By Gavin Kentch
Welcome back to this, the latest installment in this year’s preview of the six main professional ski clubs in this country. Previously this fall: Team Birkie | Bridger | SMS.
And now here are the Alaskans. (I should be sure to disclose up front that I myself live in Alaska, which should be obvious from many things I write, and have trained with APU Masters since 2014. That said, the agèd Masters have effectively no overlap with the athletes on the APU Elite Team; I casually know many of the people I’m talking about here, but we’re not carpooling to practice together or anything.)
What is the official name of this ski team? Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center, also known as “APU” or “APUNSC”
Where is it located? Anchorage, Alaska
Who’s the coach? Erik Flora (head coach and program director), Forrest Mahlen (assistant coach for the Elite Team)
Who’s on the roster this season?
Women: Novie McCabe, Renae Anderson, Rosie Brennan, Anabel Needham, Lily Pannkuk, Zarah Laker-Morris, and Eva Weymuller
Men (deep breath here): Buster Richardson, Davis Isom, Ethan Howe, Garrett Butts, Gus Schumacher, Hatcher Menkens, JC Schoonmaker, Justin Lucas, Dane Karch, Luke Jager, Michael Earnhart, Thomas O’Harra, Tommy Simmonds, Zanden McMullen, Ari Endestad, Oskar Flora, and Hunter Wonders
Brennan, McCabe, Schoonmaker, Schumacher, Earnhart, Jager, McMullen, and Richardson are all on the U.S. Ski Team. Yes, of the 27 athletes currently on the national team, eight are affiliated with APU (and eight more with SMS).
What’s different now from the last few years? This is a little hard to parse, even for me, because every year the APU Elite Team roster includes multiple junior skiers, who are often there for only a year or two before moving on. As a non-inclusive list, since last year Marit Flora graduated high school and moved down the street to the University of Alaska Anchorage, Karl Danielson moved on, and Scott Patterson retired (but still jumps into local races).
Significant new additions to this year’s team, per team media contact Penny Smythe, are Tommy Simmonds, Dane Karch, and Anabel Needham. Simmonds comes from Prior Lake High School in Savage (!), Minnesota; Karch comes from Mammoth High School in Mammoth Lakes, California; Needham completed her NCAA ski career with Michigan Tech before traveling north.
What were some results highlights of last season? Briefly put, there were six Americans who stood on an individual World Cup podium last season, an all-time high for the U.S. Ski Team. Three of them — Gus Schumacher, Rosie Brennan, and JC Schoonmaker — train with APU. (In case you’re curious about the other half of that data set, Jessie Diggins and Ben Ogden ski for SMS and Sophia Laukli is with Norwegian club Team Aker Dæhlie.) I feel like Piteå Elit or Club des Sports de La Clusaz or some such may also have had three discrete podium finishers last year, but this has to be a pretty exclusive group. Yes this stat also reflects the relative homogeneity of high-level American club skiing.
Less briefly put:
Gus Schumacher will probably see the phrase “first American male to win a World Cup distance race in 40 years” feature in the first line of his obituary. Unless he wins some Olympic medals before then, which would surprise me in no wise.
When he was not interrupting Klæbo’s historic win streak in Minneapolis, Schumacher was having a bounceback season after a rough few years of overtraining-ish. He was fourth in a skate sprint (!) during the Tour de Ski, at the time a World Cup career best. 12th and 14th in a pair of mass start 20km races. 15th in a 10km classic. Just a spate of top-20 results throughout the season, frankly. It was collectively good for 15th in the World Cup overall and 16th in the distance standings, both career highs by a substantial margin.
Plus he won the Birkie lap race over a deep field, taking home at least $15,000 for one day of ski racing.
Rosie Brennan claimed five individual World Cup podiums in a single season, for the second time in her career. 11 of her 12 career podiums have come after her 32nd birthday, with the other one coming about a week before that milestone, if you are curious whether Brennan, who turned 36 on Monday, is slowing down with age.
Brennan was second in the 10km classic and third in the 20km skate in Ruka in the opening weekend of last season. She followed that up with another second in a 10km classic three weeks later, this time in Trondheim. Second in a 20km classic during the Tour de Ski in Davos, where the Park City native (i.e., grew up at altitude) has always raced well. Third in the classic sprint in Drammen in March. The Drammen result was her first career podium, out of a dozen, to come any later in the season than during the Tour de Ski, showing newfound versatility over the latter parts of the World Cup race calendar. It was also her first classic sprint podium, letting Brennan join first Sadie Bjornsen Maubet and then Jessie Diggins, and I think no one else yet, as Americans with career podia in all four of skate and classic sprint and distance races.
Brennan finished the season seventh in both the overall and distance standings, both a slight decline from the year before, after battling illness over the second half of the World Cup campaign. She also recently dropped these amazing mittens, which make me very happy.
[This is not a sponsored post. I paid for these out of pocket, because they are awesome, and because I am a huge Rosie fan. AMH and The Hoarding Marmot have them locally, Brennan’s home shop in Park City does as well, or try Lillsport directly, though they are going fast there because other people also think that these, and Rosie, are awesome.]
I have to lead with the JC Schoonmaker breakthrough podium, in the classic sprint in Östersund in December, but Schoonmaker’s season as a whole was marked by increased consistency in the sprints. He was in two finals, also finishing sixth in Drammen in March. He made the semifinals in three more sprints, two classic and one skate, finishing seventh, seventh, and ninth. He was in the heats in another six heats, generally doing better in classic sprints than skate at this stage of his career. Put it all together and Schoonmaker was tenth in the Sprint Cup standings, up from 30th last season and 19th the year before.
Zanden McMullen had what felt like a new World Cup career best virtually every weekend last year. He was 17th and 20th in a pair of classic sprints in Norway and Sweden. 23rd in a 20km classic in Lahti. 23rd in a 15km skate in Canmore. 25th in the 10km skate in Wirth. 25th in a skate sprint in Davos. Another half-dozen results in the bottom end of the top 30.
If you read the above data, showing strong finishes in both skate and classic, sprints and distance, and conclude that the Anchorage kid, who was only 22 years old throughout the 2023/2024 race season, is quickly growing into a well-rounded World Cup competitor, you would be right.
Don’t take my word for it, though; here’s what Matt Whitcomb told Ryan Sederquist of SederSkier in a recent season preview piece (subscription required, but worth it):
“This is a guy that can take points in skate or classic, sprint or distance and that’s the type of person, when they develop over the next few years, (who) could make a run at a crystal globe — an overall crystal globe,” Whitcomb said.
A few days after that quote was published, McMullen notched yet another new World Cup best, finishing seventh in the 20km skate in Ruka after skiing all race like he belonged. Teammate Gus Schumacher was 1.2 seconds back in eighth. At least for a day, the tables had turned from the 2018 Alaska state high school ski championships, where Schumacher won both individual races and McMullen was fourth both days. Athletes mentioned on that results sheet who also appear in this article are Gus Schumacher, Zanden McMullen, Luke Jager, and Michael Earnhart, in case you’re curious what Anchorage high school racing looks like.
Novie McCabe, who doesn’t turn 23 until later this month, was another rising star. She spent the season largely on the World Cup, with a detour to Planica for World U23 Championships, where she was 0.3 seconds out of the medals in the 20km skate, finishing fourth. World Cup results included ten top-30 finishes in distance races, highlighted by 11th in the 20km skate in Falun in March. McCabe was also 19th in a Tour de Ski classic pursuit in January and 21st in the 20km skate in Ruka to open the season.
Luke Jager (segue: aka Novie’s boyfriend) was probably the best domestic male sprinter last year, taking multiple podiums in national championship and SuperTour races. He also claimed a national championship in the 10km classic at Soldier Hollow, slightly behind foreign nationals Andreas Kirkeng and Joe Davies.
Jager recently told me that he “usually suck[s] on the World Cup,” which I think is rather harsh, but it does seem fair to say that he was still finding the range there last year; his two best individual World Cup results were 24th and 39th, in the Canmore sprint and the Minneapolis 10km, respectively. Other than that his World Cup results page from 2023/2024 largely bespeaks a lot of grinding, which I respect.
Michael Earnhart raced domestically through the Craftsbury SuperTour weekend at the end of January, before taking his talents to the World Cup for the remainder of the season. On the American race circuit, he picked up a heady seven podium finishes in SuperTour or national championship races, including a win at home at Kincaid in December. (Yes I know that Earnhart is from the Anchorage suburb of Eagle River, very specifically from 99577 if you want to get zipcode-level about it, but I feel like one’s home course can be a little more expansive than one’s home mailing address.)
There followed 13 starts on the World Cup, with a best individual finish of 42nd, in the classic sprint in Canmore. Half of Earnhart’s World Cup results were in the 40s, not a bad showing for someone who was all of 21 years old throughout the race season.
Okay, this is really long already, so apologies to everyone else on this list while I run through the rest of this a little more quickly:
- Renae Anderson claimed her first career SuperTour win, and was a top domestic skier over the first half of the year. She largely moved to the World Cup after that, finishing twice in the 30s and three times in the 40s. She also runs the most frequently updated athlete blog in American skiing, which you should read. Like, it is good and interesting, as well as tended to.
- Hunter Wonders, who sure is looking increasingly unretired these days, had two SuperTour podiums and multiple top-tens. He started World Cups in both Canmore and Wirth, finishing 34th, 40th, and 47th across three distance races. Wonders, like Anderson, is currently racing on the World Cup to start this season.
- Anabel Needham, skiing last year for Michigan Tech, was 29th in both races at NCAA Championships, and won races on the EISA circuit. She was 23rd and 31st in two races at World U23s, and had a best finish at U.S. Nationals of 25th, in the 20km skate.
- Garrett Butts had four top-ten finishes on the SuperTour, highlighted by fourth in the 25km skate at Craftsbury. His best result at U.S. Nats was 15th, in the 10km classic.
- Thomas O’Harra was fifth and 14th in Craftsbury SuperTour races, as well as 14th at an Anchorage SuperTour. He was 16th in the lap Birkie.
Who else? Lily Pannkuk is currently 20 years old, Zarah Laker-Morris is 19, Eva Weymuller is 21, Buster Richardson is 20, Davis Isom is 19, Ethan Howe is 20, Hatcher Menkens is 18, Justin Lucas is 19, Dane Karch is 18, and Tommy Simmonds is 18.
On the one hand, this is a fine collection of youth ski talent, and Flora et al. are doing a lot of things right when it comes to maintaining a broad base of the pyramid and keeping athletes in the sport long enough for them to develop. On the other hand, junior results have at best mixed predictive value for senior results, and I feel as if, say, Dane Karch has greater things ahead of him in skiing than the California–Nevada State Championship. So I will close this preview here, and let the fine juniors mentioned above get back to destroying me in local JNQ races. I will be sure to get out of the way when you lap me.
How can you get more information or follow the team? website | Instagram | Facebook
See also:
GUUUUUUUUS! GUS GUS GUS GUS GUS GUS GUS GUS! Schumacher Wins 10km Skate in Minneapolis
Party in the U.S.A.: JC Schoonmaker Crushes Östersund Classic Sprint in 3rd, Ben Ogden 4th
The World Cup Comes Home: Dispatches From an Anchorage Citizens Race
Commentary: Rosie Brennan and the Power of Persistence (December 2022)
The Phenom Next Door: Gus Schumacher Looks to Lahti (January 2019)
Don’t Overfill Your Cup: APU Coach Erik Flora and the Complete Athlete (September 2017)
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 years one and two of Nordic Insights, and in turn the only reason why there is a year three 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.
