By Adele Haeg
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Today’s 10-kilometer skate interval-start race in Anchorage, Alaska, marked the start of Period 2 of the SuperTour and the start of 2025 U.S. Nationals. If you, like me, were previously unfamiliar, the SuperTour is one of nine FIS Cross Country Continental Cups, competitions at the second tier of competitive cross-country ski racing. Continental Cup leaders at different points of the year are guaranteed start rights on the World Cup.
U.S. Nationals this year is from January 2–7. There is a skate sprint, a classic sprint, a distance skate race, and a distance classic race.
As Kikkan Randall, a retired five-time Olympian who is now the director of the Nordic Skiing Association of Anchorage, explains in the above video, “This is a chance to come and see our nation’s top skiers as they vie for national titles and possibly a spot on the World Championships team.” U.S. Nationals is the pinnacle of North American domestic ski racing.
SuperTour leaders are eligible for promotion to the World Cup for starts in Period Three; part of the selection criteria for starts on the Tour de Ski was standing in SuperTour races. John Steel Hagenbuch who — spoiler alert — won today, turned down Tour de Ski starts to race in Anchorage, and Luke Jager, who was fourth today and won two races in Cable, Wisconsin (more affectionately known as Birkieland), last month did the same.
I wouldn’t blame Steel Hagenbuch or Jager for opting to race in Anchorage rather than in Toblach, if only for the reason that winning is fun and they’re doing a lot of winning on the SuperTour circuit right now. Steel Hagenbuch is also still in college and enjoying racing on the NCAA circuit. Jager, meanwhile, told Nordic Insights that he has a hot tub and a wood stove here at home. It’s winter. It’s cold in Alaska. Comforts like those are hard to beat.
Today, Steel Hagenbuch of Dartmouth and the U.S. Ski Team took first overall, throwing down a blazing fast time of 21:23.4 for a full 10km course. Andreas Kirkeng of the University of Denver finished only eight-tenths of a second behind him for second place, and Walker Hall of the University of Utah took third (+14.6).
Steel Hagenbuch is now the national champion in the event. As for the rest of the domestic podium, Hall took silver and Luke Jager (APU/USST) bronze. Jager finished in fourth place (+16), tied to the tenth of a second with Hugo Hinckfuss of the University of Colorado. Sixth overall, 24.4 seconds back, went to a retired, but not that retired, Scott Patterson. Patterson won the unofficial Masters division on the day.
Jager told Nat Herz after the race of Steel Hagenbuch’s training, “I mean, he’s a beast, dude. … Like I would die if I did it, but it doesn’t mean that it’s the wrong thing to do, you know?” Make no mistake, Jager is putting in the hours too.
[Steel Hagenbuch and Jager both spoke with reporters from multiple outlets at the same time today. –Ed.]
Nordic Insights: So, if you look at the results, you and Hugo tied to the tenth of a second today. Each of you trained a thousand hours. Do you think about —
Jager: “Well, I didn’t train a thousand hours, so…”
Nordic Insights: You trained some number of hours. Do you think about, Oh, my gosh, it’s down to the tenth of a second, like, here we are, crucible of competition, or do you just go out and ski because the fastest way to ski is the way you want to ski?
Jager: “I don’t know. If I was thinking about those margins, I probably would just end up trying to think about the same thing I was thinking about either way, you know? … It’s easy to find your attention maybe going to the wrong places if you start worrying too much about that, I think.”
I find this question fascinating too: What separates athletes training a thousand hours a year from one another, especially when those thousand hours come down to the tenth of a second in competition? For us observers, it’s interesting to speculate about. For those racing, I think Jager’s approach to training and racing makes sense: ski fast and think about skiing fast.
Sometimes what separates these athletes is skis. And sometimes it’s that some athletes can withstand what Steel Hagenbuch described to Nordic Insights as the sensation of “falling apart” on course better than others. That’s no easy feat.
Here’s Steel Hagenbuch:
“Fast course today, even though it was cold; it was skiing incredibly fast, as the [21-minute finish time] would show.
“I think I underestimated how hard it was going to get and I thought I started pretty conservatively, but it was still really, really draining on that second lap and I thought I was going to lose it. I was hearing the splits go from eight seconds up on Andreas [Kirkeng] to six seconds to three seconds to even, but I was trying really hard and it felt like I was falling apart, but I still ended up getting it at the end.
“A lot of really strong skiers out here. Walker Hall had an amazing race, which is cool to see him on the podium. Andreas is always really strong at these Nationals and we’re always kind of duking it out the past couple years, so that was good to see as well. Luke skied fast in his home course, which is awesome to see. I’m looking forward to more good races up here.”
Nat Herz: So, can you tell us about where this fits with your goals for the season, kind of what you’re trying to do over the next few months?
“I’m now more focused on SuperTours and I don’t think it really makes sense for me to head back across the pond and do World Cups with being in college and all and skiing NCAA in addition. So, I hope to ski well here in Alaska and then I’ll head back to school for a couple weeks and then head to Bozeman for those SuperTours and also get a feel for the RMISA field at that race in Bozeman as well. And then I’ll go back to school and finish up the carnival season, and then I’ll have hopefully just NCAAs and then SuperTour finals.”
Steel Hagenbuch had a rough time of things in Europe to start out Period 1 World Cup racing this year, suffering what he thought was an asthma attack during a Ruka distance race.
“I could barely breathe,” Steel Hagenbuch wrote to Nordic Insights about the experience, “and I couldn’t utter a word for about 15 minutes after the finish. It was not pleasant. I had a decent race in the interval start in Lillehammer… only to have shortness of breath again in the skiathlon.”
Steel Hagenbuch was asked today what it was like, “medically and especially psychologically,” to encounter that.
“The first time it happened in Ruka was definitely pretty scary,” he said. “I couldn’t breathe really at all and I couldn’t speak for 15 minutes after the race, couldn’t say a word, which definitely was causing me to panic a little bit. But technically what we think it is is this thing called exercise-induced laryngeal obstruction, which is where your larynx and vocal cords kind of seize up and close in races. And I think that it’s kind of multifaceted and what causes that, but working through that and trying to figure it out and keep all those muscles relaxed because it isn’t something that you can really address by taking medication. It’s something that has to do with controlling your muscles and reducing your stress, both physically and mentally.
Switching gears, Steel Hagenbuch was asked, “Would you rather: Top 20 at World Championships or win at NCAAs?”
“Win at NCAAs,” was the immediate response.
There you have it.
Walker Hall is also an NCAA skier, with the University of Utah (Sophia Laukli’s alma mater, and Luke Jager, and Novie McCabe, and Sydney Palmer-Leger, etc.). He made his World Cup debut in Minneapolis (woot woot!!!) last February. Here’s Hall on his performance today.
Obviously you did well today, but I’m still going to ask, what’s something that you like about the way that you skied today?
“I didn’t win, but I think just skiing strong and carrying V2 through a lot of the hills was important. I think I did a good job of that. Just keeping the speed high when it was getting hard on the second lap. Staying focused. I think I did a good job of that. I skied a lot of the race alone, so I just had to battle with the clock and with my own mind. I was glad to hold it together for a podium.”
Do your coaches… I wouldn’t say lie to you, but if you are hemorrhaging time, are they like, “Hey, you’re still in it!” rather than, “You suck.” Is there a way that your coaches… I mean, not today, but have there been occasions when your coaches maybe finesse things for you to give you more encouraging feedback?
“Usually not. They’re not very good at lying about that sort of thing, so I can usually tell when I’m losing it and not having a good race or losing time because they seem to lose their energy in cheering and maybe don’t give you as many splits because they don’t want you to hear how bad you’re doing… but thankfully that wasn’t the case today.”
Hugo Hinckfuss, who also raced in Minneapolis for the Australian national team, finished fifth today, tied to the tenth of a second with Luke Jager. Nordic Insights interviewed Hinckfuss, who skis collegiately for Colorado, after today’s race. In his own words, he’s a “big guy.”
Is a 22-minute 10km in some ways harder than a 26- or 29-minute 10km?
“Not at all. Since I’m a pretty big guy, I much prefer the faster courses. So I’m just happy that the speed was so high today so that someone like me can kind of take advantage of it.”
Do you like racing at sea level?
“Yeah I think for me, again being a big guy, it’s almost like a relative advantage to be at sea level. Just because for me the speed is generally higher, and especially skiing at Kincaid, I only have good memories here. So it’s always a great association with coming and racing here again.”
U.S. Nationals continue on Saturday with a classic sprint.
— Gavin Kentch contributed in-person reporting from the venue
Results: Thursday skate | seed list for Saturday sprint
Other coverage: Anchorage Daily News | Alaska Sports Report
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.
