ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The 2023/2024 SuperTour kicks off this week with four races at Kincaid Park, the Trondheim-lite venue nestled in the hills of west Anchorage less than a kilometer from the Pacific Ocean. It is humid here, a moist, damp cold, and the Kincaid stadium is perennially one of the windiest spots in town.
But weather conditions this week should be pretty humane, and snow conditions are basically perfect — and even though I’m a massive Alaska homer, I promise you that I would be forthcoming if trail conditions were subpar. I live here too, and I ski a lot, and I spend an unhealthy amount of my life thinking about local ski conditions. They are so good right now, thanks to some well-timed fresh snow that covered up the birch seed–infused boilerplate and upgraded conditions from ice klister to literally Extra Blue. Don’t get me wrong, the races would have gone off last week without a hitch, but they’ll be a lot less skittery now when the races happen this week.
Here are some things you might want to know.
When and what are the races?
Skate sprint on Tuesday, interval-start 10km classic on Wednesday, classic sprint on Saturday, mass start 10km skate on Sunday. Full times and results links in viewing guide, up soon.
What is the level of these races?
High. The SuperTour is the Continental Cup level of racing within this country. The Continental Cup is “the highest level of XC Ski competition below the World Cup,” USSS explains. See the linked document for a list of the nine Continental Cup circuits out there if you are curious. Basically, you can think of it as being like AAA ball relative to Major League Baseball, the AHL relative to the NHL, and so on. Really, really good athletes, several of them with World Cup starts to their names already, some of them going back there soon, some of them working on taking that next step. Also some high-level local juniors, who can gain the invaluable experience of racing against high-end competition without paying $$$ for a flight from Alaska to Outside.
What are athletes racing for?
Money and pride for winning races, here as always. But back to the high-minors analogy: “The leader of each [Continental Cup] at certain points of the year is invited to start on the World Cup for the following period with expenses paid by FIS,” again per USSS.
For example, Zanden McMullen is currently racing on Period 1 of the 2023/2024 World Cup — quite ably, no less — by virtue of winning the overall 2022/2023 SuperTour title. (Hailey Swirbul won the title for the women last season, but then retired, and World Cup start spots given to Continental Cup leaders are not fungible.)
Within this season, the male and female athletes who have the overall best performances in Anchorage this week (most precisely, “The leaders of the overall U.S. Ski & Snowboard SuperTour classification (man and woman) at … December 17, 2023”) get start rights for Period 2 of the World Cup, i.e., the Tour de Ski. The athletes who lead the SuperTour overall classification following U.S. Nationals will get start rights for Period 3 of the World Cup, and so on. Find out more about World Cup selection criteria here if you’d like.
Who is racing?
A lot of good skiers. Even with seven Anchorage-based athletes currently away racing on the World Cup, the presence of University of Alaska Anchorage and Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center and Alaska Winter Stars ensures that the baseline level of local competition is high. (Disclosure: I train and race with APU Masters, which is under the same aegis as but also has almost nothing to do with the APU Elite Team.)
The locals are joined by athletes from, inter alia, the five other “main” ski clubs in this country (Bridger, SMS T2, Craftsbury, Sun Valley, and Team Birkie) and from multiple western schools, including Colorado, Utah, Alaska Fairbanks, Montana State, and Denver. Plus Dartmouth. And also by many Canadians! Nordiq Canada has designated this week’s races as a Coupe Nordiq (Nordic Cup) Continental Cup–level event for Canada as well. Welcome to our neighbours to the east.
You can find entry lists for the first two of this week’s races here. You might need to check here later for weekend start lists.
Two entry-list curiosities of note: For one, Lindsay Williams (yes that Lindsay Williams) has an active FIS license for the first time since 2010/2011 and has recently mounted a comeback, with an announced goal of qualifying for her home World Cup at Wirth in February. At 39 years old she is younger than me, because I am ancient, but I nonetheless greatly respect this.
And for another, Jonah Nitisapon, a local kid who did his high school skiing at Dimond High and who has Thai citizenship, has entered his official team affiliation as “Young Money” as he attempts to flesh out his FIS profile and qualify for future high-level races. I respect this also, if for different reasons (viz., it’s hilarious).
(I mean no disrespect to more established skiers when I focus on these two; I mostly just don’t want to get in trouble by making predictions or announcing favorites. I mean, it clearly wouldn’t surprise me to see, say, Adam Witkowski or Logan Diekmann or Magnus Bøe or Michael Earnhart in the men’s final, but if I go too far down this path I’m going to leave someone out, and I don’t want to do that. So Young Money it is.)
Can they use fluorinated wax on their skis?
Nope! These races will occur subject to the requirements of this year’s fluoro testing guidelines (official title: “2023/24 Equipment Control Protocols”), which you can find in full here.
The top 60 athletes in the qual, each gender — which is going to be basically everyone on Tuesday, given the size of the field — will have to deliver their skis to a Control Area right by the start for pre-race testing (see diagram above). The cutoff for this is 10 minutes before start time. Getting your skis there from 9:59 to 5:00 out leads to a written reprimand. Getting your skis there less than 5 minutes from the start means that an athlete is not allowed to start.
Athletes who make the heats will repeat the process before racing their first heat of the day. Their skis will stay in the Control Area between heats until the race is over (like, they get to race on them multiple times, up to three times total if they make the final, but they will need to use a separate pair if they want to do additional skiing not in the heats).
There are additional rules for classic sprints, which this week will be held on Saturday. Briefly put, kick wax can be finessed between heats in many ways, but glide wax is off limits, and the list of tech tools permitted in the Control Area reflects this:
How can I find out more about these athletes?
An excellent question. I previewed many of the athletes racing for American ski clubs earlier this fall. You can find those previews here:
How can I find out more about the 2023/2024 SuperTour more broadly?
Another great question. Here is an article on that:
And finally, how can I find out more information about the history of the sprint course?
As it happens, I have an article about that, too:
Enjoy the races, everyone.
— 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.
