Before Maeve Ingelfinger left for Falun and this year’s U18 Nordic Nations Cup trip, she told her hometown paper, the Flathead Beacon, for a recent profile, “Now I can go to Sweden and hopefully expect to not get pummeled by the Swedish racers.”
A week later, it is safe to say that Ingelfinger more than held her own. The 17-year-old, a senior at Whitefish High School who trains with Glacier Nordic Club, placed 4th in the women’s U18 10-kilometer interval-start classic race in Falun earlier Sunday. The race was part of the Bauhaus Cup, the highest level of junior racing in Sweden.
Evelina Crusell of Sweden won the women’s U20 race, by a staggering 90-plus seconds. It may be relevant to note here that Crusell was 36th in a World Cup 10km skate last February at age 18. Ingelfinger was 33.3 seconds back of Kajsa Johansson, who won the U18 race, and was less than 20 seconds off of the U18 podium.
[Update: The original version of this article referred to a combined U18/U20 field, which is the impression given by the published results on the FIS site. Athletes’ parents who were on site in Falun have kindly informed me that there were separate races for U18 and U20 (i.e., there were four separate junior races today, men and women U18 and U20). I have rewritten the article with splits pulled from live results in the FIS app. I don’t know how to link to/I don’t think I can find separate U18 vs. U20 results once the race no longer registers as “live” in this app. My sincere thanks to the parents who brought me up to date on this; accuracy is important to me. I should also admit that I first wrote this article referring to today as a skate race (because that’s what the FIS results call it). Today was actually a classic race; race cancellations over a cold weekend were not all handled cleanly by the FIS database.]
Five other Americans raced today on the girls side. All finished top-30 in the U18 field. Amelia Circosta (Craftsbury) was 7th, 59.1 back; Ally Wheeler (Casper Nordic Ski Club) was 10th (+1:17.5); Lena Poduska (Jackson Hole Ski Club) was 11th (+2:03.5); Natalie Nicholas (BSF) was 12th (+2:05.7); and Niki Johnson (Tahoe Endurance) was tied for 26th (+3:23.6). All times back in this paragraph are relative to Johansson, the top U18 athlete today.
The American boys were led today by Henry Magill (Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club). Magill was a strong 5th in the U18 boys race, 22.2 seconds back of the pace set by Måns Ravald. Magill was less than six seconds off the U18 podium. Lucas Wilmot (Jackson Hole Ski Club) was close behind Magill in 7th, 27.3 back.
The two Rocky Mountain skiers were followed by Daniel McCollor (Minneapolis Ski Club), 12th (+1:16.2); Murphy Kimball (Alaska Winter Stars), 14th (+1:20.3); Cole Bothner (BSF), 35th (+2:26.9); and Zach Quesnel (Sun Valley, albeit listed as 🇸🇪 in the live results lol), 65th (+3:57.4). The junior boys field was not small; there were 103 starters in the U18 field.
Today’s race marks the end of athletes’ three two-race weekend in Falun. The team will spend tomorrow in Stockholm exploring the city, per a recent Instagram post from team mom Becky Wheeler, who is on site. (Embedding for that post is turned off, but click through for team photos if you would like. My sense is that slide no. 2 shows two Americans in the U18 top-10 ceremony.)
Also per the above post, Ally Wheeler will stay in Europe in advance of World Juniors. The rest of the American distaff team for that race series is Sammy Smith (Sun Valley), Ava Thurston (Dartmouth), Nina Schamberger (University of Utah), Evelyn Walton (Dartmouth), and Sofia Scirica (Middlebury). Racing begins in Planica on February 5, with a pre-camp across the border in Toblach. Most of the rest of the athletes on this trip probably have to go back home and go back to school.
Results (combined for U18 and U20 fyi): women | men
— Gavin Kentch
Hi, Nordic Insights! Thank you for a highlight of the U18 Scandinavian trip! I tried to leave a comment, but IG isn’t liking that. A couple of corrections to your article. Saturdays 10 K skate individual start was canceled due to cold temperatures. Today, Sunday, a 10 K classic individual start was held. The US had five women in the top 12, and three on the podium: Maeve, Amelia, Ally. Lena was 11th, Natalie 12th. The men had two on the podium: Henry and Lucus. The U 18 race was separate from the U 20 race, they did not race together, nor were results combined.
Sometimes they combine the two classes for FIS-points purposes, but you never know when they do it. Anyway, here are the (top 37) results, with splits, for the two U18 classes on sunday.
girls: https://imgur.com/wNPtYLC
boys: https://imgur.com/zvjUDar