Update: Half of the below section is actually incorrect. A kindly reader has drawn my attention to the World Cup classic sprint in Otepää, Estonia, in the 2006/2007 season: Torin Koos was third, Andy Newell was fourth, and Chris Cook was the third American in 14th. You can find those results here. The two paragraphs that I originally wrote are below; their claims for the breakthrough nature of today’s results deserve a strong caveat. I really appreciate this reader feedback.
Today was a historic day for American men’s skiing, at least depending on what you’re looking at. Tim Caldwell and Bill Koch were second and third, respectively, in a World Cup race in Anchorage in March 1983, so this was not the strongest day ever for the American men. And there may have been some other Koch-era podiums where another American was in fourth; those are gonna get hard for me to research, and this article is already way too long as it is. But if I cabin my analysis to sprinting, today stands alone.
Andy Newell stood on three World Cup sprint podiums in his career; Simi Hamilton, on four. Across those seven races, the best cumulative day for American male sprinters was previously the Tour de Ski skate sprint in Lenzerheide in December 2013, where Hamilton won and Newell was eighth. (For perspective on what American men’s sprinting looked like at the height of Newell’s career, the second-best American in Newell’s three podium races placed 53rd, 63rd, and [not applicable, because Newell was the only American in the race].) I am therefore calling today the highwater mark for American men’s World Cup sprint racing. So far.
* * *
In conclusion, Ben Ogden said on Instagram that you should play this today. Hit it, Jimi.
Update: This article has been edited to reflect the fact that Schoonmaker attended North Tahoe High School as a high school student, and was associated with Sugar Bowl Ski Team & Academy only after starting college. I apologize for the error, and thank Will Sweetser (comment left below) for the correction.
— 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.
School attended North Tahoe High School in Tahoe City, where he skied for the high school (Lakers) and was a club skier for the Auburn Ski Club. His tenure with Sugar Bowl Ski Team & Academy began after his freshman year at UAA. SBSTA served as his home club and pre-season training base from 2019 through 2023.
I’m just as psyched as you are about the success of team USA today.
I must set the record straight, however. This is not the first time two American men placed in the top four in a Sprint World Cup. January 28, 2007 in Otepää Estonia. Torin Koos just nipped Andy Newell for a podium spot, finishing third. Andy was forth. And, the next US finisher was not way down the results sheet – Chris Cook placed a solid 14th.
Congrats to the team today, and I can’t wait to see more podiums!
What an amazing start to the day. I’ve been rooting for JC since he was a standout skier in 5th grade in Tahoe cross country’s Strider Gliders. Even then he was focused and always had a great attitude. Thanks JC for the joy you brought your home town today!