By Gavin Kentch
I am thrilled to announce the five new reporters who will be leading the site’s World Cup coverage during the upcoming race season: Merridy Littell, Angie Kell, Adele Haeg, Devin Ward, and Noah Eckstein. Here is a little more about each of them (arranged from west to east, as is my Alaska-centric wont).
Merridy Littell
Merridy trains with APUNSC and is a senior at West Anchorage High School, where she was the Alaska state champion in the 7.5km classic her junior year. In her free time, she rides horses and practices Italian Renaissance sword fighting.
Angie Kell
Angie is a mid-career professional in Park City with a Ph.D. in pharmacology who is taking a break from medical affairs to be a stay-at-home parent for a few years and focus more on writing. She is an avid citizen racer and Boulder Mountain Tour age group winner.
Adele Haeg
Adele is a first-year student at Yale. Adele recently graduated from DeLaSalle High School in the Twin Cities; she skied competitively for three years in high school, both with her school team and with Loppet Nordic Racing. Adele was named one of two 2024 Moose Valuable Skiers by Minnesota’s Moose Nordic ski club, reflecting her leadership role throughout her high school ski career.
Devin Ward
Devin is a senior editor at Nature Communications (yes, that Nature) originally from the North Maine Woods but currently based in London. Devin has three degrees, including a Ph.D. in Evolutionary Anthropology from the University of Toronto, where she was on the ski team and the varsity rowing team. She has a very good cat.
Noah Eckstein
Noah, a proud Vermonter at heart, is currently living in western Norway, ostensibly to attend graduate school but actually to eat brown cheese and waffles at every opportunity. Noah has a B.A. from Bowdoin, where he was a captain of the ski team.
If you have been with this site since the beginning, you have by this point read a *lot* of my writing here. I think it is fair to say that I have, like, a distinctive voice; whether you like it or not — and I cannot say strongly enough that you are not required to — it is also the case that most articles on this site sound like me.
I am really pleased to now be bringing in five new authors who sound like themselves. I am also proud of me for having created a site that people want to write for. This is, to put it mildly, a well-credentialed group; in addition to their formal CVs, every single person here showed a palpable enthusiasm for skiing in their application materials. I can’t wait for you to see what they come up with over the season ahead.
(I should probably also add at some point here that I have a limited but existent freelance budget; if there’s a story that you think should be covered, and that you should cover it, please be in touch: gavin (at) nordicinsights.news.)
I have never been a ski coach, but I have been fortunate to have had some damn good ones in my life over the past decade (hi Galen! hi Eliza! hi Greta!). A through line in their coaching has been that they support me, show that they care about me and believe in me, then on race day get out of the way and let me see what I can do. Just so: I have hired some great people here, and am honored to have developed a news outlet that they read and want to write for. I’m about to get out of their way and let them write [while also editing for house style and whatnot]. Go team.
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, last season’s GoFundMe may be found here. Thank you for your consideration, and, especially, for reading.
