By Gavin Kentch
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The American men have received an eighth and final quota spot for cross-country skiing at the 2026 Winter Olympics, a close reading of the relevant FIS page reveals. If you go here, “Cross-Country quotas list for Olympic Winter Games 2026,” you can see that three additional quota spots recently became available, for male athletes, following the initial quota allocation round earlier this week. Those three spots went to France, Finland, and the United States, in that order.
The additional spot gives the American men the maximum possible eight quota spots this year. It places them on par with the American women, whose eight spots were never in doubt. A nation’s quota size is, in broad terms, a reflection of how well its skiers performed on the World Cup and at world championships in the prior season. One Olympic quad ago, the American men had just six spots for cross-country skiing, to the women’s eight. Shoutout to the American men for crushing it on the World Cup last year and moving up to fifth in the Nation’s Cup standings for 2024/2025, up from ninth four years earlier.
I have previously given my take on team naming here and, especially, here. My analysis has been that John Steel Hagenbuch, of Dartmouth and SVSEF, is in line to receive this eighth spot. So take what I wrote in the second article linked above, and pencil in Steel Hagenbuch at the bottom. He would be displaced if one or more American men not currently on this list are named to the team via criterion two, pure discretion; they would slot in at the top of this list, and he would slide off the bottom.
Personally, this seems to me unlikely to occur: Who in American skiing would you name to this team in lieu of one of the eight men already listed here, while meeting the stringent standards for a discretionary pick? My take is that this is your presumptive Olympic team, which will be named at… some point.
Awkwardly for me, the FIS quotas list has a time stamp suggesting that it was last updated around 2 p.m. CET Monday afternoon, or roughly twelve hours before I wrote this final version of a team naming preview. In that article, I wrote, in part, “If an eighth spot becomes available for the men later this week following the quota reallocation process … .”
This was in error, because it seems that the eighth spot had already been reallocated. I wrote this in reliance on the timeline given in section 9 of the USSS team naming document, but it was apparently still wrong. I apologize for the oversight, slash not fully checking the quotas page before writing.
As for section 9, USSS writes there, “U.S. Ski & Snowboard will nominate the Team to the USOPC on January 20, 2026. If U.S. Ski & Snowboard receives additional quota through FIS reallocation, those athletes will be nominated to the USOPC on January 23, 2026.”
I am writing this on January 21. That is all I can tell you about USSS’s timeline for announcing this year’s Olympic team. I guess also keep in mind that, even if I am correct on everything I have written about team naming, USSS may not be able to nominate male athlete no. 8 until January 23, two days from now. Stay tuned?
Perhaps you would like to consider this year’s Olympic uniforms while you wait:
News of the final reallocated quota spot was previously reported for Finland here, while France seems to have so far chosen only seven out of eight total men for its squad. So far as I can tell, I am the first outlet to report this for the American men. Even if I am two days late on this oops.
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Curious: You posed the question, “Who in America skiing would you name to this team in lieu of the eight men already listed here, while meeting the stringent standards of a discretionary pick?
My observation as a Nordic fan is wondering about the male Athlete that is currently ranked 4th in distance and 5th in sprint? Why wouldn’t they pick the athlete that may have fallen out of the “Anne Hart” rule but, ranks in the top 4 in distance for US men? Why do we jump across the pond to US Nationals to field the rest of the team when you clearly have an athlete competing on the World Cup, on Olympic type venues, against the best in the World?
So, who would or should be named? The athlete with a strong rank on the World Cup is my answer. What’s yours? Don’t we want to field the best?
We’re answering different questions here, I think. Would I pick Kev if I were starting from scratch and picking the best eight folks? Probably. Maybe. Not certain; would have to think on that.
Would I pick him if I were following the precise requirements of a detailed and specific selection document? No. My final clause, as you accurately quoted, was, “while meeting the stringent standards of a discretionary pick.” This is criterion two. This is looking for an athlete who had “a World Cup podium finish in the 2024-25 season, a Top 10 individual World Cup finish in the 2025-26 season prior to January 19, 2026, or a World Cup podium finish in a team event (relay, team sprint) in the 2025-26 season prior to January 19, 2026.” That’s not Kev.
Or it’s looking for someone necessary for the relay or team sprint. You don’t need him there, at least so much that you would displace someone who qualified under any of criteria one, three, or four. The team sprint is, I’m sure, going to be Gus and Ben, and I don’t think that his distance skiing is so strong as to kick someone else off the team just so he can fill out the relay.
Or finally, it’s looking to “The athlete’s ability to maximize Team success in individual events with open start positions in various individual events.” Okay, that one is so open-ended that I’m not really sure what it means. But I do know that USSS hasn’t taken a single athlete under this criterion in all the years I’ve been doing this. They, again, did not take a single athlete via criterion-two discretion this year.
Is Kev one of the eight guys you take if you start from scratch and pick the whole team off of discretion? He probably is, yeah. But if you’re looking at this list and trying to get him in under criterion two? I honestly don’t think so, and neither, it seems, did USSS staff.
(Finally I’m not gonna publicly sell you out too much, but you should know that I can see your email address when you submit the comment. The fact that you have close ties to Kevin Bolger feels like something that should be disclosed here, fyi.)