By Pasha Kahn, special to Nordic Insights
DULUTH, Minnesota — Spring Series continued on Saturday, March 23, with a classic sprint held in bright sun and relatively crisp air. The 1.4k course ran a horseshoe up two modest climbs before taking a sinuous and technical descent back down to the stadium. The course profile, and the hardpacked artificial snow, served up favorable conditions for doublepoling the classic race — an option that had been initially ruled out by an intended striding technique zone.
On Saturday morning that plan was scrapped by race officials. Anecdotally, they reasoned that much of the men’s field would attempt the course on skate skis anyway, and that the jury would be forced to rule on some questionable striding (author’s interpretation).
The late decision opened up a previously unconsidered doublepoling option.
“We were in a little bit of a scramble to decide: Do you want to doublepole it, or do you want to stride it?” said Alayna Sonnesyn of SMS T2. “So [during] the whole warmup, testing was a little chaotic.”
While the men’s field shifted en masse to doublepoling, the decision was more considered among the women with most ultimately opting to stride, but with others like Lauren Jortberg, Hannah Rudd, and Sydney Palmer-Leger doublepoling.
Still, heat to heat, the athletes had to consider the option.
“It’s always in the back of your head,” said Sonnesyn, who decided that “ultimately it wasn’t going to drastically make that big of a difference.”
BSF coach Andrew Newell approved of the course, saying, “Honestly I think the sprint course was great. It doesn’t have any super steep climbs, so that’s why people were mixing it up with doublepoling. But there’s also a number of courses on the World Cup that are like this too — you have the Drammens of the world, the Stockholms, and there are other races on the World Cup that are on the verge of doublepoling so in a way it’s good practice, and the finals tend to shake out the same way whether there’s kick wax on or not.”
The women’s final set up a contest between top qualifier Erin Bianco (BSF), Novie McCabe and Renae Anderson (APU), Alayna Sonnesyn and Lauren Jortberg (SMS T2), and Ava Thurston (Dartmouth).
Bianco had taken charge of her quarter and semi final heats in an impressive display of power striding.
“I just felt really good in every single heat,” Bianco said. “Usually I’m the type of skier to sit back and make a move at the end, but I just wanted to drop people from the start and I felt really good every time I was striding up the big climb.”
The question in the final was whether Bianco could unravel the field for a third time.
“In the final I was just waiting to see if someone would really push the pace,” said Bianco, adding, “At the start it seemed… not chill, but I was like, ‘Ok I’m going to try to lead again because that’s what I was doing in the quarter and semi.’”
Bianco accelerated the pace on the big climb, where, as Sonnesyn described it, “Conditions had started to get a little more sloppy, and so getting up that hill was tricky and a little chaotic, and everyone was scrambling to get that national champ title.”
The turn of pace separated all but Novie McCabe at the crest of the final climb.
“The 180s were honestly pretty helpful because you could see where you were,” said Bianco, “so at the high point I saw that Novie and I had quite a gap on the field, so I just tried to stay on my feet on the downhill and drag race into the finish.”
McCabe’s perspective was that “Erin was so strong all day, so I figured she’d be off the front and I was lucky enough to hang on just long enough so that I could slot in and get a slingshot on the downhill. I kind of just got lucky positioning-wise because she was so strong today.”
The final hundred meters into the finish line were tight between the two, with McCabe unveiling a pulse of speed to take the national title some three-tenths of a second over Bianco.
“I feel like I just got a second wind,” explained McCabe, “which usually doesn’t happen to me in doublepoling, but today I was really happy with it. I feel like I made a bit of progress with my fast doublepoling, so I was stoked to take the win.”
Bianco tipped her hat to McCabe’s effort saying, “Novie is super strong — she got me right at the end, which was an awesome performance. I’m pretty happy with how I skied it though.”
Rounding out the podium was Alayna Sonnesyn in third in a display of descending prowess. “I found myself at the top of the hill in last place,” Sonnesyn said, “and I put some cornering and downhill skills to work and made my way up to third, and was really proud of that.”
The men’s final featured JC Schoonmaker and Zanden McMullen (APU), Antoine Cyr (CNEPH-CNST), Zak Ketterson (Team Birkie), Julian Smith (NTDC Thunder Bay), and Kristoffer Alm Karsrud (Northern Michigan University).
The final began with a cagey initial climb.
“The first hill was kind of more tactics,” said JC Schoonmaker, “kind of play out the positioning — it was really the big hill where gaps were made.” The signature climb was punctuated by a turn of pace by the Canadian strongman Antoine Cyr. “Tony attacked on the big climb,” said Schoonmaker, “and just to be able to kind of hold his back [was good].”
Cyr’s attack was unable to unseat the heat and the serpentine descent brought the field together. Schoonmaker explained that “the downhill had lots of twists and turns, so [my] timing a slingshot through there was good.”
Schoonmaker and teammate McMullen harnessed the slingshot to help claim first and second place, followed in third by Cyr. In fourth was Zak Ketterson (Team Birkie), who also collected a bronze podium position as the third American skier.
Ketterson had thoughts on the race, writing, “This was the first sprint heats I’ve done where pretty much everyone was double poling. It made for a really interesting vibe, the main difference just being how much more space there was to move around because no one was striding or herringboning. It also made for some really fun and high speed descents. I had a good qualifier, quarter, and semi, but was just pretty cooked by the final and didn’t have the energy to match the top 3 guys over the top of the long hill. Overall a solid day, and I gotta say – Double pole racing is fun and stride zones shouldn’t be a thing.”
Schoonmaker summarized the day, saying, “It was a cool course and it was my first time doublepoling a sprint, so that was kind of interesting. It’s definitely a different feeling than any other sprint I’ve done.”
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