The 2023/2024 Tour de Ski starts tomorrow, with a skate sprint in Toblach, Italy. Six more races will follow, in notably quick succession, before the Tour ends in Val di Fiemme on January 7 with the final climb up Alpe Cermis.
This is the 18th edition of the Tour de Ski. You are likely well aware that a single American has, so far, won the Tour; Jessie Diggins claimed the overall win in the 2020/2021 season, en route to winning the overall World Cup globe. Diggins was also third in the Tour in 2017/2018. She remains the only American to stand on the Tour de Ski podium, though Rosie Brennan was fourth last year. For the men, Ben Ogden’s 13th-place overall finish last year was the highwater mark for American men in this event. So far.
Speaking of the Americans: What are their thoughts headed into this year’s race? There are six men and six women starting the Tour de Ski for the U.S. this year. I asked half of them for comment. Here’s what they have to say. All answers here are in writing or (in the case of Diggins) transcribed from audio sent to Nordic Insights.*
(* But also I don’t know the scale of media availability this week, so if athletes received a similar question from a dozen different outlets, I would hope that they wrote a similar answer each time rather than come up with a dozen different answers the day before racing starts. So this really is original reporting on my part, but if you see similar thoughts elsewhere online that’s why, is what I’m trying to say here.)
I asked Ben Ogden what he was trying to get out of this series of races. Less so in terms of results, more so just what was he hoping to see in terms of how he’s skiing overall.
Ogden wrote:
“Great question. I think that this week my main goal remains the same as it has for the season thus far. I want to finish every race and feel as though I was a competitor. Hopefully that makes sense.
“There is probably a results number in there somewhere where if I finish below I will not feel that way, but the point is more that I want to race with confidence and be in the mix for every race. In order to do this I will have to focus on recovery, fueling and practice patience in the races. Not getting sucked into using energy to cover random early in the race surges, or going too hard in the beginning of the individual races will also be crucial. I think that having done the Tour a few times now will help with this patience and confidence. We will see though!”
I asked Sammy Smith if she could speak to some of the things that went into her decision to race here rather than at U.S. Nationals, as well as what she was hoping to get out of this series of races. Not to obsess about her age, but keep in mind that Smith is still only 18 (she is in fact literally a high school senior); this bears on her focus on World Juniors as a future goal race for her this season.
Here’s Smith:
“Choosing between the Tour de Ski and U.S. Nationals was a huge decision for me, and I tried to consider as many factors as possible. Ultimately, my decision was based upon the fact that I have always dreamed of racing the Tour, and this year seemed like a perfect year to do it!
“I think doing the Tour de Ski is a great opportunity for me to get more international racing experience. In 9 days, I’ll hopefully have 7 (or close to) more World Cup races under my belt. I’m hopeful that being in such an intense, competitive environment now will help me down the road at other events like World Juniors. Regardless, I couldn’t be more excited to be here and soak up all of the race energy!”
Sophia Laukli has placed 8th, 13th, and 14th in “normal” World Cup skate races this year, finishing progressively higher each race, so it is increasingly unfair to think of her as just an uphill specialist. But for the time being her two best individual World Cup finishes (third last season and fifth the year before that) have still come in the final climb, which ends with a 418-meter HC climb.
Since this is probably the last year that I can get away with labeling Laukli as “just” a climber, I asked her, “The final climb up Alpe Cermis: hopeless gimmick, the best thing in ski racing and a model for all other races, or something in between?”
Here’s Laukli’s gracious and considered answer to a slightly flippant question:
“I think the final climb in the Tour should just be looked at as a very unique, once in a season race that doesn’t necessarily represent true nordic skiing, but is simply fun to do because it is so different. I think it’s important for the World Cup circuit to have a handful of these races that contrast to the typical World Cup course, both to make the season more interesting/exciting, but also to mix up results and have these opportunities for so-called ‘niche’ skills and racers. Just like city sprints, for instance, I don’t think these ‘abnormal’ races should be the model or standard for all races because they don’t depict the general sport as a whole. However, for both the viewer and the athlete, I think it’s fun and also necessary to have a couple races a year that are quite atypical and a more niche event.”
Zanden McMullen is all of 22, part of the Alaska youth movement that saw him, Gus Schumacher, and Luke Jager jointly destroying Alaska high school skiing a few years ago. I asked McMullen if he was surprised by the start to the season that he’s had so far, and what his non-results goals were for the next week of racing.
McMullen wrote:
“I am not surprised by my start to the season as my goals were to be consistently top 20-30. I am certainly very happy about my results so far and only wish to climb up the ladder of results even more. My main goal for the Tour de Ski is to learn as much as I possibly can and to take care of my body. This is my first Tour, so I don’t have many expectations and just hope to finish as far up as I can!”
Kevin Bolger is by any standard a sprint specialist; in his last two World Cup starts he was 12th in a sprint and 65th in a distance race. In his five prior Tour de Ski starts, dating back to the 2018/2019 season, he has withdrawn before the final climb four times, making the eminently sensible decision to stick around for the sprints but then not subject his body to the strain of many more distance races.
This year, the sprints come in races number one and four of the seven-race tour. They are both skate sprints, which neatly doubles the total number of skate sprints contested on the World Cup so far this season. So I asked Bolger if I was safe in my assumption that he was targeting those two races, and if he anticipated shutting things down once the Davos sprint concluded midway through this year’s Tour.
Here’s Bolger:
“Honestly for awhile I wasn’t even considering the Tour. I’ve done it the past couple of years and thought it always took more from me than it gave me — and the tail end of the season suffered because of it. So originally I thought about training through this period, but after taking a closer look at the double skate sprints and the locations it was a no brainer for me to dive head first into the TDS!
“At this point, I’ll be shutting it down [after the skate sprint on January 3], and heading back to Sweden, so I can still have a good absorption/recovery period, and training period for the rest of the season. But I’ll also gauge my energy levels and see how the racing is going, I won’t rule out that final climb yet :)”
Finally, Jessie Diggins has often talked about racing her way into the season, and using the concentrated race stimulus of the Tour de Ski to help her hone her race fitness. But this year she has already stood on the podium five times in her first ten races. So I asked her how she sees the Tour fitting into her overall season this year, given that she is already crushing everything in sight.
Here’s Diggins, via transcribed audio:
“I love the Tour. It’s so fun. And honestly, I just love racing. I love the process of it. I love the challenge of putting together the puzzle pieces and seeing how fast I can go every day.
“And so I see it as an opportunity for a lot of joy and a lot of growth, and a lot of fun. And potentially growth in terms of overcoming challenges. You have a lot that you can’t control, and it’s an opportunity to figure out how to be in the moment and learn and grow and move on day to day. So I think in that way, I see the Tour being a really cool opportunity to test those mental skills that I’ve been building up and working on over the summer, in the fall, and the season thus far.
“And then in a more literal sense I guess, I see it as a really amazing training opportunity. It’s a huge load on the body. But then when you rest and recover and let your body soak up all of that intensity that you’ve put it through, I think it can be an incredible fitness boost to really carry you into the season. And that’s been part of my peaking plan for Olympics and World Championships and I’ve loved it. So I think this year, kind of seeing it as the same thing. Obviously we’re not peaking because we don’t have Olympics and World Champs, but just seeing it as a big boost to carry me through the rest of the season.”
— 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.
