By Gavin Kentch
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KINCAID PARK, Anchorage — Hailey Swirbul won the race by over a minute, then said she was still learning. Lauren Jortberg was third overall, second American, and it was her worst showing in all four races in Anchorage. Sammy Smith was fourth, in just her second time on classic skis this season. The 10km classic at U.S. Nationals next month is going to be [synonym for “lit” that my elder millennial self can use in 2025 without being hopelessly cheugy. Or is it cheugy now to say “cheugy”? Discuss. LFG 🔥.]
The women’s 10-kilometer interval-start classic was the final event held here over four days of racing. The field was small, with just 39 starters total, but of high quality. The weather was objectively speaking not great — air temps of 21° F with winds steady at 22mph, gusting to nearly twice that, are fun for neither racing nor standing around in — but after nine days of this in Anchorage it felt like everyone was just sort of used to it by now.
Renae Anderson, fifth today, was previously hesitant to claim too much for the early stages of her experiments with improving her cold tolerance, but at least she’s had plenty of chances to work on it since. Also, she was, you know, on the podium today, so things may be working there for her.
Here is your overall SuperTour podium on the day before I go any further: Hailey Swirbul, of APU, won today’s race going away. Her final time, for two laps of the full 5km course, was 28:12.1. Tilde “Hedda’s sister” Bångman, of the University of Colorado, was second, just over a minute back (+1:03.2). Lauren Jortberg, of Centre National d’Entraînement Pierre-Harvey, followed in third, 1.5 seconds back of Bångman and 1:04.7 back of Swirbul.
Fourth place went to Sammy Smith of Sun Valley (+1:21.8). I am not trying to make excuses for Smith, nor would she want me to, but the fact that Sunday was just her fourth day on snow of the season — Thursday was the first — feels like relevant context for interpreting this result. As does the fact that Thursday’s session was on skate skis, preparatory to Friday’s skate sprint (which she was second in), and that she switched over to classic skis only on Saturday. Breaking, Sammy Smith is a talented athlete.
Fifth today was Renae Anderson, of APU (+1:27.2), and sixth was Novie McCabe, also of APU (+1:37.5). The training partners’ results capped a strong day for the home team: Of a combined twelve total podium spots available today, APU skiers claimed five of them, and a University of Alaska Anchorage athlete another one. There are a lot of good skiers in Anchorage, or, you must have 150 FIS points or fewer to even think about sniffing the overall podium in a citizens race.
“Gosh, my skis are so good today” were the first words out of Swirbul’s mouth, as we huddled in the sort-of-shelter of the timing building to attempt to get out of the wind.
“Really good kick and so fast, which is just a real treat on this blustery day,” she continued. “I’ve been working really hard on some changes with my classic skiing this year and trying to dial it in, and this was a really fun course and chance to get to try some things out.”
Can you say more about the changes, I prompted.
“I’ve been changing my doublepole a lot this year,” she mused. “Just some technique changes. … But that’s been really huge. And just getting to ski a lot this early winter here and classic ski a lot; it’s just been really fun to get to stride and glide.”
What’s the secret, I further prompted, well aware that the truism “the only secret is that there is no secret” is a truism because it is true.
“Nothing crazy,” was the appreciated but at some level predictable response to this. “I think like consistency and building strength. That’s I think the key about skiing, is trying to play with things and play with different techniques that might work for you over time, and then building strength in those techniques to ingrain it so that it’s your default when it comes to a race. So I’m on that path.”
Hailey Swirbul is currently 27 years old, and has been on this path for some time now. As just one example of many, I can pull this photo I took in October 2016 to illustrate the point (Swirbul is shown with then-UAA teammate Casey Wright):
So what’s it like, I asked, to still be working on and improving at this sport. Cut out the following paragraph and frame it (sic; I know this is an online-only publication) if you are a skier at any level of this sport who cares about getting better:
“I just love learning,” enthused Swirbul. “I think learning is the greatest feeling in the world, so I hope to never stop improving and learning. But that’s the joy of nordic skiing; I think it’s a sport that’s impossible to master. There’s always going to be something that we all could continue to improve on, so, what a joy.”
While I like Swirbul’s comments as a holistic statement about growing in the sport, a specific skill she mentioned for this course on this day was doublepoling. Colorado skier Tilde Bångman sounded similar notes when we spoke. By this point we were all inside the wax bunker, the persistent wind, and a lengthy jury review — more on that below — having driven the whole traveling circus inside.
“It’s so windy and a lot of doublepoling out on the course,” said the Swedish skier. “And not that much striding. It was more like, just up and run on your skis and then hammer the doublepoling. So I tried to just find a good rhythm and flow in that.”
Bångman reported that there were classic tracks set up the long A-Climb that opens the course, Elliot’s Climb, which, if you’ve followed Anchorage weather the past two weeks, is something of a minor miracle. “Lots of kudos to whoever does the ski tracks here,” Bångman observed, “because they really did what they could with the tracks.” Preach.
That said, Bångman recounted, she primarily ran the steeper parts of the hill, so she “didn’t really use the tracks. … I went on really little kick,” she noted, “and my plan was to just doublepole as much as possible. So, yeah, it was a lot of running.”
Bångman said that she had spent other races this week “struggling a little bit the other day to get into that [race] zone, but today I felt better.” Up next for the Östersund athlete, a senior at Colorado, is Christmas break in Boulder, then on to U.S. Nationals in Lake Placid. Add her to the mix for that 10km classic on January 4.
Finally — and this is an awkward segue because Bångman was not part of the jury meeting and did not receive a reprimand, so don’t hold this against her — I should note that the awards ceremony for today’s women’s race was delayed for quite some time, on the order of at least a half hour, due to an extended jury meeting.
I obviously wasn’t present in the jury meeting, so I’m not going to speculate on what occurred therein. That said, I can pass along two things:
One, conditions on the ground today, in which windblown snow collected in the classic tracks and the skate deck was frequently scoured and fast, would have made it difficult for even well-intentioned athletes to maintain proper classic technique when, for example, going around turns in areas that had tracks set and so were not designated as turning zones.
And two, if you look at the FIS results for this race, a full nine athletes, in a women’s field of 39, received a written or verbal reprimand today, all under ICR 343.8 (classic technique violation, quoted above).
Anyway. Anna was on site today, so I have some more, actually good photos to share in addition to those already illustrating this article. If you’re looking for more images, be in touch. And tip your photographer.
Lauren Jortberg:
Sammy Smith:
Junior podium!
Ally Wheeler:
Ruby Serrouya:
Piper Sears:
… and, finally, the wind in the Kincaid stadium (this also shows the direct sunlight at 2:02 p.m. lol):
Results: Zone4 | FIS (but currently entered using a mass start F-value so everyone’s points are wrong) (yes the jury knows about this; I notified them before posting)
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