Luke Jager
UPDATE, 9 a.m. Wednesday
Anchorage skier Gus Schumacher delivered the best result of his career Wednesday morning, skiing to fourth place in a freestyle sprint race at the Tour de Ski in Davos, Switzerland. Schumacher, the only American in the men’s final, finished 1.62 seconds short of the bronze medal and 2.06 seconds behind winner Lucas Chanavat of France.
ORIGINAL STORY:
Around the time Tuesday when Gus Schumacher was nearing the end of a well-earned day off from racing in the Alps, teammate Luke Jager was winning a national championship in the Rockies.
The Anchorage skiers — both members of America’s 2022 Winter Olympics team — hit personal peaks of a sort on cross-country trails separated by eight time zones.
On Monday at the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy, Schumacher turned in one of the best results of his career by registering the sixth-fastest time a 20-kilometer freestyle pursuit race.
His speedy work made him the 10th skier to cross the finish line, giving the 23-year-old Schumacher his third top-10 individual finish in four seasons of World Cup racing.
On Tuesday, Jager claimed the gold medal in the 10-kilometer classic race at the U.S. Cross Country Championships at Utah’s Soldier Hollow. He posted the day’s third-fastest time but earned the national title because both skiers who finished ahead of him aren’t from the United States.
Jager, who will turn 24 later this month, finished 12.6 seconds off the winning pace of 23 minutes, 50.8 seconds clocked by Norway’s Andreas Kirkeng, who races for the University of Denver. In second place with a time of 23:53.1 was Great Britain’s Joe Davies, who skis for Utah.
Say 👋 to your 2024 cross country U.S. National Champs Sydney Palmer-Leger and Luke Jager, who both took home the domestic 10k classic win at the 2024 U.S. National Championships 🇺🇸#stifelusskiteam 📸 Nordic Insights
📍Soldier Hollow Nordic Center pic.twitter.com/xy7vhaNHxL
— U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) January 2, 2024
The result was a boost for Jager, who is back in the country after placing no higher than 40th in nine individual World Cup races to start the season. His best result in Europe was a fabulous 7.5-K leadoff leg in a men’s relay race in Gallivare, Sweden, where he finished 1.6 seconds off the lead.
Joining Jager on the podium Tuesday was David Norris of Fairbanks, who placed seventh overall but claimed the bronze medal as the third-best American.
At 33, Norris was the fourth-oldest skier in the race — and the only one who finished higher than 223rd.
Jager and Norris are among the top Americans at Soldier Hollow this week, while Schumacher is among the best in the world at the Tour de Ski.
The Tour is a grueling test that marks the end of the holiday break for World Cup skiers — seven races in nine days in two countries. After three races, Schumacher ranks 10th in the standings, tops among the American men.
Racers were off Tuesday as the Tour moved from Italy to Switzerland; racing resumes Wednesday in Davos.
The first three races were in Toblach, and the U.S. Ski Team claimed medals on all three days.
In the series-opening freestyle sprint on Saturday, Vermont’s Ben Ogden earned his first World Cup podium finish by grabbing third place.
In the 10K classic on Sunday, Minnesota’s Jessie Diggins captured bronze in the women’s race, edging Anchorage’s Rosie Brennan off the podium by 4.5 seconds.
In the 20K pursuit on Monday, Diggins charged into the lead early and blew away the field to grab the gold by 46.5 seconds. Brennan, a two-time Olympian who has been among the World Cup overall leaders all season, slipped to 15th place.
The pursuit is actually two races in one. Skiers start in the order they finished on the previous day, and whoever crosses the finish line first is the winner.
However, the winner doesn’t always have the fastest time of the day.
Diggins, in fact, had Monday’s fourth-fastest women’s time. But the skiers faster than her started too far back to challenge her.
Schumacher had Monday’s sixth-fastest men’s time. He covered the 20 kilometers in 52:19.3 — about 11 seconds slower than the day’s fastest skier, Norway’s Jan Thomas Jenssen (52:08.6).
Gus Schumacher
Schumacher and Jenssen both finished more than a minute behind Sunday’s winner, with Schumacher placing 15th and Jenssen 17th. So they both started more than a minute behind the leaders on Monday.
Jenssen’s pursuit time lifted him to the bronze medal, giving Norway a 1-2-3 finish led by gold medalist Harald Oestberg Amundsen.
Schumacher’s time lifted him to 10th place, marking the third time he’s placed in the top 10 of a World Cup race. His other top 10s both came in January 2021 (8th in a 15K classic in Val Di Fiemme, Italy, and 9th in a 15K freestyle race in Falun, Sweden).
But Schumacher’s best performances have come in pursuit races, where he has delivered top-6 times on three occasions, including this week. In November 2021 in Ruka, Finland, he had the fifth-fastest time in a 15K pursuit to ascend to 11th place overall (up from 32nd the day before). In March 2021, he had the sixth-fastest time in a 50K pursuit in Engadin, Switzerland, to move to 20th overall (up from 48th the day before).
Tour de Ski racing continues Wednesday with a sprint race in Davos, the first of two races in Switzerland. The Tour returns to Italy for the final two races.
Diggins is the women’s Tour and World Cup overall leader, and Brennan ranks 15th in the Tour and third in the World Cup overall standings. Schumacher is the top American man in the Tour rankings at No. 15; he ranks 19th in the World Cup overall rankings.
At Soldier Hollow, the national championships resume Thursday with a freestyle sprint. Numerous Alaskans are racing in the week-long series, including skiers from the Alaska Pacific University and Alaska Winters Stars club teams and skiers from the UAA and UAF college teams.
Joining Jager and Norris in the top 30 of Tuesday’s men’s race were UAF’s Mike Ophoff (13th place), APU’s Garrett Butts (16th), APU’s Michael Earnhart (22nd) and APU’s Thomas O’Harra (23rd).
Kendall Kramer
Earning top-30 results among the women were UAA’s Astrid Stav (5th place), UAA’s Tuva Bygrave (9th), UAF’s Mariel Pulles (11th), UAF’s Kendall Kramer (12th), APU’s Renae Anderson (14th), UAA’s Beth Granstrom (21st) and UAA’s Alexandra Otto (30th).
The winner of the women’s race was Montana State skier Tilde Baangman of Sweden in 27:13.3. Second place — and the gold medal — went to University of Utah skier Sydney Palmer-Leger, the top American who was 19 seconds behind Baangman.