By Gavin Kentch
2024 Junior Nationals started in Mt Van Hoevenberg, in Lake Placid, on Monday morning. There will be four days of racing this year: two distance races, one sprint, and one relay. Here’s what’s going on when.
When are the races?
Interval-start skate races on Monday, classic sprint on Wednesday, mass start classic on Friday, then skate relay on Saturday. Here are some details (all times EST):
Are the races streamed?
Yes, yes they are. Looks like cameras at the start, at the finish, and at some intermediate points along the course. Plus some degree of announcing. Well done, race organizers.
You can find all streams for the week here, then click on “streaming.” Or, here are streaming links for Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.
Results?
Here for live results, and here for results results once the races end. This link took you straight to Alaska Cup standings as of earlier this week, and may or may not be valid going forward; stay tuned.
Who is racing?
I did a lot of work on this last week, when this was still news. You can find the fruits of those efforts here:
Now that racing is actually here, the timing company has largely scooped me on this by “putting up start lists” or something, as is their job. Go here, then click on “Registration” to see athlete names and team affiliation by region. My version has more witty commentary, though, as well as as much information about coaching staffs as I could find.
Who’s going to win?
New England has claimed 15 of the last 19 Alaska Cups (*if you count Alaska in the Covid-shortened 2020 JNs as a win for them), and is racing driving distance from home this year, in their own time zone. Don’t bet against them winning for the third year in a row, and the sixteenth year in the last twenty, until you have a very good reason not to. Says the guy who last week tabbed Utah to five-peat.
Is there actually snow there?
There is now! Conditions were pretty grim last week tbh, but they improved considerably with weekend snowfall, and then it was dumping snow during the first races on Monday. Should be pretty good for the rest of the week.
How much does this sport cost, anyway?
A lot of money. Trip cost for this year was roughly $3,200 apiece for Rocky Mountain athletes, according to publicly available information provided for qualifying athletes. $3,082 for Intermountain (*not including airfare). $3,999 for Team Alaska (*not including uniform). Add roughly 3% if paying by credit card. These are both not unreasonable sums for a 10-day racing trip on (in some cases) the other side of the country, but also not small sums of money. Sigh. Support your local athlete’s GoFundMe if you can.
Congratulations to all athletes who qualified to race this week!
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.
