By Gavin Kentch
This is a reader-funded website. Virtually all of my income (for perspective: I took home less than $5,000 from Nordic Insights last year after paying staff) comes from reader contributions, which I sincerely appreciate. If you would like to support the site, including helping us get to the Olympics in February, you may do so here. Thank you.
2026 U.S. National Cross-Country Championships will be held at Mt Van Hoevenberg, in Lake Placid, New York, from January 4–9. There is a distance classic race on Sunday, a skate sprint on Tuesday, a distance classic race on Thursday, then a classic sprint on Friday to close things out.
Here is some basic information about 2026 U.S. Nationals all in one place.
Results
Bullitt Timing has results this year. You can find results and start lists for all races here. Poignantly, the Bullitt Timing homepage still mentions John Ogden; I hope this does not change. You can find John’s obituary here.
During the races, you can access live timing here.
Official FIS results will be here a day or two after each race.
Streaming
Yes, there is streaming! Here is the link for that (should be good for all four races; click through to the relevant day as the week goes on).
Schedule
Briefly put:
Sunday, January 4: Interval-start 10-kilometer classic
Tuesday, January 6: Skate sprint
Thursday, January 8: Mass start 20km skate (U23 and older), mass start 10km skate (U20 and below)
Friday, January 9: Classic sprint
The final event here is “just” a SuperTour race; the 2025/2026 classic sprint national championship will be held at Craftsbury in March during Spring Series. The first three races are all national championships.
Here is a more detailed schedule of the week. All times are given in local time, which is EST.
Friday, January 9: Classic sprint
Update: As of Thursday evening, the start of the qual has been moved up to 9 a.m. to attempt to get ahead of the weather. I would assume that you should accordingly take every time listed here and move it up by one hour, but don’t quote me on that. I will update this more precisely if or when I get my hands on a more detailed schedule for tomorrow.
| men’s sprint qual starts | 10 a.m. |
| women’s sprint qual starts | 11 a.m. |
| open men’s quarterfinals start | 12:30 p.m. |
| open women’s quarterfinals start | 12:50 p.m. |
| men’s semis | 1:10 p.m. |
| women’s semis | 1:20 p.m. |
| men’s final | 1:30 p.m. |
| women’s final | 1:40 p.m. |
| junior men’s quarterfinals start | 2:30 p.m. |
| junior women’s quarterfinals start | 2:50 p.m. |
| junior men’s semis | 3:10 p.m. |
| junior women’s semis | 3:20 p.m. |
| junior men’s final | 3:40 p.m. |
| junior women’s final | 3:50 p.m. |
Points lists
Athletes this week are not only racing for national championships; they are also racing to qualify to represent the U.S. in upcoming international competition (okay, also domestic competition, given that World Cup Finals are at the same venue two months later). Here are the two points lists to follow for that:
Qualification for World Junior/U23 Championships and for U18 trip
(you can find more information about the SuperTour, including schedule and points lists, through the USSS site here, or through the standalone, athlete-made SuperTour site here)
Weather
Here are your point forecasts for the venue through NWS and yr.no. Looks cold to start, but then warming up.
Logistical information (parking, food trucks, etc.) for those attending in-person
Here is the general race webpage? Lol, it doesn’t tell you about any of those things for spectators, sorry. I would tell you more, but no one in ORDA media answers my emails. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2025/2026 World Cup Finals venue!
(And yes that’s quite snarky, but their site for World Cup Finals still says “details coming soon” under the schedule section, so I stand by my take. In case you’re curious, btw, the 10km classic races are at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. EST on March 20; skate sprint qual starts at 10:30 a.m. on March 21, with heats at 1 p.m.; and 20km skate races are at 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. on March 22. You can find out more here, at this obscure resource called the “FIS calendar page.” No one tell ORDA.)
Courses
Here are are the sprint courses for this week:
And here is the distance course:
Coverage
Saranac Lake resident Peter Minde will be on site all week for in-person reporting. We’ll have full writeups of all races here.
If you have any questions or comments on coverage throughout the week, please be in touch. I read my DMs at @nordicinsights, or you can email me at gavin (at) nordicinsights.news.
Enjoy the races.
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.
