Welcome to Nordic Insights 2.0. We’re still working out what weekly coverage will look like this season, but I can tell you now that we are sending Peter Minde to 2027 U.S. Nationals in Cable, marking the fifth consecutive year that we will have in-person coverage from the most important domestic races of the season. We truly believe in the value of boots-on-the-ground reporting, but, real talk, I will lose money on this venture. Peter will lose even more money. You should donate here to help cover his travel expenses so that he loses less money. Thank you for consideration, and thank you, as always, for reading.
By Peter Minde
LAKE PLACID — On a bright autumn day, Niklas Malacinski, of the U.S. Nordic Combined Team, and Tara Geraghty-Moats, also of the national team, won the large hill nordic combined national championships in Lake Placid on Saturday afternoon. On the men’s side, Erik Lynch (national team) came second, followed by Henry Johnstone (Team Olympiaparken) in third. For the women, Alexa Brabec was second behind Geraghty-Moats, followed by Annika Malacinski. All three are members of the nordic combined national team.
Yesterday’s event consisted of one jump off Lake Placid’s HS 128 hill, followed by rollerski racing at nearby Mount van Hoevenberg. At the Ho, the men went 7.5 kilometers: five laps around the 1,500-meter sprint loop. The women skied three laps around a modified 1,700-meter loop that took in the full sprint loop, plus a detour into the parking area where wax cabins reside. The 200m extension made for a welcome improvement from last year, where everyone used the shorter loop and the women skied just 4.5km instead of five.
As a reporter fed his cat and brewed Café Bustelo at 6 a.m., the temperature was barely above freezing, with dense fog. Launching at 60 mph off of Lake Placid’s large hill, a smooth landing might be sketchy with poor visibility. Fortunately, the fog burned off when I stopped for a supplementary espresso at my local, on my way to the venue.
While not as benign as last year, conditions were good enough for jumpers as they went through a practice round. In practice, Caroline Chor, Ford Sayre’s young noco phenom, uncorked a 106.5-meter jump. Not so fast, Brabec said, responding with a 123-meter jump.
When it came time for the real deal, Brabec threw down a 124-meter jump. Even though Brabec and the other nordic combined skiers jumped only once, as opposed to the two rounds contested by the special jumpers (athletes who only contested the jumping portion of the day), Brabec ended up winning the HS 128 competition, with Annika Malacinski in second. Special jumper Josie Johnson, of the U.S. Ski Jumping Team, came third.
When the men lined up, Annika’s brother Niklas said, see you and raise you, with a jump of 127.5 meters. Ultimately, it wasn’t quite enough, as special jumpers would own the men’s large-hill podium. First place went to Jason Colby, with hometown hero Tate Frantz coming second; both are on the ski jumping national team.
After a break, the noco crew descended on Lake Placid for the ski racing portion of the day. Fortunately, the tourists participating in the “Be a Biathlete” program at the venue finished shooting before the races started.
The races here used the compact format to set start intervals for the ski race. This is intended to, and typically does, lead to more, well, compact racing than what one sees with the traditional Gundersen system, with tight pack racing and close finishes all but guaranteed in the absence of a strong skier taking a flyer off the front. Organizers provided matched rollerskis, so there was no difference between wheel speeds across athletes.
Brabec started first, followed closely by Annika Malacinski (six seconds back), Geraghty-Moats (+0:12), and Chor (+0:17). By the second lap, the women’s field was strung out (see above re: a strong skier being able to get away from the field). Geraghty-Moats had put 18 seconds into Brabec to lead by six seconds. Malacinski was 10 or so seconds back of Brabec. Chor was in fourth. Ella Wilson and Charlotte Fleming were further back in fifth and sixth. That’s the way it would be till the finish.
“Today was a really fun event,” Geraghty-Moats said afterwards. “There was really good competition and a really good crowd on the large hill. And then we came [to Mount van Hoevenberg], and 5km is always a difficult distance because it’s really painful and you’re going really fast.”
Of her day, Brabec said, “I feel pretty good. I’ve been working hard all summer, so it feels good to compete and test it out.”
With the compact format, do you have any particular strategy? “It’s a small field, it’s pretty much like a mass start. So it’s kind of trying to ski with those around you,” Brabec said.
On to the men, and their five-lap, 7.5-kilometer race: On their first lap, the men were tightly grouped going through the omega. By the second lap, Niklas Malacinski and Erik Lynch opened a gap over the rest of the field. They would continue to duke it out, trading the lead over the next three laps, until Malacinski opened a small gap near the finish and made it stick.
“It was a tough fight, but I’m happy with how it went,” Niklas Malacinski said at the finish. “I’m happy with how the jumping shook out. And now, the cross-country shape is still in the building phase of fall. I think tactics played a big role today.”
As for those tactics: Malacinski and Lynch played a cat-and-mouse game through the first three laps. At the end, Malacinski made a move to pip Lynch near the line.
“Super tough race, and my teammate Niklas just pushed me way too hard the whole time,” Lynch said afterwards.
It looked like you and Niklas had first and second locked up?
“You never know,” Lynch said. “Henry Johnstone, in third, has had some incredible times this summer. This time of the year, you never know where someone’s fitness is.”
On strategy for a 7.5km race, Lynch said, “It’s long enough, but short enough to be painful. If you just go for the kill right from the gun, you can be in trouble. Niklas told me that he tried to do that to me, but by lap three, coaches told him I wasn’t dropped, so he adjusted his strategy.”
Lake Placid exceptionalism: Rebecca Dayton’s fever dream
Astute readers will recall the International Olympic Committee’s decision to drop nordic combined from the 2030 Winter Olympics, thereby achieving a dubious form of gender equality by cutting both men’s and women’s noco from the Olympic program in one go. The IOC wrongly views nordic combined as a moribund sport.
Those who follow nordic combined on Instagram — you don’t? you should! — may have run across teaser posts from a mysterious outfit called Velocity Ski League, which emerged following the IOC’s decision.
Where did the Velocity Ski League come from? Rebecca Dayton, event manager for the Olympic Regional Development Authority, the state agency that runs the venues at Lake Placid and elsewhere, had been in discussions with FIS about hosting a nordic combined World Cup here for a few years now. While these discussion were ongoing — maintenance at the ski jumps pushed this out by a season or two — one night Dayton bolted awake, conceptualizing a new race format.
“This year, when we decided to revisit it, we talked about what we would do if nordic combined wasn’t in the Olympic program,” Dayton said. “What would we do? And we came to the conclusion that it was a great opportunity to try and do some new things.”
“It led to me basically waking up and going, Hmm,” Dayton continued. “For me, the biggest problem with nordic combined is the two different venues, the time separation between the events that makes it really hard for our fans to follow it,” she said.
Hence her eureka moment: hold both the jumping and skiing at one venue. Lake Placid’s Olympic Jumping Complex is a perfect place to test this idea. In addition to the large and normal hills, there’s a 1500-meter rollerski track at the same venue, and the whole place is covered by snowmaking. When you stage a ski race that starts from the ski jump outrun up to the top of the rollerski loop, you’ve got about 2.5 kilometers to play with. That 2.5km loop hosted 2017 Junior Nationals, and has also seen both SuperTour and JNQ events.
“Can we get it to one venue?” Dayton mused. “Can we cut the time down so that it’s either continuous or concurrent, and make it understandable for the crowd?”
Enter the Velocity Ski League, in partnership with FIS. The concept for the new event is as follows: There’s a draft. Six mixed-gender teams of four athletes each are drafted. Instead of being nation-based, a team could be comprised of athletes from up to four different countries.
Once the teams are set, jumping starts. The first person of each team jumps. Then they have 12 (yes, just twelve) minutes to change from ski jumping kit into nordic kit. At the end of 12 minutes, they toe the line to go out and ski.
“In group one, those six jumpers in group one are scored against each other. That sets the start for the team. The points back. They then, once the six have jumped, they move into the transition zone,” Dayton explained.
As the first six skiers transition, the next six are jumping. As the first group starts skiing, the second group is transitioning, and the third group is jumping. The result is continual action throughout the entirety of the event: there is always jumping going on, or skiing, or both. Find out more about the new format here now, or, eventually, here.
How does this work out in practice? On Friday after practice, ORDA tested the new format in dryland mode. There was a draft, then there was jumping. Instead of rollerskiing, there was a foot race over three laps of an approximately 1000 meter loop, from the ski jump outrun to the parking lot.
How did it work out? From this writer’s vantage point, the new format has tremendous potential. There were large gaps between some of the runners, which one might attribute to the day’s mix of junior and senior athletes. There were also some glitches, because, well, it was the maiden run of a brand new race format.
Embed from Getty ImagesHow often do top FIS officials drop into a national championship event? Lasse Ottesen, the nordic combined race director for FIS [shown above two decades ago in his competition days], was here for the long weekend to see how things went. As FIS wrote earlier this month following their fall meetings, “The VSL competition itself will not be a FIS World Cup event, although a jury and equipment control will be in place. A first test of the concept is planned during the US National Championships in October 2026.”
FIS added that the new format was “designed to create a compact and attractive event.”
So those were the meetings. What did Ottesen think after first seeing the new idea in practice?
“All the credit goes to Lake Placid and VSL for all of them being so creative,” Ottesen said. “We are excited. It looks fun. It’s totally out of the box of what we normally do.”
At Thursday’s team meeting, the new concept was presented to the athletes. “I think in the beginning they were not sure, but at the end they were cheering and they were really motivated,” Ottesen said.
Jumping is an explosive sport, while skiing requires endurance. Will twelve minutes between events, a window that necessarily includes changing outfits and gear, be adequate recovery time?
“That’s definitely one of the questions we’ve gotten,” Ottesen said. “But most of them have said that they do a very thorough warmup before they jump, so they feel that the body’s ready. That everything is there. For sure, it will be different. That will be something that the athletes just have to adjust to.”
Ottesen characterized the collaboration between FIS and VSL as augmenting the World Cup schedule rather than replacing it; as noted above, VSL racing will not be a World Cup event.
But will the new format help return nordic combined to the Olympic program? The IOC has given FIS parameters for noco’s readmission. While not as specific as they’d like, there’s at least a road map. The details remain confidential.
Last and not least: how many venues worldwide can run concurrent ski jumping and nordic skiing? Not many. In addition to Lake Placid, Ottesen cited Seefeld and Lahti as two places ready to run this race format.
“I would say at the moment this is one of two, possibly three venues in the world where we can really do that as compact as we can here,” Ottesen said. “That’s going to be one of the challenges for us in the future to find venues where we are able to do what we’re testing here with this new format. I’m quite sure that some of our venues already are having an opportunity to find a track around the jumping hills in very close proximity.”
After the trial race, how did the athletes like it?
“I think that it’s going to be so good for the fans to watch,” Annika Malacinski said. “I think it’s going to be intriguing and exciting, and that’s exactly what we showcased.”
“All the athletes, myself included, loved it,” Erik Lynch said. “And if it’s smooth here in Lake Placid, where it can be windy, you can pull it off probably anywhere. I’m thankful to ORDA and everyone involved in FIS for making that happen.”
“It’s cool to see a change, and especially like a whole community behind a big change,” Niklas Malacinski said. “I think small things [need to] get worked out, but I’m overall really excited about that format.”
“I think it was really exciting,” said Billy Demong, a local kid, noco Olympic gold medalist, and co-founder of the Velocity Ski League.
“I have to say, this was not my vision, so I was a little skeptical, especially when I first heard about running the jumping and cross-country at the same time. But I decided to just see how it went and it went really smooth, honestly.”
Racing continued today with the HS100 and 10km/5km national championships. Don’t touch that dial!
Results: Jumping Results, test event | Large Hill and 7.5 km/5 km race results
Video from large hill competition and 7.5/5km races
Video of VSL test event (Friday’s dryland version):
