By Gavin Kentch
Thursday at NCAA Championships was a day for the American West. Sydney Palmer-Leger, who was born and raised in Park City and skis for her hometown University of Utah, and John Steel Hagenbuch, who skis for Dartmouth College but hails from Sun Valley, both claimed wins in Thursday’s 7.5-kilometer interval-start skate race in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, the opening race of the 2024 National Collegiate Men’s and Women’s Skiing Championships.
It is the first NCAA championship for Steel Hagenbuch, a junior at Dartmouth, and the third for Palmer-Leger, who previously won both races (at the time the 5km classic and the 15km skate) at 2021 NCAAs at Jackson XC.
Neither race was particularly close, as these things go at this level. Palmer-Leger’s winning time, 22:08.2, was over 20 seconds ahead of second place, Haley Brewster of Vermont (22:29.3), who was in turn just 1.4 seconds ahead of Dartmouth’s Jasmine Drolet in third (22:30.7). A pair of Montana State skiers, Tilde Bångman and Kate Oldham, rounded out the top five.
On the men’s side, Steel Hagenbuch won by 11 seconds, a sizeable cushion on a day when fully half the field, 20 finishers out of 40, was within 90 seconds of Steel Hagenbuch’s winning time of 19:09.2. The man is a V2 machine, and he showcased those skills today over three laps of the punchy 2.5km course at Howelsen Hill. He was aided by, in his estimation, good skis and ample bop.
Second and third in the men’s race went to a pair of Utah teammates, Joe Davies (+11.0) and Tom Mancini (+26.7). Will Koch of Colorado was fourth, and Florian Knopf of Denver fifth.
I don’t have a particularly interesting story to tell you about the splits here for the men; Steel Hagenbuch led at both 2.5km and 5km en route to the overall win.
There was more drama in the women’s race, where after one lap (2.5km) Palmer-Leger was in second, 7.9 seconds behind Bångman. But Palmer-Leger then skied the day’s fastest second lap, Bångman was only seventh over lap two, and, at least with the benefit of hindsight, that was that.
Drolet metered out her energy well to have the fastest lap-three time, 3 seconds faster than Palmer-Leger and 10 seconds faster than Brewster. If the race had been another half-kilometer long the Canadian would have likely moved up into second, but that’s not where the finish line was, and it was Palmer-Leger first, Brewster second, and Drolet third on the final podium.
The screenshots below show Palmer-Leger’s reaction at the epiphanic moment of scoreboard watching as Brewster finished; click on any to enlarge.
Midway through the 2024 Championships, Utah leads the team standings by a substantial margin over Colorado, 312.5 points to 256.5. Denver is third with 251 points. Yesterday I predicted that Steel Hagenbuch would win today’s men’s race, Brewster would win today’s women’s race, and Utah would win the team title at the end of the week, so so far I am two for three on my prognostication skills.
Looking at just Thursday’s nordic racing alone, my back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that Utah led the way today with 158 points, followed by Dartmouth with 137, Colorado with 119, and Denver with 118.
Racing continues with a slalom tomorrow on the alpine slopes, then a 20km mass start classic at the nordic trails on Saturday to round out the championships.
You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American nordic skiing. 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.
