ANCHORAGE, Alaska — There is a niche-famous NBA press conference video in which a reporter asks a professional basketball player, in a manner that she will likely regret for the rest of her life, “Do you have any idea what happened there?” LeBron James pauses, repeats the question, and then recounts, in exhaustive, lapidary detail, precisely what occurred over multiple possessions of Game 1 of the 2018 Eastern Conference Finals as the Celtics rallied against his Cavs. You can see it here if you are curious.
Here’s Michael Earnhart (USST/APU) with the skiing version of this, graciously not owning me like LeBron did Marla Ridenour of the Akron Beacon Journal, when I confessed that I really couldn’t see much of the action on the Kincaid sprint course, and so could he please walk me through what had happened in the men’s skate sprint final that kicked off the 2023/2024 SuperTour season here earlier Tuesday.
“It’s my all-time favorite course for sure,” Earnhart began. “I think it’s the best one in the U.S.”
[read more: Inside the Kincaid Sprint Course]
“Going up the first kind of gradual hill by the parking lot, we jostled for position. I followed Julien [Locke] up the hill to go from kind of the back of the pack up into the front. And then Walker [Hall] and I kind of jostled for a little bit heading into the downhill trying to get in that second place and get in that draft right behind Julien, and Walker was able to hold me off. So I sat in third behind Walker.
“And then we hit the steep hill on Gong [Hill], and I went pretty hard to try to go around the outside and get around either Walker or Julien, and just couldn’t make it happen. So I ended up sitting back behind Walker. And just kind of stayed there the rest of the race. I got pretty tired in the finish, but was able to hold off the other guys.”
Honestly? I don’t have too much to add to that. Julien Locke (Black Jack Cross Country Ski Club/Nordic Pulse), one of three Canadians in the final, took the win in 3:16:06, an encouraging early-season result as he looks to string together strong races and return to World Cup racing at his former base of Canmore. Walker Hall (USST/Utah) was a close second (+.39) and Earnhart third (+.93).
There was a gap of three-plus seconds to the three other men in the final: Jack Young (Craftsbury) in fourth, Pierre Grall-Johnson (Thunder Bay) in fifth, and Sasha Masson (CNEPH) in sixth. It was snowy. It was windy. Pretty much a normal day at Kincaid Park, honestly.
But something that was abnormal about today, or at least new, was that athletes are still adjusting to the logistical requirements of Equipment Control. Taking their skis off after each heat and handing them to the plethora of volunteers to return them to ski jail until the final heat concluded seemed unremarkable; I watched this process across several heats, and saw no snags. But moving up the pre-race ritual to allow time to deliver skis for pre-race marking and testing was an additional requirement added to what is for most athletes a well-honed routine.
“It’s a bit annoying,” Earnhart stated honestly, after also emphasizing that he appreciates the need for this and that the process is being conducted smoothly. “Because sometimes your bathroom break goes a little long, maybe there’s a line or something, or it just takes a while to run up to the [wax] bunker, get your skis, run back down, and bring them in. And you’re trying to get intensity in within 20 to 30 minutes before the race as well. So it’s kind of a lot, but we’re getting the routine down. … So we made it, and everyone’s dealing with the same thing.”
Winner Julien Locke’s recollection from the front of the race largely accords with Earnhart’s experience in third.
“The final played out pretty well for me,” he said. “It was a bit of a slower start. I just hung back a little bit and then over the top of the first climb I just moved towards the front, and then controlled the pace from there to the finish.”
Locke, 30, was one of the more experienced athletes in today’s field. He has 20-odd World Cup starts to his name, with top results including 15th and 20th in skate sprints, but none since Québec Spring Series in March 2019. He hasn’t given up on the dream, though, and now, healthy for the first time in several years, he’s eyeing a return to that stage.
“I would just like to get back to racing at a good level and racing on the World Cup,” Locke said. “The World Cup coming to Canada is super exciting. I used to live in Canmore; it would be super cool to race there. So that is for sure a goal. But just for myself, I just want to get back to racing fast again.”
In closing, I asked Locke my standard catchall query, “Is there anything else that you think I should be asking you?” I’m normally pretty loath to hide free advertising, but I’m also pretty understandably sympathetic to anyone with a nordic-world startup these days. So here’s Locke’s answer to that one:
“Well, I’d say it’s pretty cool to come up here to Anchorage as a skier who uses Nordic Pulse. My first day here on Thursday I went to go for a ski and I was like, Where’s the trailhead? And it was quite an amazing feeling to open up the Nordic Pulse app, which I developed, and find my way to the trails. And it was just amazing to see so much skiing in town here. You said that’s normal for you [I had been bragging about Anchorage, as is my wont], but for me coming from a small little town in B.C. with a small 25km network of trails, it’s pretty incredible to see so much skiing. And so much enthusiasm on the trails as well. There’s so many people out skiing here.”
Seriously, though, my unsolicited, uncompensated, and honest opinion is that Nordic Pulse is great. I have enjoyed Anchorage groomers’ switch to it over the past few seasons. You can find out more about it here.
Racing in Anchorage continues tomorrow with the 10km classic interval start.
— 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.
