By Gavin Kentch
Welcome to this news roundup for September 2. Today: David Norris cracks the top-10 in Chamonix in the OCC, while Sophia Laukli gives it a shot but withdraws; Julia Kern beats out Jessie Diggins for first in the Merino Muster in New Zealand; and USSS profiles Kate Oldham for her recent accomplishments.
David Norris ninth in Chamonix in UTMB World Series finale
There are currently two circuits for high-level international trail running flitting across the globe, the Golden Trail World Series and the UTMB World Series. Series finales for the latter occurred last week in Chamonix and environs; if you have ever shown interest in anything trail running–related online, your feed last week was likely filled with UTMB drama.
There are multiple races in UTMB week, with the eponymous Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, a tad over 100 miles and generally regarded as the world’s most competitive trail ultra, taking center stage. But the shorter-distance OCC, so named for its route from Orsières through Champex-Lac through a finish in Chamonix, is hardly easy, nor characterized by a weak field.
Case in point, one Jim Walmsley took the win in this year’s OCC, finishing in 5:00:35. Walmsley won UTMB in 2023, setting a course record there that still stands, and also holds the course record for Western States. He was followed across the line this year by Cristian Minoggio of Italy, who at 41 years of age was, let us say, rather a dark horse in this year’s competition. The men’s race was gripping, with Minoggio going for broke and holding the lead as far as eight minutes from the finish before Walmsley took it back with a late pass. Good stuff.
Andrzej Witek of Poland was third, 3:33 back.
Behind the leaders, but not that far behind, David Norris finished ninth overall, 11:58 back of Walmsley and 8:25 off the podium. Norris runs competitively for On Trail. For skiing, his affiliation is Team Birkie.
Norris was 23rd in this race last year; at the time he wrote on Strava, “Cannot wait to do it again — amazing day but can’t help but want to really nail the prep and race day pacing.” He did not have a similar Strava précis for this year’s OCC, but it sure looks from here as if he worked out a few things.
Tenth on the day, five minutes back of Norris, was Sam Hendry of Canada, who skied collegiately for Utah. Erika Flowers was 30th among the women, finishing in 6:47:46. Husband Andy Newell was 75th among the men, crossing the line roughly 10 minutes earlier in 6:36:51. David Sinclair, who skied collegiately for Dartmouth, was second in the 100km. The UTMB website appears to have been designed by a blind armadillo so my patience for trawling for other skier results is limited; sorry to anyone whom I have omitted here.
Skier Sophia Laukli (USST/Aker Dæhlie) had a rough day on the mountain, holding steady in the top 10 through Martigny, Switzerland, before withdrawing.
“A quick but necessary attempt to realize that these legs were never gonna make it 60km, and it wouldn’t help anyone to force it through the end,” she wrote on Instagram a few days later. “There’s a time and a place for that, but right now there are bigger fish to fry. So we can beat a dead horse or move the f on. And try again. Or something like that.”
Laukli has long since returned to ski training in Oslo. Walmsley, Norris, and Sinclair are among the 48 athletes who will represent the U.S. in 2025 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Spain later this month.
Results (good luck)
Kern, Diggins go 1–2 in lap course Merino Muster
Julia Kern and Jessie Diggins, both USST and SMS athletes, have spent the past two weeks training on snow at the Snow Farm in New Zealand. They have been joined by national team coaches Jason Cork and Kristen Bourne, giving the camp a cool 1:1 coach:athlete ratio.
After roughly two weeks on snow, the athletes raced. Both women were presumptive favorites in Saturday’s thirtieth running of the Merino Muster, New Zealand’s entry in the Worldloppet series, with Diggins coming in as the two-time defending champion. This year’s race was shortened to eight laps of a 2.8-kilometer course due to snow conditions. (While recent snowfall appears to have improved things quite a bit, the lack of set classic tracks in athletes’ early posts from camp was telling if you are a snow dork like me.)
Overall winner Campbell Wright, who has dual New Zealand–American citizenship and raced here in a black Kiwi suit, skied alone for much of the race, crossing the line in 51:44. Second place went to Takatsugu Uda of Japan, 1:03 back.
The real race of the day was for first woman, and third overall. In an unsurprising development, Kern and Diggins skied together for the majority of the race, coming through the timing checkpoint in tandem in each of laps one through seven. But Kern put a handful of seconds into Diggins over lap eight, crossing the line in 57:18. Diggins followed six seconds later. Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt of Canada was the third woman, and fifth overall, in 1:00:05.
Bouffard-Nesbitt was racing on her 33rd birthday. Diggins had turned 34 four days earlier. Since my older daughter reads this site at school sometimes, happy birthday to Bridget, who had turned 13 three days before that.
Chip Freeman of the U.S. was sixth overall, and third among men, nearly 10 minutes later. Freeman does not currently have an active FIS license, so I don’t know when his birthday is.
The second-place finish for Diggins, while of scant import across a season or career as a whole, does bring to a close a remarkable streak: As best as I can tell Diggins last lost a race in the southern hemisphere in September 2017, when she finished 14th in a classic sprint held as part of the Australia/New Zealand Cup. Since then, Diggins had won at least 10 straight races in New Zealand, plus the Kangaroo Hoppet in 2022 when Covid restrictions in New Zealand sent her across the ditch to Falls Creek for summer training.
Today marked the end of this year’s training camp at the Snow Farm, per social media posts.
Kate Oldham profiled by U.S. Ski Team
Kate Oldham (USST/BSF) was the subject of a recent profile by Leann Bentley, USST media representative, for the USST “On The Rise” series. The branding does not feel particularly forced here, as last season saw Oldham, still just 23, win a breakthrough national championship in Anchorage in early January, finish 19th in her World Cup debut in Engadin in late January, and finish 22nd in her World Championships debut in Trondheim in February. Oh, she then graduated from Montana State in May with a 4.0 GPA.
Oldham is now settling into life as a professional skier with BSF in, generally, Bozeman, though her recent Instagram posts are collectively a highlight reel of very scenic locations across the Rocky Mountains (plus also a trip up to Alaska for glacier skiing). If you would like to know what music she is listening to to soundtrack her summer training, you can find that here. To read Leann’s interview, go here.
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