By Peter Minde
RICHMOND, Vermont — June 20th: an auspicious, sunny day at the beginning of summer. The new kids in town, Mansfield Pro Nordic, held a kickoff party in Vermont to introduce the team to the community. Fueled by multiple espressos, Nordic Insights road-tripped from its secret Adirondack outpost to Cochran’s Ski Area in Richmond to meet the crew.
Cochran’s is a local legend that merits a story of its own, even in a nordic publication. In 1961, founders Mickey and Ginny Cochran put a rope tow on the hill on their property so their four kids could ski. Over the years, they introduced thousands of local kids to skiing. Three of the four Cochran kids went to the 1972 Winter Olympics, with Barbara Ann winning Olympic gold in slalom. This was the beginning of a dynasty that sent several generations of Cochrans to the World Cup and the Olympics.
On the nordic side, Cochran’s hosts a season-ending nordic cross race: part slalom, part uphill race, part obstacle course, 100% good time. Julia Kern’s Instagram post gives you an idea of what that’s like.
But now back to Mansfield Pro Nordic: Asked how the concept for the country’s newest pro team came to be, Adam Terko, Executive Director for the closely affiliated Mansfield Nordic Club, responded via email:
“Progress on starting up a Pro Team only really took off again after U.S. Nationals [in Anchorage in January 2025]. I was staying a few extra days to help with race support for Emma Crum, who skis for Bowdoin and is an MNC alumna. Perry was also staying a few extra days to support Lauren Jortberg. … When I learned Perry was going to be living in Williston and hadn’t settled on a coaching role for the future yet, the wheels started turning.”
And here’s Perry Thomas, head coach for Mansfield Pro Nordic, on starting a new team from the ground up:
“Starting a team from scratch is hard! Lots of moving parts. With that said, gathering a group of folks interested in the project to help with the creation and sustainability of the team in the form of an advisory committee was important to establish early on. They have been instrumental in the creation of this team, and continue to be an immense help.”
Both men wrote extensively about the germination of the new pro team. Terko discussed the appeal of skiers being able to stay in the Burlington area, while Thomas highlighted community and collaboration. Their complete thoughts can be found here.
After a run sampling Cochran’s singletrack network, we interviewed some of the skiers who have taken their talents to northern Vermont. First up was U.S. Ski Team team member Sydney Palmer-Leger. Palmer-Leger, 23, raced both domestically and abroad last year. In this country, a highlight was when she won a hard-fought American Birkebeiner in February — the top five women finished in a six-second time frame. Abroad, Palmer-Leger was 26th in a February World Cup race in Falun, and that same month in Italy had a highwater mark of 17th in her final World U23 Championships.
Nordic Insights: You came here from Stratton Mountain?
Palmer-Leger: Yes. I’m originally from Park City, Utah. I was with Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation in high school, and then with the University of Utah for the last four years.
Nordic Insights: You’ve come to a brand new club, starting up from scratch, from a successful team at SMS. What made you want to come over here?
Palmer-Leger: I’ve worked with Perry the last three years, and I really like his coaching style. We clicked well, and he had said he was creating this new team.
It also really aligns with living with my girlfriend and having a life outside of skiing. And so being up in Burlington, I get to have this ski–life balance. I’m starting my masters in clinical psychology, and so I’m able to kind of have that balance. The airport is super close, so heading over to Europe, it’s not as far, and that kind of stuff.
But it was super hard leaving Stratton. I loved that team, and it felt like such a second family. So it was really hard to say goodbye to Sverre and stuff. But it also is having a new chapter and trying to figure out what’s good for myself and where I want to be, and being out west and then coming straight out east without knowing the area at all, it’s kind of just been exploring the last couple years.
Nordic Insights: When you come from an established program to a new program, do you have any concerns about funding?
Palmer-Leger: Yes, of course. I think every team has concerns about funding, especially cross-country skiing. I think we are a very small sport, and so that’s always an issue, but especially a new team. I think we have a good community here, so it’s started really strong, and we’re going to try to just create our name and our brand, and hopefully it’ll work out. And so we’re having these fundraisers. We have really strong athletes, and hopefully people want to help support us.
Nordic Insights: What should people know about Mansfield Pro Nordic that I might not have asked?
Palmer-Leger: I guess, just being in Mansfield in Burlington, there’s access to incredible mountain bike trails and running. And so that’s a big thing for me. I used to be a mountain bike racer. Having these amazing trails that I can go ride is super beneficial to me, because then I could kind of go back to my roots and have just some other cross training. And we also have an amazing junior program.
Nordic Insights: I’ve seen the junior team [at the Climb to the Castle and elsewhere].
Palmer-Leger: It’s really cool having them at workouts, and some of the boys push me.
It’s just amazing, having this amazing group. There’s a lot of us, like when we’re doing speeds and intervals, and I need to kind of coach them through certain things and also learn stuff from them. And just having amazing coaches with Perry and Terko. I’m also on the advisory board, so it’s kind of fun having the background and kind of advocating myself for the team as well.
Nordic Insights: Where are you rollerskiing in these parts? The roads that I drove up on are kind of sketchy.
Palmer-Leger: I’m figuring out myself. Right at Cochran’s, there’s a bunch of roads. We’ve been at Shelburne Farms. There’s a road, Mud Pond. There’s a couple neighborhoods. So yeah, there’s a lot of places, and I’ve just kind of just scratched their surface.
Nordic Insights: Thank you.
Chloe Levins, 27, is one of the biathletes on the squad. She’s competed at four IBU World Championships, and multiple junior/youth world championships. While skiing for Middlebury in undergrad, she played golf in addition to racing biathlon. She’s still balancing two sports that many may not think of as going together, while finding that they are in fact quite complementary.
Nordic Insights: Are you still coaching golf?
Levins: I am. I’m the current assistant coach at Middlebury College for the women’s golf team.
Nordic Insights: What is the seasonal overlap; how do you balance the two?
Levins: College golf is spring and fall. They have four tournaments in the spring and four tournaments in the fall. NCAAs are in the spring [for skiing], so it’s a split season, and I balanced it throughout all of college while racing and training. I raced internationally for biathlon, starting in my second year in high school. So it’s been about 12 years now, racing internationally and balancing golf. It’s something I’ve always done, and I feel like [golf] is really great cross training for me in biathlon. So it comes naturally for me to balance the two.
Nordic Insights: You did well as a golfer. What made you choose biathlon instead of golf?
Levins: That’s a good question. My mom was a professional golfer, so I have been both skiing and playing golf since the age of two. Obviously, Middlebury is a D-III golf program. They are competitive in their own right. We had a really good showing at NCAAs this year. I had a successful individual career during my time there, from 2016 to 2020.
I felt like I treated it as cross training for biathlon. It was always my second sport in my head, but in its own right, very beneficial, just because it’s such a test of mental fortitude, I think that any elite athlete in any sport at the highest level would benefit from training the mental side of their quote, unquote game by playing golf and getting to a high level.
Nordic Insights: What’s the short game like versus being on the range? Can you train for shooting more than for the short game?
Levins: There are so many similarities to shooting in golf. It’s uncanny the way you train your muscle memory. In the same way that you can be on the range for golf for all hours of the day, you can shoot for all hours of the day, practicing really fine motor movements, practicing visual acuity, just focusing on one aspect of whatever motor skill you’re trying to learn, and refining that one thing, and then the next day working on another.
And I think that in terms of the pressure scenario, it’s the same as a penalty kick in soccer, a free throw in basketball, a three-footer on the 18th, and your last shot in a biathlon race. Say you have taken nine shots. You hit the first nine. If you hit that last one, you might win the race. You might make your first pursuit. You might make your first top 10, whatever. But that type of feeling, being in contention for whatever your individual goal is, is so similar to golf. That’s how it was cross training for me.
In a follow-up message, Levins wrote to Nordic Insights, “I have been an independent for a very long time. This team is a dream come true for me. In a way, it’s like I’ve come home. Even though I’ve been unaffiliated for most of my biathlon career, my roots have always been in Vermont. I grew up living and training in the Green Mountains. I used to commute to [the Ethan Allen biathlon range in] Jericho from Rutland [70 miles each way] with my mom after high school for biathlon night training under the lights. I’ve been competing for a long time, but MNC Pro makes everything feel new again.
“I’m grateful to have the opportunity to train alongside nordic skiers and share ideas. It’s invigorating to be part of a club that isn’t afraid to bridge this gap between biathletes and nordic skiers in the U.S.
“I’m grateful to Perry for continuing to be curious and open to collaborate with the biathlon community. It speaks to his willingness to grow and learn in a common pursuit of excellence. I can’t wait to put our heads together and get to work. It’s going to be a fun year!”
Logan Moore is a 2025 Middlebury College alumnus. A native of Durango, Colorado, Moore finished fifth in the 20km skate race at 2025 NCAA Championships at Dartmouth. At the Lake Placid SuperTour Finals in March, he finished 8th in the 10km skate race and 15th in the 40km classic slushfest.
Nordic Insights: What made you choose Mansfield Pro Nordic?
Moore: I really like Vermont. I feel like the community here, especially the cross-country community here, is very awesome. And location-wise, there’s a lot of good training around here. There’s a lot of schools near here. So the skiing is really good. And then also, I’m taking on a new thing: I’m doing Project X this year with [U.S.] biathlon.
Project X is a program that USBA does for collegiate skiers that are good skiers to try biathlon and learn the shooting aspect of things. Kind of following in Luci Anderson’s footsteps from last year.
She was Biathlete X also, yes, and she still is this year. It’s a two-year program and it’s based out of Lake Placid. Burlington is only a couple hours away from Lake Placid, so it’s really easy to hop on over there for a shooting or a training session. And also you have the range right here, which is really close. So, yeah, it’s a lot of good things. And I’ve worked with Perry, which is awesome. So we already have the kind of relationship, so he knows, like, what I’m working on technique-wise, and and have been working on for the past couple years. And so that’s really helpful.
Nordic Insights: Is Project X primarily shooting and race strategy?
Moore: Essentially, I’m training within the national team. So it’s shooting, but it’s also skiing. You know, 90 to 92 percent of biathlon is still skiing. There is some strategy, some shooting. And I’ve definitely been working on my shooting, precision shooting, and shooting while skiing as well. So it’s definitely a lot of that, but it’s also like a focus. They’re not trying to take away from skiing, because skiing is still a large part of the sport.
Nordic Insights: Do you intend to do biathlon or more cross-country?
Moore: I’m gonna take an approach for both. There are a few key biathlon races that I will be doing, like the trials in Craftsbury in December. And I’m also gonna race U.S. Nationals for cross-country skiing. And then I have a target of the IBU Cup Finals and the World Cup Finals that are both in Lake Placid this year. So those are some of the races that I’m shooting to qualify for.
Nordic Insights: Thank you.
Bend native Annie McColgan finished her master’s degree this spring at the University of Vermont, or UVM. Her first career NCAA wins came this year, at the Saint Michael’s Winter Carnival and the Dartmouth Winter Carnival.
Nordic Insights: You just finished up at UVM. What was your degree?
McColgan: In English. I love writing
Nordic Insights: Gotta love the liberal arts.
McColgan: Gotta love the liberal arts! Not enough of it these days. [Ed.: preach.]
Nordic Insights: You skied for UVM. So this is your first club out of UVM?
McColgan: Yes, this my first pro team.
Nordic Insights: What other places did you look at, and what made you choose Mansfield Pro?
McColgan: I was fortunate to get to try a bunch of different places during my summers in between training.
I had trained one summer with the U23 program in Craftsbury. I also did a summer here with the Mansfield University team. I did a summer at Alaska Pacific University. So I got to train at a whole bunch of places. But every fall I was coming back to UVM to train, yeah? And that was always just super great,
But I always return to Vermont in the fall, and spent my winters here, and the majority of the time, I was out here. And so when this pro team popped up, I had an awesome opportunity to stay where I’ve been for a long time. And I know Perry, because Perry used to be the assistant coach at UVM, and so there were a lot of things about making the easy transition out of college. And I already have a lot of stuff set up here, like research with school and work that was like, I’m super lucky to now have a pro team right where I’ve been living for a long time.
Nordic Insights: Are there big cultural differences that you notice between these three places [Craftsbury, APU, Mansfield Nordic]?
McColgan: Not particularly. I mean, the exciting thing about here is that we now get to build our own team culture. A lot of places that you end up, you’re kind of integrating into the existing culture. But the cool thing about this program is now we get to decide what the culture is going to be. So I’ve been super lucky, but I’m also super stoked to bring what I’ve learned from other teams to this new team.
Nordic Insights: What was your master’s thesis?
McColgan: My master’s thesis was called “‘Synthesis of Resistance’: An Investigation Into the Poetic Resistance Traditions of Ireland and Palestine.” So I was doing Irish and Palestinian poetry stuff.
Nordic Insights: What time period?
McColgan: All of the time periods. So it ended up being a very extensive, like 200-page project, but it was super validating, super cool to write, like a comprehensive historical and poetic study, and I got a lot from that.
Nordic Insights: I’ve read a little bit about the historical invasion, English invasion of Ireland…
McColgan: Yes, totally.
Nordic Insights: And English second sons, being given titles to Irish estates. [Those who are interested may read more here. In his fine The World Turned Upside Down, Christopher Hill also touches on this topic.]
McColgan: Yes, exactly, kind of like settling in.
Nordic Insights: Feel like there’s a little bit of a common ground there.
McColgan: Exactly that. And that’s, that’s kind of how I arrived at it. I just kind of was seeing a lot of this solidarity between a small island in the Atlantic Ocean and the small strip of land in the desert. And I was like, they both have interacted with colonialism in the same way. It was a very relevant project too, right now. So that felt very cool.
Nordic Insights: What would you like to accomplish this coming winter?
McColgan: Accomplish this whole season? I think my past season, I didn’t set any result goals for myself, and really just focused on the process of getting to go to ski races with my friends and getting to do an amazing sport. So I’m probably just gonna go for that same thing and take what I’ve gotten from the EISA circuit, which is a culture of fun and pushing each other in races. Saying like every single race, and bringing positive energy to those races and garnering more excitement about Nordic skiing. But I would just love to bring that to the SuperTour basically.
Nordic Insights: Are process goals more relevant than outcome goals?
McColgan: Exactly, exactly. I had so many years like that where I was stressing the crap out of myself, and had these expectations for how well I had to do in college, and at the end of my senior year, I was like, I really don’t want my fifth year to feel like that. I wanted my fifth year to feel like a cherry on top and just truly [be] as good as it got. And I ended up having my best season I’ve ever had by just really letting go of those expectations.
So I have no doubt that this crew is going to accomplish some great things this winter. I’m just excited to be a part of it.
As the evening wound down, Thomas noted in his email, “As we were cleaning up after our event at Cochran’s, Adam and I looked up and saw all of the pro team athletes hanging out by the fire together. They were the last ones to leave, and some of them barely knew each other up until then, but they were just hanging out with each other having a good time. To me, that’s a sign that we’re doing something right!”
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.
