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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 — Does the winning ever get old? On a breezy, cloudy Sunday, Tara Geraghty-Moats and Niklas Malacinski repeated their Saturday success, taking the normal hill and 5km/10km race in Lake Placid to claim their second nordic combined national championship in as many days.

In a carbon copy of Saturday’s results, Geraghty-Moats, of the U.S. Nordic Combined National Team, was followed by teammates Alexa Brabec and Annika Malacinski in second and third. For the men, Niklas Malacinski was followed by Erik Lynch, also of the national team, and Henry Johnstone, of Team Olympiaparken.

[Read more: Niklas Malacinski, Tara Geraghty-Moats Win Nordic Combined National Championships in Lake Placid (from yesterday)]

While Sunday’s weather was not as cooperative as last year, at least for the jumping, the weather was nonetheless better than on Friday. It was overcast as jumping got underway. Unlike the last two days, there was no breeze, so jumping proceeded more smoothly. 

At the jumping complex, Austin and the Inlaws (“The North Country’s Premier Post-Outlaw Country band”) cranked out classic country music — none of this “Achy Breaky Heart” BS — and kids played in bouncy houses while their parents and elder siblings watched the competition. The ski jumping gizmo meant to tempt little kids to the dark side was sadly absent.

Early in the first round of jumping, the three women podium finishers were separated by just six points.

When it came time for the men, Malacinski, Liam Demong, and Lynch were the early leaders. Seth Rothchild, a junior from Park City Ski and Snowboard, could easily be heard shouting “Yeah!” as he nailed what surely was a personal best. 

The higher bib numbers belonged to special jumpers, athletes who would jump today but not ski. Each one seemed bound and determined to go, Oh yeah? You thought you done good? Take that! Each successive athlete uncorked a new distance, leaving a correspondent scrambling to keep his notes straight.

On the subsequent drive to Mount van Hoevenberg for the ski-racing portion of the day, the weather got interesting. The wind freshened. It was brisk enough that it felt colder than the official air temperature of 60 degrees (15.5 celsius). Athletes drifted in from the jumping complex, and a crowd began to grow. In addition to noco parents and siblings, tourists visiting Mount van Ho, because leaf peeping season, came out of the lodge to watch warmups and the race.

Several ski jumping juniors came over to support their noco brethren. During warmup, and after the races, multiple games of hackysack ensued around the stadium. It should be noted that this also occurred on Friday. Jerry, Bob Weir, Phil, and the several deceased Grateful Dead keyboardists would surely be happy.

On Sunday, the Gundersen formula determined the start intervals for the rollerski race. This meant that athletes generally started further apart than they had on Saturday. Both men and women skied the 1,700-meter loop used by the women on Saturday. Three laps for the women today; six for the men.

The women raced first. Geraghty-Moats charged out of the start first, reflecting her strong showing in the jumping portion of the day. Sixteen seconds later, Annika Malacinski set out in pursuit, with Brabec following her close behind. Geraghty-Moats seems to be the strongest skier in the American women’s noco field these days, as witness the 18 seconds she made up in just the first lap of yesterday’s ski race. It was no surprise to see her immediately putting time into her competitors today.

In fourth place on her first lap, Caroline Chor fell hard on the out-and-back section in the parking lot. She finished her first lap, and her race, with road rash and aplomb.

Meanwhile, Brabec bridged up to Annika Malacinski as the two came off the Grindhouse climb. By the end of the second lap, Geraghty-Moats was a full thirty seconds clear of her pursuers. Brabec, meanwhile, pulled 19 seconds ahead of Annika Malacinski. With a fall in the parking lot section Malacinski lost time to Brabec that she was unable to regain. That’s the way it stayed until the finish, with Geraghty-Moats first, Brabec second, and Malacinski third. Chor came fourth, followed by Ella Wilson in fifth and Charlotte Fleming in sixth.

Asked about her preferences between the Gundersen and compact start formats, Annika Malacinski said afterwards, “I think I definitely enjoy a Gundersen more because I feel that it shows the true grit of nordic: that you have to be good at both” jumping and skiing.

I’ve been told that the Gundersen calculation is unfair to those skiing five instead of ten kilometers, a reporter inquired. That the time gaps are huge, too much to make up within the shorter race distance.

“It can be,” Malacinski said. “That’s why we’ve tried to change it up as well with the mass start. That’s also [a format] I like much better than the compact.”

What’s up with the road rash? “You can’t brake with rollerskis very well, and when you’re going down so fast and you have to do a 180-degree turn, it makes it almost impossible. I’m a little bit bummed out because I think that me and Alexa could have really fought for the finish. But you know, it is what it is and you get road rash once in a while when you rollerski.”

Asked about her race, Chor said that she just wanted to hold her position. “It was hard out there today. I took a little tumble, had to get up quickly and keep going, but overall I think it was a good race.”

By the time the men started, the wind got serious, gusting to 20 or 25 mph. Niklas Malacinski went out first, and went out hard. Liam Demong and Erik Lynch followed. Malacinski opened a gap over his pursuers. Behind him, a deer decided to cross the omega, ten feet in front of Demong and Lynch. All escaped unscathed. Shades of Kincaid Park in Anchorage.

[Read more: A national championship ski race was set for Kincaid Park. Then the moose showed up. (by Nat Herz, January 2025]

Things got crowded the third time up the Grindhouse climb, as Malacinski and Lynch worked their way through the back of the group. A couple of the younger junior boys looked fried here. Having negotiated that hill five times the day before, can you blame them?

On the face of it, the detour into the parking lot seems benign enough. It’s a parking lot; it’s flat. Sure, there’s a tight 180-degree right turn at the end, but how bad can it be? Except that one comes into it having just descended the forbidding Grindhouse downhill, where Finn Bailey hit 35mph a few years back. As one approaches the range, the hill levels out some, but you’re still carrying plenty of speed. (It should be noted that junior lugers train on this stretch in the summer.) Ordinarily, one turns right, and uphill, into the range. Today, racers turned left, downhill. Still hauling astronaut.

Everyone checked speed before stepping lively around the V-boards. The top athletes left it until late, snowplowing hard about 20 meters from the corner (take “snowplowing” here in the rollerskiing sense of the term, more so than the strict on-snow sense). Others snowplowed earlier, and ya can’t blame them. This corner had eaten up both Chor, and later, Annika Malacinski.

At the end, Niklas Malacinski took another convincing win, ahead of Erik Lynch. Henry Johnstone came in a hard-fought third, several seconds back.

At the finish, a writer asked Niklas Malacinski, does the winning ever get old?

“I don’t think it could,” Malacinski said. “It’s just nice to see the hard work paying off.”

On the paradox of holding a winter sport’s national championship in dryland season, Malacinski said, “Absolutely, but I think this is a great compromise. Everyone understands that this isn’t quite peak performance. This is one of the only ways to truly get more senior athletes, national team athletes together with the juniors, and I think that’s more important than peak performance.”

Erik Lynch didn’t feel fully recovered from yesterday’s hard effort. “Today was extra hard,” he said. After all, they raced 2.5 km further on a different course. “We had a change in the course with this scary downhill corner over there. Everything was just more hardcore and more tiring, but really fun. It was really good chasing Niklas this whole time. And I think we pushed each other super hard.”

“That was fun. It was a really hard course,” echoed third-place finisher Henry Johnstone. “I was happy I that had a little bit better jump than yesterday. So I was starting a little further up, but still just out of touch of Eric Lynch and Niklas Malacinski. I tried to put time into them. I cut some time off, but not enough to do better than third, but I’m happy.”

On Gundersen versus the compact format, Johnstone said, “I’m a stronger nordic racer than I am a jumper. So the compact gives me an advantage. Just because it condenses our time, so it’s a more competitive cross-country race.”

How was that hairpin turn? “That was sketchy,” Johnstone said. “You had to be careful. Had to scrub some speed, otherwise you’re going off the track.”

What about Demong’s encounter with Bambi? [see the opening seconds of this video for more; shoutout Liam Demong for the raw action footage]

“I started the race with my friend Erik Lynch. Coming around the first lap, we had a deer run up on us and then cross the trail in front of us. So it was pretty cool.” 

Of his race, Demong said, “My first goal was to ski with Erik, but it was a bit much, so I skied my own race. I came in fourth, so I was pretty happy.”

As for the deer? They get a little crazy during rutting season. They’re active at dawn and around dusk, and the races were in late afternoon.

Meanwhile, Nordic Insights caught up with Stephanie Wilson. Not only is she a board member of Nordic Combined, she’s also a principal of the Velocity Ski League [see yesterday’s article for more on the VSL]. How did the league come about?

“The concept came about a year-and-a-half, two years ago,” Wilson said. “A friend of mine that I’d known years ago, who I’d reached out to about some stuff for Nordic Combined USA — it turned out he’d been involved with creating the TGL golf league.

“So he heard the situation we’re in and came to me and said, ‘There’s a way you can save your sport that’s bigger than just what you’re doing with Nordic Combined USA,’ and proceeded to lay out this whole concept.” Wilson subsequently called him to learn more.

That led to assembling a team of people with varying skill sets, and taking a long view to develop the league.

“There’s a lot of things that have to happen,” Wilson said. “The biggest one being some fundraising.” VSL are discussing fundraising with various investors. They’ve also discussed potential race formats with athletes.

As nordic combined, both men and women, fight to regain their rightful place at the Olympic table, the new, single-venue race format looks tantalizing. Stay tuned come February, when this same venue will host one day of VSL racing alongside two days of official Nordic Combined World Cup racing. This reporter will be on scene for all the action.

Results (please note that these only list the jumping portion of the event)

Video from the rollerski portion of the normal hill championships. First segment, featuring Bambi, by kind courtesy of Liam Demong. Remainder from yours truly.

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.

View this post on Instagram

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 Images

How 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.”

The new race format will debut at the nordic combined World Cup weekend to be held here in Lake Placid from February 5–7, 2027. There will be two days of official World Cup racing, plus one day that will showcase the new VSL format but that will not count toward the overall noco World Cup standings.

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):