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By Peter Minde
MOUNT VAN HOEVENBERG, Lake Placid — After a day of close racing, APU’s Zanden McMullen put his stamp on the men’s classic sprint at Mount van Hoevenberg with a decisive win in the final early Friday afternoon. With a time of 3:06.59, he beat Will Koch of SVSEF by a healthy 3.70 seconds. Max Kluck, skiing for Utah, was third, 0.99 seconds back of Koch.
Capping off a great week of racing here, Kluck’s teammate Zach Jayne was fourth. Fin Bailey, UVM, was fifth. Pierre Grall-Johnson, CNEPH, rounded out the heat, and the SuperTour prize money positions, in sixth. (Today was a SuperTour race; the national championship classic sprint for the 2025/2026 season will occur at Spring Series at Craftsbury in late March.)
When I stopped at my local for an espresso on my way to the venue, the weather was deceptive. Blazingly bright; markedly above freezing. Almost as if someone had shouted to the heavens, “Please don’t rain please don’t rain please don’t rain.” Again, this was a classic sprint day, not skate.
Anticipating rain and high winds, the jury opted to start qualification at 9 a.m. today, moving things up an hour from the originally planned start time. In addition, the jury decided to allow each athlete two pairs of skis for the heats. Through the men’s qualification round, it remained sunny. Clouds began to move in as the women started qualifying. The top men and women were seeded early in their respective qualification round.
As racers prepared for the heats, it began to rain. The temperature hovered around 39 degrees (3.9 C). By mid-afternoon gusting winds would wreak havoc on the finish area, forcing the outright cancellation of the junior heats. “Race cancelled when half the stadium blew away during Jr semi finals!” one coach would write on Strava.
The first men’s quarterfinal was tight, with everyone in a pack running up the sprint climb. Down the hill it remained close, and turned into a doublepole derby at the finish. Just 0.66 seconds separated the Alaskan trio of McMullen, APU teammate Michael Earnhart, and Erling Bjørnstad of University of Alaska Anchorage at the line.
In the second quarterfinal, UVM’s Benon Brattebo made a strong start, separating from his competition. Brattebo continued to lead up the B-Climb. The first three athletes separated themselves, but coming into the finish, Brattebo dropped to third, and Bailey won by 0.18 seconds over Luke Allan of BSF. It was unclear whether Bailey and Allan found a faster line downhill into the stadium, or Brattebo faded.
This pattern repeated itself through the remainder of the men’s quarterfinals. One skier charged out of the start, hoping to separate himself from the group on the omega. Often, it worked. But the others would reel in the early leader on the sprint climb, sometimes dropping him. Someone off the front was generally reeled in on the descent into the stadium.
Right on schedule, the rain intensified and the wind kicked up for the men’s semifinals. Whether because of the weather, or skiers conserving energy, the semis were a bit slower than the quarterfinals.
In the first semifinal, the men went full gas from the start. Bailey built a couple ski lengths’ lead on the omega, over the big climb. Bailey kept his lead. Storm Haugenes Pedersen, University of Colorado, was the only skier in the heat who opted to doublepole instead of running up the hill, and it cost him. From the top of the hill, McMullen hauled in Bailey, beating him to the line by 0.68 second.
In the second semifinal, Koch and Jayne separated themselves from the group on the omega. Both of them doublepoled up this hill. Coming to the base of the sprint climb, both were doublepoling. From its midpoint, Jayne ran the remainder; Koch doublepoled. As we shall see, Koch spent the whole day on skate skis. Downhill into the finish, Kluck caught them and edged out Jayne for second place.
Both the lucky losers came from the second semifinal. On the line for the final (embedded above) were Koch, Kluck, Jayne, Bailey, McMullen, and Grall-Johnson. When the gun went off, Koch and his skate skis took the inside line up the first hill, building a narrow lead and extending it to about four ski lengths going up the rest of the omega. After coming off the omega descent, there’s a straight leading to a twisty bit before the big climb. Here, Koch appeared to have about 1.5 seconds in hand on the field.
As they ascended the main climb, McMullen ran up the hill, and Koch couldn’t mark him. Upper body muscles demand less oxygen than leg muscles, but they’re also smaller. Kluck and Jayne hauled Koch in going over the top of the climb. The descent from the sprint climb, the great equalizer here, wasn’t quite long enough. Koch, Kluck, and Jayne closed, but not fast enough. McMullen took a bow as he crossed the line, winning by a Sammy Smith–esque margin of nearly four seconds.
Of his race, McMullen said, “I was hoping for a little better of a qualifier. But it’s nice to just get into the heats. I haven’t sprinted much this year. The [skate sprint] a couple days ago was my first sprint of the year. It was nice to be able to go through a whole sprint day and learn a little bit having the course hold up for you. This morning was — starting it was still pretty fresh snow, and then by the time the heats rolled around, it was very slushy, so very different conditions, but still stayed firm and nice. It was just good skiing out there.”
Koch on his race: “Today was really good. That was my best classic sprint that I’ve had in a couple years. So it was good to feel good again.”
How did the course hold up? “The course was really good,” Koch said. “Lake Placid has done a really good job with their grooming all week here. Even with 700 racers on some days, the conditions have never broken down.”
“I doublepoled the qualifier and all three heats today on skate skis, so I didn’t have any kick the whole day,” he concluded.
For his trip to the podium, Max Kluck carried a Salomon ski with a wild yellow and red base. What was that all about? It turned out to be a clear base with fancy colors to fool journalists. “That wasn’t the ski I was on” in the race, Kluck explained. “I was on a black base ski today. Quite surprising for me. I would have thought it’s a [clear] base day, but there was a new pair of Salomons that was running well, so that carried me well down the hill.”
Of his race plan, Kluck said, “I wanted to keep the pace fast. I figured that was probably my best shot. I had a pretty tough quarter today, and I figured lucky loser might come out if I keep it fast. I ended up having really good skis, thanks to the Utah coaches. So I pulled ahead on the downhill and made it through that quarter well, and then did the same thing in the semis, and then hung on as well as I could in the final.”
After the final, Bailey said, “I felt probably the best I felt all week. I had a little pole mishap in the final on the first corner, and I got a new pole. I tried to catch up. I was just a little burnt out at the end, so I didn’t quite do it, but definitely felt the best I had all week.”
As Paralympian William Henry famously said, Mount van Hoevenberg just wears you down. Throughout the week, wherever they might have finished, everyone competing here left it all out on the race course every day. They can leave Lake Placid proud that they put in maximum effort.
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