By Myles Brown
Cold temperatures brought a challenge to the domestic field as the 2024/2025 SuperTour season kicked off with skate sprints at the Birkie Trailhead in Cable, Wisconsin, earlier Thursday. Temps dipped to as low as –15° F the night before, and were slow to warm.
Races were delayed twice throughout the morning before eventually getting started at 1 p.m. When the races finally did start, the live cam showed a balmy –4° F at the venue, the coldest temperature under which an official FIS race can be held. The temps threw a wrench in the race start, and certainly in some race strategies as well.
The racers today were predominantly drawn from domestic pro teams, with a few collegiate racers in the mix too. The men’s field was dominated by Luke Jager, of APU and the U.S. Ski Team. Following Jager on the podium was BSF Pro skier Graham Houtsma in second (+2.92), then John Steel Hagenbuch of Dartmouth and the U.S. Ski Team in third (+5.18). The rest of the men’s podium was composed of Will Koch (Colorado/USST) in fourth, Braden Becker (Craftsbury) in fifth, and Adam Witkowski (SMS) in sixth.
Jager stamped his mark on the field from the start as he set the pace in qualifying, three seconds quicker than Will Koch in the second position. The men’s field was a close bunch for qualifying, with just 16 seconds separating the top 30 qualifiers. The start list was littered with DNS, which could be attributed to the frigid temperatures.
On the women’s side, Mariel Pulles of Team Birkie set the pace in the qualifier in her professional debut; Pulles, a member of the Estonian National Team, skied for the University of Alaska Fairbanks through last year.
Pulles was followed closely by Nina Seemann of the BSF Pro Team. Tilde Bångman of Colorado slotted into the third position in the qualifier. Bångman will be looking to help keep Colorado at the top of the collegiate circuit this year.
Again, the women’s field had a sizable number of DNS on the start list, with only 26 women starting today and just 21 competing in the heats. Race organizers populated a full five quarterfinal heats, though four of them had just four athletes competing and the other had five. Top finishers from each quarterfinal, plus two lucky losers, moved on to a pair of more traditional six-women semifinals.
Anabel Needham, in her first SuperTour race donning the APU suit, took a commanding win in the women’s final, followed by Pulles in second (1.77 seconds back) and Bångman in third, a yawning 7.67 seconds back. The women’s final contained two collegiate skiers, with Bångman’s Colorado teammate Karolina Kaleta following her in fourth. The rest of the women’s final was made up of Seemann in fifth and Gretta Scholz of Team Birkie in sixth.
When I spoke with Jager on how the temps played into the race Tuesday, he said: “It was for sure really cold but thankfully we had some really cold days in Anchorage in November and early December to prepare. The organizers were in a tough spot with it so cold in the morning and warming up throughout the day, but I’m really thankful they stayed the course and made it happen. It’s never easy for the organizers, athletes, or coaches when things are uncertain like the race was today, so it was a relief to see it go off without a hitch. Big thanks to everyone who braved the cold to make it happen.”
Jager is an Alaskan native and is certainly no stranger to temperatures like Tuesday’s.
Another athlete I was able to reach after the race was Graham Houtsma of the Bridger Ski Foundation Pro Team, who landed on the second step on the podium in the men’s final.
When asked about the cold temperatures during race time, Houtsma said, “I’d say that the cold was pretty hard, on the lungs as well as the body, just hard to perform well when the cold is zapping all the energy from you. In terms of tactics, I just tried to follow what we as the BSF Pro Team discussed last night and that strategy worked out well and I think that kept me from worrying too much about how I was going to race. We also had great skis today all thanks to the effort of our coaches.”
Houtsma is looking to make his way back to the World Cup and is certainly looking to show some good form after today’s racing. Steel Hagenbuch, whose Strava is shown below, is returned stateside after a rocky start to his World Cup season, including an asthma attack in a Ruka distance race.
Racing continues at the Birkie Trailhead with a classic sprint in two days. Weekend temps are forecast to be roughly 30 degrees warmer than today, though still below freezing. Saturday will be a long day, with a full Midwest JNQ field as well as the pros. Find start times, streaming links, and more in the viewing guide.
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