By Gavin Kentch
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KINCAID PARK, Anchorage, Alaska — Erin Bianco of Bridger Ski Foundation, and Luke Jager of APU and the U.S. Ski Team, laid down the fastest times in the qualification round for today’s classic sprint at 2025 U.S. National Cross-Country Championships.
While there are still three more rounds of sprint heats yet to go before crowning a national champion later this afternoon, results in the qual have outsize importance for determining the men’s and women’s domestic sprint leaders in line to receive a discretionary spot on the roster for 2025 World Championships in Trondheim. You can read this full article for more, or just know that doing well in the two sprint quals in Anchorage this week will put an athlete at the top of those standings.
Bianco was first overall in the women’s qual, as noted. Second and third overall were both foreign nationals; Erica Lavén of Sweden skis for the University of Utah, while Mariel Merlii Pulles of Estonia skis for Team Birkie. Second and third in the internal USSS sprint points standings therefore go to Sammy Smith (Sun Valley/USST) and Emma Albrecht (BSF), who were fourth and fifth overall.
On the men’s side, the top three Americans are Jager, Murphy Kimball (University of Alaska Anchorage/USST) in fourth overall, and Michael Earnhart (APU/USST) in sixth overall. The top three Americans all grew up here; local knowledge may have played a factor. Or maybe not, because these are three of the best classic sprinters in the country no matter the venue.
(The second-fastest athlete in the men’s qual, Erling Bjørnstad, is listed in the unofficial results with a USA country code. However, his FIS profile codes him as Norwegian, so I have excised him from my rankings here. Bjørnstad was followed by Florian Knopf of Germany, who skis for Denver. Hugo Hinckfuss of Australia, who skis for Colorado, was fifth.)
A handful of U20 athletes made the senior heats. On the women’s side, my unofficial reading of unofficial results suggests that Sammy Smith, who is somehow still a U20, was the only junior in the top 30. For the men, four U20 athletes and one U18 will race in the open heats: U20 athletes Murphy Kimball, Cole Flowers (UAF), Justin Lucas (APU), and Miles Miner (Green Mountain), then U18 skier Noa Kam-Magruder (Alaska Winter Stars). All save Miner are Anchorage kids; strong day for the home team.
Senior heats start at 12:30 p.m., and junior heats at 2:10 p.m. You can find a full heats schedule, streaming information, and more here:
Live coverage of the heats coming later today. It is windy out there; note the fluttering blanket on the athlete in this shot from the stadium webcam. But it is also 14° F to go along with the 10–15mph north wind. Yay, Kincaid.
Results: unofficial qual results | unofficial sprint bracket results (still working on sorting out the men’s heats as of this writing it appears)
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