CANMORE NORDIC CENTRE, Canmore, Alberta — Some athletes win mass start races by skiing cool and controlled within the pack, metering out their energy while others do the work of leading, saving their resources for one final kick.
And some athletes are Simen Hegstad Krüger. For not the first time in his career — think the skiathlon at the 2018 Olympics, and the skiathlon at 2023 World Championships, among others — Krüger won a distance race by attacking from an obscene distance out, pushing all his chips in early and daring a field full of the fittest men on earth to catch him.
No one could this time, and the Norwegian took the win in Friday’s 15-kilometre mass start skate race, his first victory of the 2023/2024 World Cup season, in 36:06.5.
Countryman Harald Østberg Amundsen was second, 9.8 seconds back, near the front of a large chase pack. Mika “Skirious Problems podcast” Vermeulen of Austria animated the race with an initial gutsy move on lap two of four that blew apart the field. He was rewarded with third on the day, a first career World Cup podium, for his efforts, a half-second back of Amundsen.
Scott Patterson skied extremely strong all day, racing in the lead pack for the entire race and ranking as high as fifth with 4.5 kilometres to go. He ultimately finished eighth (+28.9), the second-best individual World Cup result of his career, behind only a seventh in the 15km skate in Falun in March 2022.
There were a total of twelve American men in today’s race; I got quotes from as many of them as I could (see below). I try to keep the Alaska exceptionalism to a minimum on this site, but I have to note that seven of those twelve athletes were born and raised in Alaska (six in Anchorage, one in Fairbanks), which feels demographically significant to me. Is Anchorage in the 2020s the Boston Track Club in the 1970s? Discuss.
But first let’s hear from Krüger, a man whom I once described on this website as possessed of a “baby face and killer instinct.” What does it feel like, I asked him today, to be skiing off the front like that, simultaneously soloing in for the win but also knowing that the entire field is chasing him, hellbent on preventing him from doing so?
“At the beginning it’s physically a little bit like, Okay, I just know I have to go for a time,” Krüger recalled, standing in the sundrenched stadium in Canmore on a perfect day for ski racing. (All quotes in this article are from in-person interviews in the mixed zone unless otherwise noted. FasterSkier may well publish some similar or identical quotes this week, but no issues there if so; Nat Herz and I did most interviews alongside each other today. We’re going to have a lot of the same material out of Canmore.)
“I know there are guys in the field that have a better sprint than me,” reasoned Krüger. “I don’t think there’s anyone that’s better on these uphills than me. So I just have to use my strength. … I did get a little bit eager and maybe pushed a little bit too hard on the third lap there so I wasn’t quite sure how the final lap was going to be. But when you know that you’re leading the race, you manage to pull out some extra energy and extra power in the legs to push all the way to the finish.”
“And when you look back before the last downhill and see that you have enough seconds,” concluded the Norwegian, “that’s an amazing feeling.”
I led with Krüger because the won the race, but Mika Vermeulen deserves major plaudits today for his gutsy racing. Vermeulen had the first big move of the day, dancing away from the field early in lap two. The field let him get away, and Vermeulen pushed the pace by himself for multiple kilometres. If there were a “most aggressive rider” jersey on offer today, I would have given it to Vermeulen, even over Krüger.
Vermeulen was ultimately caught, roughly halfway through the race, and did not look happy when this occurred. But he stayed with the pack, was able to recover a little, and ultimately bested everyone in the chase pack save Amundsen to take his first career World Cup podium. Vermeulen gave an emphatic fist pump across the line, then several guttural yells of pure elation, as the rest of the chase pack finished and/or collapsed around him in the finish zone. It was a good day for the young Austrian.
“I was trying to not” let Krüger get away, Vermeulen said afterwards, “but then I kind of got f–ked a little bit. So I was like, ‘Ugh!’ … I was actually just trying in the second lap. I was thinking like, Oh, I’ll just try to go fast up the hill, because otherwise we’re just going to give the fast sprinters like Klæbo a free lift to finish. And I was like, Let’s not do that. And then I somehow ended up alone and started hating myself for it, because I was like, Oh, this is a very bad idea. But then you’re kind of like, Yeah, too far to go back.”
Vermeulen, who is an all-time interview (seriously, based on this his podcast is probably (a) great and (b) profane), continued, “Krüger passed me first, and he went so brutally hard. And I tried to go with him, but there was just no chance that I was going to go with him. And then I just tried to survive in a group for a bit, get some oxygen back to the muscles. And then the good thing is, in the last lap, everyone’s done a race. So no matter how much you’ve invested or not, everybody’s done a race, and everybody’s tired. And it turned out I wasn’t as tired as other people.”
Behind Amundsen and Vermeulen, but not that far back, Scott Patterson held his position over the final lap to cross the line in eighth.
“The first two laps I was just trying to conserve, and ski smart but stay up near the front,” Patterson said of his race. “And then the third [lap] all of a sudden people just started fading, and I felt pretty good. So I was able to just kind of weave through a few people and get up with that front group.
“And then it was like, Do I belong here? Yeah, I belong here! Today I belong up there. So I tried not to lead, but at the same time, trying to ski like I mean it up there, and fight all the way to the finish. I faded pretty hard on the fourth [lap], but still, hanging on for eighth is good.”
Did Patterson see Krüger’s move off the front? He did.
“I saw it happening and was kind of like, Well, there he goes, we better start moving too,” Patterson said. “But then Muzzy [Andrew Musgrave] all of a sudden was just kind of fading, and a few others; it was like, We got to move. But Krüger was strong, and for sure deserved it today.”
Patterson noted that Period 1 has always been “a little tough” for him, with this year no exception. But he felt like his form was better the last few weeks than his results would suggest, and he likes his trajectory. “This is kind of my time of year,” Patterson said. He also appreciated the vocal American contingent on course “egging me on the whole way,” plus many fans who flew down from Alaska and his parents who drove up from Bozeman.
And speaking of the Alaskans… let’s hear from some of them. [I promise that I interviewed every American I could grab, even those whose phone number does not start with 907, but also this is who I ended up with audio from so there you have it.]
Gus Schumacher was 22nd at the finish (+51.9), in the middle of a large pack.
“It was tough,” Schumacher said of his day. “Really demanding.”
Why? “The course, and altitude,” he reasoned. “I know it’s not super high, but when you’re on the fourth or fifth minute of the climb, it definitely adds up. So that was hard.”
“I’m actually really happy” with the race, said Schumacher. “I don’t think my body was at its very best, like not where it was two weeks ago, or a month ago. But I was happy to not give up, and be able to pick some people off in the end. It was hard for everyone. So I was able to relax and bring it back a little bit from the really hard third lap, and follow Muzzy and Pål. Close to the top-20, which is some good World Cup points for me.”
Schumacher also spoke frankly about staying in the race even when he felt poorly.
“It helps me to follow other people, especially when you know they’re good skiers. It was nice for me to lap through with Golberg and Musgrave because I was like, These are some good guys. And I could see Klæbo like 10 seconds ahead.
“I was like, I know I feel like shit, but there’s some really good guys out here who probably also feel like shit.”
Next up: Zanden McMullen was 23rd at the finish, one-tenth of one second behind Schumacher.
“I was really happy with it,” McMullen said of his race. “Best result so far. I can finally call myself a distance skier again because my best results are in a distance race, not a sprint. So that’s good.”
“I was in 15th for part of it,” McMullen recounted, “and definitely blew up the last half of the lap. So I know there’s definitely more in there. But I’m really happy.”
(What happened over that final half a lap? “I kind of got swallowed up by the group behind me,” said McMullen. “And it’s kind of just hanging out there as bait for them and they were able to capitalize on that, but it kind of happens. I was in the mentality of trying to … prevent them from catching me and just holding my position, and I think I did a pretty decent job of that.”)
McMullen, who is still just 22 years old, characterized this entire season as “a really big learning experience.” He said that taking nearly a full month off from racing after the Tour de Ski worked well for him, and that he feels well situated for the rest of the season.
And finally, if you’re wondering what Alaskan exceptionalism looks like in practice, here’s McMullen on how this month’s two North American World Cup stops feel to him:
“If anything, this kind of feels a little more like a home World Cup for me, being from Alaska,” he said. “I’ve been here before; I’ve never actually skied in Minneapolis. So this is a little closer to home.”
Next up among Americans whom I grabbed: Hunter Wonders, 40th (+2:27.0), and increasingly non-retired. (See my December SuperTour article for more details on that.)
“It’s good to get back on the road,” Wonders said matter-of-factly. The wheels came off maybe a little early today, but I’m not upset with it. … It was hectic like I expected it to be in the beginning, and I tried to put myself in a good spot to go when it broke. But as soon as the pack picked up the pace, I just couldn’t hang. It was faster than expected.”
Wonders found this reintroduction to World Cup racing to be “not a huge surprise. … Being at altitude, and the first World Cup back — it doesn’t play around like the SuperTour does, you know, it’s just going hard from the gun. It’s kind of to be expected.”
Were there more Alaskans Americans I talked with today? There were! Here is Michael Earnhart, 47th, 3:41.5 back.
Earnhart’s World Cup debut was “Scary. Humbling. Not quite confidence-inspiring maybe,” the 21-year-old candidly said. “But I’m glad I got it done. And it was fun.”
Earnhart will look back on “the whole stadium vibe and crowd and everything and just how much how official it is,” he said when asked what he will remember about his World Cup debut. “It was definitely quite a bit different from any other race I’ve done so far, and definitely kind of psyched me out a little bit. I think it’s hard to get relaxed and get in my zone, just with everything going on.”
“Their version of an easy pace is a lot different from mine,” Earnhart said of the men’s World Cup field.
And last, but emphatically not least, Graham Houtsma crossed the line two places after Earnhart, in 49th, 3:53.2. (Houtsma was neither the last athlete in the field nor even the last American, he’s just the last person whom I talked with here.)
Houtsma sounded similar notes to Earnhart when asked what he would remember about his World Cup debut: “The different level of just like speed out there,” he said.
“The first lap, everyone’s in the mix — and it’s also fast conditions today, so it’s much easier to stay on it — I thought to myself, You know what, I feel good. Like I think I can hang in here, like definitely get top-30. But the second lap, as it picks up, you just notice the difference, of where the fastest distance skiers are in the world versus — well where I am right now. That’ll probably be the thing that sticks with me the most. But also just, it’s my first World Cup; of course I’m going to remember this! And this is such a beautiful day, and such a great venue.”
Houtsma also appreciates being here as part of a group of nearly 40 (!) American athletes.
“It feels pretty special,” he said. “You don’t see it that often, ever, on the World Cup. Normally you only see six dudes [for the U.S.], and they’re all spread out, but sometimes someone’s not starting so it might only be like five. So it feels pretty cool.”
“Especially out there today,” he continued. “To ski with friends and teammates I’ve basically spent the last three years skiing with. So it’s pretty cool, like you’re working together. But you’re also on the World Cup and at the biggest venue on Earth for cross-country skiing. So it feels pretty special, I’d say.”
BONUS: Non-Alaskan content: Sam Hendry led the host nation today in 30th.
“It was incredible today,” Hendry told Nordic Insights at the finish. “I really, really did not anticipate that kind of result today. I don’t know what it was. Probably just being at home and on some hard courses at altitude. I just felt awesome and was able to ski with the pack right up until the last lap there and then just kind of hang on and grind it out until the finish.”
When Hendry says that he was “at home,” this is not some sort of synecdoche for the country of Canada as a whole. Rather, he was literally staying at his childhood house last night.
“I mean [to have a World Cup] in Canada it’s phenomenal,” Hendry said, “but to be waking up in the bed that I grew up in at home and then get to drive five minutes to the Nordic Centre and race the World Cup is unreal. It’s truly a surreal experience.”
Racing continues here tomorrow with the skate sprint. Scheduled starters for the U.S. are (deep breath) Michael Earnhart, Luke Jager, Zak Ketterson, Will Koch, Zanden McMullen, Ben Ogden, JC Schoonmaker, Gus Schumacher, Kevin Bolger, Logan Diekmann, Murphy Kimball, and Jack Young.
— by Gavin Kentch. Gerry Furseth contributed reporting.
There are more reporters at these races than in Soldier Hollow for U.S. Nationals, but not that many, and I am probably the only one reliant on a GoFundMe to get here. Travel for in-person reporting is not cheap, and travel to anywhere from Alaska is particularly not cheap.
Last season’s GoFundMe is literally the only reason why I turned a profit in year one of Nordic Insights, and in turn the only reason why there is a year two of Nordic Insights for you to be reading now: I was okay with working for very little money to get this love letter to American cross-country skiing off the ground, but I didn’t want to lose money for the privilege of doing so. If you would like to support what remains a brutally shoestring operation, this season’s GoFundMe may be found here. Thank you for your consideration, and for reading.
