By Pasha Kahn, special to Nordic Insights
DULUTH, Minnesota — Day three of Spring Series on Sunday, March 24, unveiled a fresh race discipline to the SuperTour — the team sprint. Originally the intention was to run the race this year as a mixed event, but club coaches lobbied to change the format back along gender lines due to the roughly two-to-one ratio of men to women among athletes present in Duluth this week.
The two-lap course raced thrice by each skier was deceptively difficult, featuring a persistent gradual climb through the stadium in softening conditions as the front end of the much-anticipated spring snowstorm began to make itself known.
With team sprints being a somewhat novel racing format in North America, experience in the discipline was thin, with younger athletes taking tips from those seasoned in World Cup or Championship events.
“First time ever doing team sprint heats for me,” said Michael Earnhart. “Thankfully Luke [Jager] had done them before so he had some experience. We kind of came together as a team, there’s a lot of experience throughout the APU team, and we talked about what we wanted to do and tried to stick to a little bit of a plan throughout the rounds.”
The fifteen-team deep men’s final featured four teams from APU plus two from each of Bridger Ski Foundation, Michigan Tech, and NTDC Thunder Bay. Rounding out the field were teams from the University of Utah, Dartmouth, Northern Michigan University, Craftsbury, and SMS T2.
The men’s final stayed largely together through the first couple transitions of the race. Julian Smith of NTDC Thunder Bay described Sunday’s course as “tough — it’s a long working section on that course but also some fun downhills: a fast course, albeit hard. The pack stayed together for a long time and then it just slowly started to drop people off the back.”
Zanden McMullen of APU confirmed that analysis saying, “It was hard, very, very hard. It was my first team sprint ever. The course was pretty unforgiving.”
It was still pack racing at the penultimate handoff with eleven teams within five or so seconds, but the pace would quickly ramp up.
“Super fun out there,” said Julian Smith, who described the race as “like a bunch of friends going for a ski around the same loop and just all trying to rip each other’s legs off at the same time.”
The scramble-leg skiers were unable to create any gaps on the field but managed to test each other over the day’s fifth lap.
“I was kind of hanging on by the skin of my teeth on my last leg,” said Smith. As McMullen put it, “Conditions were getting pretty soft so my shins and quads were just on fire, but I was able to hold it together and hand off to JC [Schoonmaker] in a good spot.”
JC Schoonmaker explained what went down on the final lap. “Zanden [McMullen] came in with a group, but he was kind of at the lead of that group when he tagged off to me. I heard a pole snap right when he tagged off and I knew it wasn’t mine so I was like, ‘Alright, it’s time to go.’”
Schoonmaker’s early charge after the handoff put the field — now narrowed to six teams at the front — to the test.
“I think I put in a solid attack there,” explained Schoonmaker, “and figured if I could get a little bit of a gap so that people weren’t in my draft on the downhill then maybe I could just maintain it and kind of fight through. The second lap was definitely a bit brutal, the legs were falling apart but I held on.”
The Schoonmaker/McMullen duo of APU 2 would take the win, a second and half ahead of APU 4’s Michael Earnhart and Luke Jager.
“I wasn’t having my best day out there,” said Michael Earnhart, “but with the team event I knew Luke was having a really good day so I just fought hard to give him the best chance he could have and he ended up bagging second for us, so super proud of my teammate. Doing well in a ski race never gets old.”
Both Luke Jager and Antoine Cyr put in strong efforts to move up from fifth and sixth, respectively, at the handoff to finish second and third. “Tony and I raced as an unofficial team as we’re from two different teams in Canada,” explained Smith, adding, “but because we didn’t have USSA numbers we weren’t going to be an official team either way, but fun to race with a fellow Canadian.”
Third place among official teams would go to the University of Utah’s Joe Davies and Tom Mancini, who remained in contention for the title until the closing stages. They ultimately finished 0.42 seconds back of the Earnhart/Jager team for third.
In the women’s final the race quickly progressed into a contest for first between the APU duo of Novie McCabe and Renae Anderson and SMS T2’s Alayna Sonnesyn and Lauren Jortberg.
McCabe and Sonnesyn took turns at the front, stretching the field.
“There was a little bit of a breeze out there so when she [McCabe] was right there I was like, ‘I might as well take a little draft here,’” said Sonnesyn.
The SMS athlete described her race strategy as, “On the first leg I wanted to make sure I didn’t go out too hard because it is long — longer than you think it is — and I wanted to make sure I had plenty for the last sprint.”
Sonnesyn and McCabe tagged off to their teammates more or less together on their second-to-last lap.
“I was trying to stay as relaxed as possible on the first two laps,” said Jortberg. “It’s long stretches the second time around and there’s not a lot of recovery, so I was just trying to conserve as much as I could on the first two [laps] and then really, really make it hurt on the last lap. And it hurt.”
Jortberg attacked on the initial climb and opened a gap on Anderson. It would prove to be the decisive move of the race, with Jortberg tagging off to Sonnesyn with a ten-second lead over APU.
“I really wanted to open up a gap for Alayna so that Novie [McCabe] would have to work for it,” said Jortberg. “I think it was good tactically and it worked well.” Sonnesyn would extend the lead to take the title for SMS T2 with a fifteen-second lead over Anderson of APU.
Chasing the remaining podium position were Craftsbury’s Margie Freed and Alexandra Lawson, who were never able to decisively shake Dartmouth’s Evelyn Walton and Ava Thurston.
“I know Ava is really strong,” said Freed, “and so I was fighting against her and I knew she was catching me each lap.”
Freed’s plan to stay ahead of Thurston and avoid a fall on the descent worked out, with Craftsbury taking third just over a second ahead of Dartmouth. Freed said, “It was definitely really hard, and I was scared to lose it in case I did.”
The Craftsbury pair spoke of being energized by the chance to race a team event. “It’s always motivating to do a team event — obviously we’re always on a team but usually it’s just you fighting for yourself,” said Lawson. Her teammate Margie Freed agreed, saying, “It was really nice to have something to work for besides just myself. To have a team to fight for, that gave me a little more energy.”
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