ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The last time that Sammy Smith did a distance race at Kincaid Park, it was 2019 Junior Nationals. She was racing on behalf of the Intermountain Division and she crashed twice in a single race, including once in the stadium. She finished in the top ten, but hardly won.
Four years later, Smith has moved from the Intermountain JNs team to the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Gold Team, and from the JNs top-ten All American team to the U.S. Ski Team. What has she learned since then?
“That was a long time ago,” said a momentarily phased Smith when presented with this history from roughly a quarter of her life ago.
“Focusing on pacing, and the opportunity to race in higher-level races and have great competition,” she soon answered. “That’s probably the biggest thing for development.”
Smith’s development as a skier seems to be going well: She won her second race in a row here to kick off the 2023/2024 SuperTour season, taking first in Wednesday’s 10-kilometer interval-start classic over a deep field. Smith’s time for two laps of what is locally known as the, well, 5km JNs course was 30:49.9.
Second place today went to Sydney Palmer-Leger (USST/University of Utah), 8.9 seconds back. Nina Schamberger (Utah) was a close third, 10.1 seconds back of Smith and 1.2 seconds behind Palmer-Leger.
Margie Freed (Craftsbury, +13.1), Liliane Gagnon (CNEPH, +17.3), and Karianne Olsvik Dengerud (Utah, +33.1) completed the six-deep SuperTour podium.
The oldest athlete in the women’s top-three was Palmer-Leger, who is currently 21 years old. Palmer-Leger would have been eligible to race at those same 2019 Junior Nationals here at Kincaid, but seems to have been otherwise engaged at that time “racking up top-20 OPA Cup finishes in Germany.” The youth movement in American women’s skiing continues apace.
Speaking of pacing, Smith reasoned that she “definitely started out a little fast, maybe too fast. But it’s kind of the way I like to ski 10km’s.”
“And I actually still haven’t raced many 10km’s, just because of Covid and everything. I’m curious to look at the splits and see how even I was,” Smith said soon after the race before she had had a chance to go over the data, “but my guess is that my first 5km was probably significantly faster than my second.”
The full results do show that there was a slowdown from Smith’s first lap to her second, but it was a not unreasonable 36 seconds over 5km. Put another way, she still had the fastest lap-two time of anyone on the six-deep podium, following, yes, the fastest lap-one time.
Third place on today’s podium was Nina Schamberger, who also raced here in those 2019 JNs. (I couldn’t resist; I pulled results. Smith was fourth and Schamberger 15th in the U16 girls 5km skate. Schamberger placed a lot higher than 15th today, against, no offense to the 2019 U16 girls, a notably deeper field. Don’t let your U16 results define you, kids.)
The last time that I interviewed Schamberger was at 2023 World Juniors in Whistler this spring. She battled back pain throughout the week following a recent crash at U.S. Nationals, and was literally carried off the course by her coaches in at least one race.
“I think she definitely won the toughness competition for today,” USST D Team Coach Greta Anderson said of Schamberger following the 10km skate in Whistler in early February.
Things have improved for Schamberger since then.
“It’s just really special to be here after a lot of difficult seasons,” Schamberger said after her third-place finish today. “I’m just really happy to be able to ski and challenge myself and have a lot of fun while doing it.”
Schamberger added that she chose to attend college at the University of Utah, where she is currently a freshman, “because the program is so good, and it felt like I didn’t have to choose between skiing and school going to Utah. And being there has really confirmed that,” a clearly contented Schamberger noted, “because we have just so many resources, and it’s really centered around skiing. … And so right now I’m kind of just along for the ride and enjoying the journey, but doing the best I can to be a really good skier and also learn other things and try to just be a well-rounded person.”
I don’t want to obsess about nor to sensationalize World Juniors, but keep in mind that the last time I had seen this young woman race I had literally averted my eyes as she was carried out of the stadium, because it felt disrespectful to watch her pain. And because I, and most reporters, tend to focus more on athletes when they are on the podium than when they are finishing a hard-won 30-something-th while battling their body the whole way, I asked Schamberger what she would say to junior athletes who likewise find it easier to focus on Instagram ski stars seeming to have an easy path through life than to think about the parts of reality that don’t make it onto Instagram.
Here’s a thoughtful Schamberger on that dynamic:
“I think as athletes we’re kind of made to pretend like everything’s great, and at the very least not show when things are hard. And so just remember that everyone has their own battles. But at the end of the day, it’s supposed to be fun, and a rewarding experience. And so don’t take yourself too seriously.”
Racing continues at Kincaid on Saturday with a classic sprint.
— 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.
