By Gavin Kentch
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For the eighth time in five race days at 2026 World Junior and U23 Championships in Lillehammer, the Americans put an athlete into the top ten. This time it was Jack Leveque’s turn to shine, as the 16(!)-year-old from Anchorage placed tenth in the men’s 10-kilometer interval-start classic race at World Juniors earlier Friday.
Leveque has been joined by, so far, Murphy Kimball, sixth in the junior men’s skate sprint; Sammy Smith and Ava Thurston, seventh and ninth in the U23 women’s skate sprint; Neve Gerard, ninth in the junior women’s 20km skate; Tabor Greenberg, tenth in the junior men’s 20km skate; Ava Thurston, ninth in the U23 women’s 20km skate; and Corbin Carpenter, tenth in the U23 men’s 20km skate. Plus honorable mention to Ally Wheeler (11th in the 20km skate) and Haley Brewster (12th in the 20km skate). Skiing like an American gets you pretty far these days, apparently.
Anyway, enough history; back to the present: Jack Leveque, who skis for Alaska Winter Stars (also: Service High School), was tenth in today’s race, 59.2 seconds off of winner Leopold Strand of Norway and just under 30 seconds off the podium. Here is a photo of him:
He was followed by Grey Barbier (Montana State) in 16th, 1:14.6 back; Vebjorn Flagstad (Alaska Winter Stars) in 33th, 1:49.0 back; and Tabor Greenberg (UVM) in 39th, 1:57.1 back.
Here are some photos of these three:
Turning to the women: Neve Gerard (Utah) was eleventh today, 1:42.8 back, just outside of her second top-10 finish in as many distance races. She was followed by Natalie Nicholas (UNH) in 14th, 2:00.1 back, notably making the most of her first start this week.
Next came Ally Wheeler (Utah) in 22nd, 2:13.8 back, and Maeve Ingelfinger (Dartmouth) in 57th, 4:54.5 back. Here are photos of all four American women who raced today. As always, photos are by the superb Steve Fuller, better known as @flyingpoint on Instagram. You can find his website here for your photo viewing and purchasing needs. Click on any image to enlarge.
Finally, you may view replays of the entire day here: women’s race | men’s race.
Okay, and another few tech photos to close things out here because Steve does great work:
Racing continues tomorrow with the U23 10km classic, the final day of individual racing this week. Mixed relays close things out on Sunday. Result highlights and photos on this site. I’m on family vacation after the Games so that is realistically the likely extent of coverage here, sorry.
Thanks again to Steve Fuller for the amazing photos. This week is a pillar project of NNF, in case you are curious where your Drive for 25 donations go. Go team.
