By Gavin Kentch
Welcome back, and thanks for reading.
I started this site in fall 2022 on… if not on a whim, then let’s just say that my sixth-grader did more business planning for her Junior Chamber of Commerce “sell rubber band bracelets to first-graders for pretend money” project than I did for this news site. A lot more.
That said, nearly three full World Cup seasons, 750 articles, and five discrete uses of the “limning the zeitgeist” tag later, here we are. I have done on-site reporting from twelve World Juniors races, eight World Cup races, and every race at the last three national championships. I have written about World Cup races, and JNQ races, and World Masters races, and the Race to the Outhouse #2 (yes that is literally its name), and everything in between. I have written about what Pål Golberg eats for breakfast, about women in coaching, and about the geographical origins of national-team skiers over the past twenty years. I have posted articles from the Fairbanks airport, from my car in the Soldier Hollow parking lot, and from the Houghton Culver’s.
This is me interviewing Gus Schumacher in the Canmore mixed zone, February 2024. I am the awkward-looking one. (courtesy photo)
There have been over 450 Instagram posts, which is impressive stuff for an outlet that doesn’t make enough money to afford a NordicFocus subscription and get real photos. If my visual for a World Cup race is a blurry screenshot from the world feed, as is my wont, the writing had better be really good to make up for it. I like to think that it is.
There is a staff now. People read us in the U.S. Ski Team wax truck. Athletes like Instagram posts about themselves between the qual and the heats on sprint day, which is maybe not the best way to stay focused, but that said I’ve been at the races and I’ve seen the kids and their phones these days. Pretty heady stuff for an outlet that was started as a labor of love, with a lot of passion but honestly not much planning.
And now we’re going to the Olympics. Or at least I am. I am really, really proud of my staff, and am legit excited to have brought so many new voices onto the site this year. (Apparently some people write articles that are not 2,000 words long, and also “watch the races live” or some such. Whatever.) I put in a media accreditation application last fall for one photographer and three writers, with dreams of a group trip to Milano–Cortina next spring. But it seems that the Italian Dolomites were an easier sell than the last three farflung Olympic venues; competition was fierce this year, and I only got the one spot when I heard back from the IOC last month.
So, for the time being, I am going to be in northern Italy in February 2026. I am sincerely hoping that more spots open up off the waitlist and additional folks from Nordic Insights can join. If not, it will be just me.
This is a major milestone for any news site. There are, in round numbers, 3,000 media credentials available for the Winter Olympics; that probably sounds like a lot in the abstract, but keep in mind that this is, like, literally the Olympics. Assign one writer and one photographer per the flagship outlet in major cities in most countries, and those spots start to fill up. Add in an extra few hundred reporters who all want to cover figure skating or Alpine skiing, and credentials can get pretty thin on the ground pretty quickly. I am really proud of my passion project for progressing from pipe dream to media legitimacy within a single Olympic quadrennial.
This is me interviewing Hailey Swirbul in the Houghton mixed zone (really more of just a field), January 2023 (photo: Hannah Halvorsen)
I’ve meant to proffer a State of the Site update in each of the last two falls; each time October has flown by in a haze of sick kids and quickly disappearing 61° N latitude daylight, the start of the World Cup season has snuck up on me, and the next thing I know it’s early April and no one wants to think about ski news again until May 1.
So in lieu of a formal update, here is a (very incomplete) list of some thank yous from the past three winters. Thank you to Tasha Lucas, Justin Lucas’s mom, for driving me six hours from Houghton back to MSP. To Graeme Williams (aka @oneskatephotos), Tabitha Williams’s dad, for driving me to the venue in Whistler nearly every morning, then giving me photos on top of that. To Amy Schumacher, Gus’s mom, for driving me to the venue on the one morning Graeme couldn’t make it; she made a one-hour deadhead trip with just me before returning with her own kids later in the day, if you’re wondering where Gus gets his preternatural graciousness from.
There’s more. To Matt Pauli for airplane miles. To Nat Herz for answering my dumb reporter questions for nearly a decade now. To the Canmore chief of media who *personally drove me up to the venue so I could go skiing on the off day* when it turned out he had been mistaken about the shuttle bus schedule. To JC Schoonmaker’s parents for striking up a conversation by the Calgary baggage claim, then immediately driving me to my doorstep in Canmore. Still not certain whether Gus or JC is nicer, but the apple sure doesn’t fall far from the tree for either man.
To every single athlete who has ever answered my emails or texts or DMs. Racing is hard, and I know all too well that often the last thing you want to do afterwards is to talk about why your bad race was bad. I think of this dynamic now every time I finish up a shitty race and can just blithely head off to my car to turn on the radio and lick my wounds, without having to answer questions from, well, me. Thank you for your time, at all times, particularly those times.
And, especially, thank you to everyone who has read. And sent in questions or comments. And cared. If you follow this sport in this country you clearly care; the races take place in the middle of the night, the athletes are off on another continent for four months straight, and the sport is, despite my yeoman’s work, drastically undercovered in this country — we’re currently fourth in the Nation’s Cup, but like 25th in the number of dedicated cross-country ski journalists.
There are no casual fans of American nordic skiing, is my point; you have to work for it. I am thrilled to have created an outlet that has brought caring people together, and am honored that those people choose to spend some of their time and attention with me. When, say, Gus claims an epochal World Cup win, I can feel the stoke in American skiing. If my little site is doing something to feed that stoke, then I am thrilled. And I mean that, quite sincerely, whether or not you keep reading and give me any money now.
This is me interviewing Murphy Kimball in the Kincaid stadium at 2025 U.S. Nationals in Anchorage, January 2025. I am the dumpy one. It was cold there, okay. (photo: Greta Anderson)
Okay, here is where I ask you for money.
The line at the bottom of every article about this website being a labor of love is not a bit. I made a profit of approximately $2,000 for the first year of the site, and a little over $3,000 for year two. While being tied to a computer virtually every World Cup weekend. And this was with the two iterations of the GoFundMe netting a combined $13,500 to date. (As an aside, I am flattered every day that people have given this much money to a site they can read for free. I don’t take this for granted; it means a lot to me. If you’re wondering where the money went, you try taking two 10-day reporting trips a year starting in Anchorage and see how quickly expenses add up.) I don’t even have paid ads on the site this winter. Those donations make a difference, is what I am trying to say here.
I am asking for $10,000 this time. It is expensive to get anywhere from Alaska, especially to Europe during the Olympics. It is expensive to stay anywhere near the Olympics during the Olympics. I don’t know how expensive it will be to feed myself at the Olympics during the Olympics, but I probably won’t be able to bring enough prepackaged Indian food from Costco to get through 18 days on the ground this time, so my food bills will be higher than on other reporting trips. (The line about bringing my own food from home is also not a bit. I’m not exactly living large out there.)
Honestly, even with all that, the sticker price will still be somewhat less than $10,000. I am using this partly as a round and ambitious number, but also because I would like to bring on more staff next season so that I can start to make this outlet a little more of a sustainable business and a little less of a one-man show going forward. Excess funds will mostly go toward hiring someone else to do weekend editing so I can do more weekend ski racing; I’ve been okay working for free, but I don’t expect others to do the same.
So, you should give me money, if you have it to spare. I will be immensely grateful. I will use it to travel to Val di Fiemme in February 2026. I will stand courseside for hours in all types of weather. I will queue in the mixed zone, the Olympics being the rare occasion that people other than me want to talk with our skiers. I will ask every American athlete about their race, not just Jessie and Gus and Ben but every athlete. Then I will come back here and tell you what they had to say. Go team.
You can find the GoFundMe link here. Or feel free to reach out directly (info (at) nordicinsights.news) if you have cash or check or airline miles or some other form of specie. Thank you for your consideration, and, especially, for reading.
