It’s been a minute, but your favorite World Cup skiers, or at least some of them, are returning to the World Cup stage. Tour de Ski finishers have had an 11-day break since reaching the top of Alpe Cermis. Gus Schumacher and Ben Ogden went to the beach somewhere warm. Sophia Laukli had some downtime, then returned to her European home base of Oslo. The lion’s share of the U.S. team did a recovery camp in Livigno, which, if social media means anything anymore, looked really, really nice.
The squad seems recovered. Ish. Rosie Brennan posted two stories to her Instagram page earlier Thursday that sum up many athletes’ mood right now. “Gang’s back together,” read the first caption, over a picture of several American women on site in Oberhof. “Ready or not, we’re back to racing,” read the second, over an American start list for tomorrow. Not much to add to that.
I guess I should add that it’s been snowing in Oberhof. Hard. The venue is not always athletes’ favorite due to poor snow conditions, but it looks like that will not be a problem this time.
Here is when the races will be this weekend. Fun fact, tomorrow’s sprint will be the 250th individual World Cup sprint event, for both men and women. The inaugural World Cup sprint races were held in Reit im Winkl, Germany, in February 1996. Winners of those races were Tor Arne Hetland (now 50 years old) for the men and Elena Välbe (now 55) for the women, if that helps date it for you.
World Cup (local time at venue: Central European Time. This is 6 hours ahead of the East Coast and 10 hours ahead of Alaska.)
| date | race | time (AK) | time (EST) | results |
| Friday, Jan. 19 | W cl sprint qual | 2:50 a.m. | 6:50 a.m. | here |
| M cl sprint qual | 3:24 a.m. | 7:24 a.m. | here | |
| sprint finals | 5:20 a.m. | 9:20 a.m. | here | |
| Saturday, Jan. 20 | M 20km classic | 12:25 a.m. | 4:25 a.m. | here |
| W 20km classic | 3:30 a.m. | 7:30 a.m. | here | |
| Sunday, Jan. 21 | W 4 x 7.5km relay | 12:50 a.m. | 4:50 a.m. | here |
| M 4 x 7.5km relay | 3:10 a.m. | 7:10 a.m. | here |
Who is racing for the U.S.?
Five athletes are starting for the women on Friday: Julia Kern, Rosie Brennan, Jessie Diggins, Samantha Smith, and Erin Bianco. Of note, it is Bianco’s World Cup debut; congrats to the BSF skier. Friday will somehow also be Smith’s 16th World Cup start. She is having a pretty good senior year of high school, it seems from here.
There are four American men on Friday’s start list: Kevin Bolger, JC Schoonmaker, Ben Ogden, and Zak Ketterson. Ketterson did indeed make it out of Oslo in time to race, though he had to race in a borrowed suit from Gus Schumacher and spend $400 at Intersport Oberhof to gear up after his bags did not arrive in time.
Scott Patterson, Gus Schumacher, Ben Ogden, Peter Wolter, Zak Ketterson, and JC Schoonmaker are slated to start Saturday’s distance race for the men. For the women, it’s Jessie Diggins, Rosie Brennan, Sophia Laukli, and Julia Kern. Saturday will be Wolter’s third career World Cup start; he contested two distance races in Les Rousses, France, in Period 3 of the 2022/2023 season.
Relay teams will be selected closer to Sunday.
How can you watch the races?
I have thoughts on this. TLDR, pay Ski & Snowboard Live (link) $8 to $9 per month throughout the season if you would like to be assured of being able to watch the races, with good quality, and audio commentary in American English, and so on. For as little as $0/month, depending on VPN cost, get a VPN that will let you geo-locate to Canada, then watch the free livestream on the FIS YouTube channel, with commentary in British English. Find out more about that here. You might want to try Windscribe as a VPN; their free version gets you a fair amount of data.
You can also take your chances with what gets uploaded to YouTube after the fact, which is free but not always as reliable, and subject to pesky take-down notices. Find out far more about all of these options, including some VPN how-tos, in this article:
Enjoy the races.
— Gavin Kentch
