The SuperTour is in Anchorage this week, for the first time in nearly twenty years. This reporter, who lives a nine-minute drive from the Kincaid stadium, is excited.
Below are the current weather conditions at the venue as I type this on Tuesday morning. That’s 22° F, north winds of 10 to 14mph, and snowing sideways (hence 99% humidity). Also, we don’t sand or salt the roads here, and plowing is sort of a sore subject these days. The sun just rose, but it’s barely lighter than it was an hour ago. Welcome to Anchorage.
Here is when the races will be this week. Local time at the venue is Alaska Time. This is four hours behind East Coast Time, and, for my burgeoning number of site visitors from Sweden, ten hours behind Central European Time.
| date | race | time (Alaska) | results |
| Saturday, Dec. 16 | classic sprint qual | 10 a.m. | here |
| classic sprint heats (senior) | 1 p.m. | here | |
| senior sprint finals | 2:20 p.m. | here | |
| classic sprint heats (junior) | 2:54 p.m. | here | |
| classic sprint heats (U16) | 4:34 p.m. | here | |
| classic sprint heats (U14) | 5:10 p.m. | here | |
| Sunday, Dec. 17 | M 10km mass start skate | 10 a.m. | here |
| W 10km mass start skate | 10:35 a.m. | here |
Results
Results for all four races should be available here. The first two races listed above are standalone SuperTour races. The weekend races are a combination Besh Cup (Alaska JNQ series) and SuperTour weekend, so there is a chance that you will also have to check Cross Country Alaska for start lists or times for Saturday or Sunday. You can find that information here through CCAK. Some of it will likely not be updated until closer to 24 hours before the start. Races in Anchorage are consistently of high quality, but basically everyone involved here is a volunteer.
Streaming?
Not really, certainly not officially. That said, here is the stadium webcam. The webcam is located on the timing building, and affords a great view of the finish line for all races. It’s sort of getting buried in the snow as I type this, but you can sort of make it out, recessed in the snow, about two-thirds of the way to the right of the frame.
The background of the webcam (top center) shows the outbound portion of the course, roughly 100 meters after the starting line. Both the sprints and the distance races will be visible here, with athletes passing from right to left as they go downhill/north through the stadium, albeit along slightly different paths. The top left-hand corner of the webcam will show a very brief portion of the sprint heats. The athletes will be coming down from the high point of the course when they pass through here, and so will go through here at high speeds and will not be on screen for very long. From when they pass through the screen there, it should be another 30 to 45 seconds until they are visible again approaching the finish.
Current weather at the venue?
You can find that here. If this goes offline at some point during the week, then go here, take the current weather for the airport (top line), then add about 5mph for wind speed and 5 to 10 percent for humidity. I love Kincaid, but it can be pretty brutal at times.
Background information?
I have lots of that. Here is a deep dive on the theory and practice of the sprint course that will be used on Tuesday and Saturday. Here is a broader piece about the status of these races, how fluoro testing works these days, profiles of some of the athletes competing here, and more. And here is an overall look at this winter’s SuperTour schedule.
The official race webpage, which has course maps and even more detailed schedules, is here.
Thanks for reading. Enjoy the races, and good luck to all athletes. Some day we will host Spring Series again, and you can experience Kincaid under slightly more humane conditions.
— 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.
