I previously shared those athletes nominated to start the Tour de Ski for the U.S. this year. I can now report, per updated information from U.S. Ski & Snowboard, the athletes who accepted the nomination and who will be racing in this year’s Tour.
The six American women who will be starting are: Rosie Brennan, Jessie Diggins, Julia Kern, Sophia Laukli, Novie McCabe, and Sammy Smith.
The six American men who will be starting are: Kevin Bolger, Zanden McMullen, Ben Ogden, Scott Patterson, JC Schoonmaker, and Gus Schumacher.
If you read the previous article against this one, it shows that all six American women who were nominated for this year’s Tour de Ski team accepted their nominations. On the men’s side, meanwhile, two athletes declined the start that they had earned: Michael Earnhart (USST/APU) and John Steel Hagenbuch (USST/Dartmouth).
Earnhart stated soon after the Anchorage SuperTour races had concluded that he would turn down the World Cup Period 2 starts in favor of racing at U.S. Nationals (see above post). On the one hand, Steel Hagenbuch has not made a similar public statement one way or the other. On the other hand, he was still crushing at home in Sun Valley as of Tuesday evening, per a public Strava post, and is currently registered for all four races at U.S. Nationals. Oh and also USSS says that he is not starting this year’s Tour, so there’s that.
This year’s Tour de Ski starts in Toblach, Italy, on December 30, 2023, with a skate sprint. This year’s U.S. Nationals start at Soldier Hollow, Utah, on January 2, 2024, with a 10km classic. I will be reporting in person from Soldier Hollow throughout the week, while also attempting some de minimis coverage of the Tour de Ski at the same time.
— 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.
