ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Seeing Hunter Wonders on a distance podium at Kincaid Park is, in the abstract, quite unsurprising. Seeing Hunter Wonders on a distance podium at Kincaid Park in December 2023 is more of a record scratch moment.
On the one hand, Wonders is a local kid (South Anchorage High School ’17) who has raced well at Kincaid for some time. Be it Besh Cup or Anchorage Cup or high school racing, Wonders has experienced plenty of success here throughout his career.
On the other hand, everyone thought that that career ended this spring. Here’s a laudatory press release from May 2023 duly eulogizing him. “I have nothing but huge respect and appreciation for Hunter” said Matt Whitcomb at the time, and I have no doubt he meant it.
So what happened then?
“I felt like I was really content with the way last season ended,” Wonders said Wednesday afternoon, standing in a not-warm Kincaid stadium shortly after finishing third in Wednesday’s SuperTour 10-kilometer interval-start classic race. “I reached all my goals and had my parents come over and see the World Cup. And it was just really meaningful to me.”
But as summer stretched on, Wonders realized that he wasn’t done yet.
“I just felt like I left a little too much on the table,” Wonders said. “And it kind of dawned on me as I was working way through the summer. And so in November, I officially started talking to coaches, and there’s just been overwhelming support, which I’m really appreciative of, and I decided to get back into it and see what I can do.”
I’m not saying that Wonders’s return to high-level sport was fairly last-minute, but consider that his club, APU, literally had to photoshop him into this year’s team announcement photo. Look at the third row from top here, far right. That is, hilariously, Wonders’s head atop Zanden McMullen’s body.
Wonders expanded a little on why he left the grind of the full-time World Cup circuit, and on how he will approach things if or when he returns.
“My big reason for stepping away was, I missed being home,” Wonders said. “You know, I love Alaskan winters. And I didn’t love just spending all season in a hotel room over in Europe; that’s the majority of what World Cup skiing is. Anchorage right now is pretty dang hard to beat,” said Wonders, standing in the middle of a 50-kilometer trail system that is connected to another 50-plus kilometers of trails winding throughout the city. “And when I want to go backcountry skiing, I can. And I really live for so much more than just nordic skiing.”
All of which is commendable, but also begs the $64,000 question: Going forward, how does Wonders intend to balance this worldview with the inconvenient reality that World Cup ski racing is difficult and all-consuming under the best of circumstances, not to mention 10 to 11 time zones away from home? Being in American in Europe means coming to peace with living out of a suitcase, no matter how balanced or grounded one is otherwise.
“The goal this season is to have fun and just find the love for ski racing again,” Wonders said. “Excited to travel, which is a little bit of a mindset change from prior years. And I’m seeing a new light — I think I’ve always had a pretty good outlook on ski racing, that it’s just ski racing. And the point of it is to have fun and have it be competitive in a light environment. And so I’m trying to keep it light and see what I can do and try to set myself up well for next year.”
I should probably tell you by this point who won the race, sorry. Max Hollman of Canada (Big Thunder Nordic) led the way on a podium that had a strong international flavor, taking the win in 27:04.1. Hollman had what was technically the third-fastest lap-one time for once around the 2019 JNs 5km course, but was also only one second back of Wonders’s top-ranked time. Hollman then went a fraction of a second faster on his second lap, the only man in the top 50 to do so, en route to taking the win.
Hugo Hinckfuss, an Australian who skis for the University of Colorado, was second. His first lap was 0.4 seconds faster than Hollmann’s; his second lap was 4 seconds slower. Hinckfuss was therefore 3.6 seconds behind Hollman at the finish. Wonders, in third, was 11.7 seconds back.
The rest of the six-deep SuperTour podium went to Brian Bushey (USST/Utah) in 4th (+12.8), Michael Earnhart (USST/APU) in 5th (+24.6), and Peter Wolter (Sun Valley) in 6th (+26.6). Wonders was initially nominated to this year’s national team, but presumably declined the nomination and is not on the official national team roster for this season.
“I was quite happy with how I raced,” said a clearly contented Hinckfuss afterwards. “It’s good to get the season started.”
“I was just focusing on skiing technically well,” Hinckfuss continued, “and that was my main priority today. I think I executed that as well as I could have, with a couple of blips on the second lap. So I guess Max [Hollman] just executed a bit better than I did, but I hope to get him later in the season.”
There are a lot of things that Hinckfuss likes about Anchorage. He raced here last December in Besh Cup, which he pronounced “my favorite race series in North America.” When I politely raised a quizzical eyebrow as to why an Australian skiing for a RMISA school was competing in our local JNQ series, he graciously explained, “Last Christmas I was here with the Maurer family, the nicest family in North America.”
(The reference is to Lisa and Erik Maurer, parents to his Colorado teammate, Zander Maurer. Anchorage is not very close to many things, but it is a heck of a lot closer than Sydney when it comes time to choose a place to spend holiday break.)
Hinckfuss liked the race course: “I think this course suits my abilities quite well. It’s very, like, rolling” he accurately stated of the 5km FIS course here that is traditionally used for mass start races, and that has a more, well, rolling profile than the 5km FIS course often used for interval-start races. “So I think I can recover quite quickly from the efforts. And especially being at sea level, it feels like I just need five seconds of rest before I can start going again, which is really nice.”
Hinckfuss liked his season goals: “I would really like to race the World Cups in Canmore and Minneapolis. They’re the main goals. And if I go there, it would be really amazing to crack the top 30. It’s quite ambitious, but goals need to be ambitious. … And then of course, later, bringing the NCAA title back to Colorado.”
And finally, Hinckfuss liked his Alaskan host parents, while also being sure to greet his antipodean mother: “Lisa and Erik Maurer, they’re the goats; I think they deserve a lot more recognition and attention than they get. They’ve helped me a lot. And also shoutout to mum back home; she has been following the results. Sko Buffs as well, of course.”
You have to imagine the above being said in a dreamy Australian accent by a man who stands literally 6′ 6″. It was all deeply wholesome.
Racing continues in Anchorage this weekend with classic sprints on Saturday, then a 10km mass start skate on Sunday. The weekend’s races will also be Besh Cups, so expect 200+ athletes on site and full parking lots if you venture out to Kincaid.
— 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.
