By Gavin Kentch
There have been a few changes to the roster of U.S. starters in advance of this weekend’s long-anticipated races in Minneapolis. Ben Ogden is unfortunately out due to mono and Nina Schamberger is out due to ongoing back pain, according to public Instagram posts by both athletes. It also appears that wunderkind Jack Young was awarded a second skate sprint start, at the expense of Murphy Kimball, after the former’s breakout 11th-place performance in the skate qual, and 23rd overall, in Canmore last weekend.
Here is an updated list of American starters for this weekend, per USSS:
Women’s skate sprint (Saturday)
Jessie Diggins, Rosie Brennan, Sydney Palmer-Leger, Julia Kern, Sammy Smith, Haley Brewster, Ava Thurston, Alayna Sonnesyn, Renae Anderson, Erin Bianco, Margie Freed, and Michaela Keller-Miller
Men’s skate sprint (Saturday)
JC Schoonmaker, Gus Schumacher, Michael Earnhart, Zak Ketterson, Zanden McMullen, Luke Jager, Walker Hall, Will Koch, Johnny Hagenbuch, Jack Young, Kevin Bolger, and Logan Diekmann
Women’s 10km skate (Sunday)
Jessie Diggins, Rosie Brennan, Julia Kern, Sydney Palmer-Leger, Sophia Laukli, Haley Brewster, Novie McCabe, Sammy Smith, Margie Freed, Kendall Kramer, Alex Lawson, and Alayna Sonnesyn
Men’s 10km skate (Sunday)
Luke Jager, Zanden McMullen, Scott Patterson, Gus Schumacher, Michael Earnhart, Johnny Hagenbuch, Walker Hall, Brian Bushey, Peter Wolter, Hunter Wonders, David Norris, and Reid Goble
Racing in Minneapolis starts with the skate sprint qual at 10 a.m. Saturday local time. There is snow there now!
The Canmore World Cup is over, but the grind continues (Exhibit A, I am posting this article from the Seattle airport while this scene is re-enacted all around me). 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, especially, for reading.
