Looking Back: On the History of Junior Nationals (née Junior Olympics), plus Alaska Cup Winners, 1986–2025

By Gavin Kentch

We are getting very close to some nice round numbers when it comes to national-level junior ski competition in this country: Next year’s Junior Nationals, in Cable in March 2026, will mark the 40th time that the Alaska Cup has been awarded to the top-performing divisional team. Take a minute to go read about Intermountain’s team triumph in this year’s races, then come back here for a brief history lesson on both JNs and the Alaska Cup.

Junior Olympics are first held

Junior Olympics were first held in Bend in 1965, according to the history laid out here. For the first decades of their existence they included all of cross-country skiing, jumping, nordic combined, and alpine in a single championships. This bears on why competitions were initially held only at venues that also had downhill facilities, such as Bend, Bozeman, Duluth, or Winter Park, Colorado.

Update: I accurately described the content of a ski history website, as linked to in the above paragraph, but that website was incomplete in its scope, and I was simply incorrect when I characterized JNs as starting in 1965. I apologize for the error, and many thanks to Will Wicherski for politely correcting me on this front. Junior-level competitions were in fact held at least as early as 1954, as witness this photo from a timeline display at History Jackson Hole. They were held again at Jackson Hole in 1963, in addition to the years listed here.

1969 JOs in Girdwood, Alaska, were the end of an era in this regard, the final junior championships including alpine racing. This is per John Estle, who would know. You can find out a surprising amount about the 1969 races here, on Tim Kelley’s invaluable Alaska Lost Ski Areas Project site.

Time passed. The 1976 races were held in Deadwood, South Dakota, a historical tidbit that fascinates me; if you raced at or know anything about those races, be in touch (info at nordicinsights.news). [Per one emailer: Races were in fact held in Lead, South Dakota, at Terry Peak Ski Area, the host venue for NCAAs in 1971.]

The following year races were back at the more traditional venue of Birch Hill, in Fairbanks, Alaska. You can find a full program for those races here, with a backup copy here just in case because my goodness is this a fascinating historical document. The five-person mixed relay that year, for example, sent three boys each on a 5km course and the two girls on a 2.5km course within the same race, which is certainly one approach to equal-distance racing. In the girls relay (a separate event), a team with Becky Forbes and Betsy “Kikkan’s aunt” Haines took second on behalf of Alaska; Jane Ogden skied the scramble leg for Eastern. Lot of history here.

(Also, I can’t resist pointing out that the fastest times for the girls 3 x 5km relay were faster than roughly half the boys’ 5km leg times in the mixed relay. 🤔)

More time passed. 1978 saw Jackson Hole once again host JNs. Lake Placid hosted in 1982, and again in 1984. Ishpeming, Michigan, had the races in 1983. A lot of familiar venue names on this list; some things don’t change.

Come 1986, however, there was a new component introduced to high-level junior competition. The Instagram post below — from, appropriately, NENSA — is the best photo that I can readily find of it.

The Alaska Cup is first awarded

I’m going to turn things over here to, uh, subsection 61.4.1 of the 2025 USSS Nordic Competition Guide (link), which helpfully provides this history lesson:

“The Alaska Cup is a traveling trophy to be awarded to the Division with the highest point total of the competitions at the Junior Nationals. The History of the Cup goes back to the 1986 Junior Nationals in Royal Gorge, CA, the Auburn (CA) Ski Club sponsored a cup which was to be awarded to the outstanding Division or District team at the 1986 Junior Nationals. The first cup was won by the Alaska team.

“The concept was very popular with all coaches and athletes; however, the Auburn Ski Club’s trophy was only a one-time occurrence. In response, Alaska Division purchased a permanent, commemorative cup to be awarded each year to the outstanding Division or District team at the Junior Nationals and christened it the ‘Alaska Cup.’

“Since that time the Alaska Cup competition has been one of the highlights of the Junior Nationals. The Alaska Cup resides within the geographic boundaries of the winning Division from one Junior Nationals to the next. The Cup is brought to the Junior Nationals by the defending champion for presentation to the new winner.”

So that’s the origin story. Who has won the Alaska Cup? Briefly put, Alaska, nearly every year over the award’s first 20 years of existence, but only infrequently since; then New England, nearly every time over the award’s second 20 years. Somewhere in there, Intermountain claimed three titles, and the Midwest one.

Here is a table for you:

Putting all this together, New England has won the Alaska Cup 18 times, including 16 of the last 21 years it has been awarded. Alaska has won it 17 times, though only three times in the past 20+ years (*or maybe just twice, given what you do with 2020). Intermountain has won it three times. The Midwest claimed the title once, in 1997, and Covid once, in 2021 (no really, it literally says “COVID-19” on the plinth). No other region nor respiratory disease has claimed the Alaska Cup since it was first awarded in 1986.

(* USSS in some sources lists the Pacific Northwest as the divisional champion for 2020. This is incorrect; here are results from that year showing Alaska narrowly in the lead through two of four races before the world shut down for Covid. You should remove one title from Alaska’s totals given in this article if you wish to excise the two-race Covid year from consideration, which I feel like you may pretty reasonably do. Make the overall standings 18 for New England, 16 for Alaska, three for Intermountain, and one for the Midwest if you decide to drop 2020 from the data set.)

2026 Junior Nationals are set for Cable next March. History suggests that you should expect one of New England, Alaska, or Intermountain to take the regional supremacy crown.

You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American skiing. We started with nothing and now we’re going to the Olympics. You can read more about our first three years here, and donate to the Olympics fund here. Thank you for consideration, and, especially, for reading.