ANCHORAGE, Alaska — After eight trips around the sprint course this week at race speed, plus twice more in the classic distance race, Sammy Smith is getting a pretty good sense for how she wants to ski this course.
These skills were never more apparent than they were in the final few hundred meters of Saturday’s classic sprint, when Smith came down from the high point of the course well off the front of the women’s field. Athletes at this point descend to the northwest, head briefly away from the stadium, work their way through a broad, sweeping lefthand curve, and then re-enter the stadium headed south. The race ends, as sprint races on homologated courses canonically do, with a doublepole finish up a false flat through the stadium to the finish line.
The races this week have been of a very high quality, but there is no live feed or streaming, and what is often the crux of the race occurs out of sight just to the north of the stadium, slightly below eye level and hidden behind some trees. So let’s hear from Smith what happened over these pivotal few hundred meters:
“Olivia was leading over the top of the hill, which — with the wind right now, anyone who’s leading there, they’re not going to have the draft effect. So I kind of ran up on her as we were going into the trees [approaching the main point of the lefthand curve]. I’d spent a lot of time with my coaches yesterday thinking about the curve, making sure I’m hitting the right tangents, that sort of thing, so I can maximize the turning zone.”
How much of sprint racing is planning ahead and thinking about tactics and how much is just being present in the moment and reacting, I asked Smith once we had paused to finish watching Julien Locke had come across the line with a comfortable win in the men’s final.
“That’s a good question,” Smith said. “For me, I try and keep pretty much every round close to as hard as I can go, not all-out on everything, because I like to maximize the day. I knew for me going into the race the uphill was kind of going to be the make it or break it point, so that’s where I was trying to push it. And then I tried to work the corner because I knew what I had to do there, and maximize the turning zone.”
Smith was resolutely not looking past tomorrow, and indeed anything can and will happen in a 10km mass start race with 80+ athletes on course. But if she does well tomorrow, and if she does indeed make it through this week as the overall women’s SuperTour leader, does she have any thoughts on whether or not she would accept the Tour de Ski start rights that this status brings with it? (For perspective on this answer, keep in mind that Smith had start rights for Period 1 World Cup sprints coming into this fall, which she declined in favor of racing domestically.)
“I think it would definitely warrant a pretty serious conversation between my club coaches and also [USST coaches] Matt Whitcomb and Kristen Bourne,” Smith said. “I think it’s a really tricky balance because it’s a brutal race series, and it can take a lot out of athletes. But it’s always been a dream of mine to race it, especially that last uphill day. But also I don’t know if racing that would be in the best interest of my season. So it’s definitely kind of a pick and choose type of deal, probably, but we’ll see — gotta get through tomorrow and have an okay day.”
Smith, who skis for Sun Valley, was the only American in the final, which she won by frankly a large margin in 3:57.27. She was trailed by Mariel Merlii Pulles of Estonia, who skis for University of Alaska Fairbanks, in second, 2.17 seconds back; Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt of Canada (Fondeurs–Laurentides) in third, 2.58 seconds back; Katie Weaver of Canada (Alberta World Cup Academy) in fourth, 5.71 seconds back; Sonjaa Schmidt of Canada (Whitehorse Ski Club) in fifth, 9.73 seconds back; and Karianne Olsvik Dengerud of Norway (University of Utah) in sixth, 14.22 seconds back. Our neighbours to the east have put their strong stamp on SuperTour racing this week.
Pulles did not ski the latter stages of the sprint course poorly herself: She was in fourth passing through the north edge of the stadium, then was suddenly solidly in second by the time athletes re-emerged from the curve and started sprinting for home.
“My skis were amazing,” Pulles said when asked about this portion of the race. “So big thanks to my coaches who were working really hard. The course is kind of tough, it’s long, but just keep behind people, and on the last finish line, go for it.”
Pulles has not skied poorly here so far, but is still looking for more. “This week hasn’t been really my best performance,” said an athlete who has among other performances represented Estonia at the Olympics, “but I feel like every race it’s making me better.”
The last time that Pulles journeyed south from Fairbanks to race at Kincaid was in February of this year, when she edged out then-Utah skier Novie McCabe to win a RMISA sprint here. That one was a skate sprint, so I asked Pulles which disciplines she prefers for racing this course.
“Tuesday it was snowing so much” for the SuperTour skate sprint here this week, Pulles mused. “So I’m not really a person who can ski that fast in fresh snow. But conditions were really fast [today]. I think that’s my advantage, if it’s like really fast conditions. So I’m excited for [U.S. Nationals at] Salt Lake if it’s going to be warm and fast, so I think maybe I have a better chance there.”
Shortly behind Pulles was Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt of Canada. Bouffard-Nesbitt overcame a somewhat slow start to rejoin the rest of the pack by the bottom of Gong Hill, a 24-meter B-Climb that is by all accounts typically the defining portion of this course. She moved from the rear of the pack to the front with alacrity, cresting the top of the hill alongside Smith.
“And we got to the top of the hill together,” Bouffard-Nesbitt recounted. “And I think behind us, Katie was there, I imagine — I don’t know what’s happening behind. Sammy slowed down a little bit, didn’t want to lead the downhill, so I slowed down as well. And then, don’t ask me why, but I took the bait, and I decided to lead the downhill.
“And I think Sammy got the slingshot effect on me, and passed me over there [points to northwest edge of stadium]. And then I was second until the last 100 metres, and then got out-doublepoled [by Pulles]. She has a great doublepole. And that was my day.”
Bouffard-Nesbitt has raced broadly elsewhere (two world championships, one Olympics, 23 World Cup starts, etc.), but this week has been her first time in Anchorage, racing or otherwise.
She’s a fan.
“I actually think the sprint is super exciting,” she said. “The course comes at you really fast. There’s so many transitions, so many decision points. And what technique you’re going to use, how long you’re going to stay in a tuck. So many corners. So I love when a course combines — like it has a bit of everything. You have to be good tactically, have to be good technically, you have to be fit, you have to have good climbing skills, descending skills. It’s a fun course.”
So, last question for Bouffard-Nesbitt, because (a) I’m a massive dork and (b) this is my home course. (I’ll have you know I once finished 51st out of 54 in a classic sprint qual here, roughly 77 seconds back of Zanden McMullen. Over 1.4km. At age 40. All of the lolz.) Does she like this course better for classic sprinting or for skate?
“I never know how to answer that,” mused Bouffard-Nesbitt. “Because I just love all types of ski racing. I personally just usually like skate sprinting better, because I think there’s more freedom in, like, the choices you can make with your technique. And for me it’s easier to take advantage of the course in skate. So I just personally think it’s more fun to skate. But that’s my personal preference.”
Bouffard-Nesbitt will be back in action tomorrow, when Anchorage SuperTour week wraps up with the 10km skate at 10:45 a.m. There are 84 athletes entered in the open women’s race (U18 and above). You can find start lists for tomorrow here, and a general viewing guide here.
Results: open men and women | junior, U16, and U14 brackets | qual
— 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.
