Fairbanks’ Kendall Kramer posted her first top-10 World Cup finish Sunday. Photo courtesy of U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team
As Jessie Diggins nears the end of her magnificent cross-country ski career, Kendall Kramer is taking hers to new heights.
Kramer, the 23-year-old from Fairbanks, enjoyed a huge breakthrough Sunday in Falun, Sweden, where she more than held her own against some of the best in the world.
Kramer grabbed ninth place in the 20-kilometer skiathlon for the first top-10 World Cup finish of her career.
She had been in the top 20 only once before — 18th in a 10K freestyle race a year ago — and placed 48th in her skiathlon debut earlier this season.
“Even the top 20 felt like a ceiling for me this year and today surprised me,” Kramer said via the U.S. Ski Team. “I was sticking with girls I thought I’d never be around in my ski career. Everything just went right in a way you can never predict in ski racing because you prepare to do your best every single day, but the stars aligned today.”
Kramer gave the United States three top-10 finishes for the day.
One, of course, came from Diggins, who climbed a World Cup podium for the 89th time in a career dating back to 2011. The Minnesota skier claimed second place, just one-tenth of a second behind winner Heidi Weng of Norway, a World Cup winner for the first time in four years.
Both women are 34.
In the men’s 20K race, Anchorage’s Gus Schumacher finished seventh. He was nearly a minute behind the lead pack but topped a chase pack that saw eight skiers finish in a 1.7-second span.
Schumacher’s effort vaulted him two spots in the overall World Cup standings, from eighth to sixth. He ranks 14th in distance racing and 18th in sprinting.
Both of Sunday’s races ended with sprint finishes. The top three men were separated by eight-tenths of a second, and the top three women were separated by nine-tenths of a second.
Johannes Klaebo led a 1-2-3 finish for Norway’s men in 48:41.8. The top six finished in a span of 5.6 seconds, and about 50 seconds later Schumacher led the chase pack across the finish line. He was 56.8 seconds behind Klaebo.
Weng won the women’s race in 54:42.8. Kramer was 68.4 seconds back.
Photo courtesy of U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team
Kramer was in the top 10 for most of the race, which started with 10 kilometers of classic skiing and ended with 10 kilometers of skating. She was about 10 seconds behind the leaders halfway through the race.
She finished 21 seconds behind eighth-place Moa Ilar of Sweden, a frequent podium finisher this season. But she held off a group of quality skiers that included 10th-place Karoline Simpson-Larsen of Norway, a two-time World Cup winner this season who left the Olympics with gold in the relay race, and 12th-place Maja Dahlqvist, who won Olympic gold in the team sprint and bronze in the classic sprint.
“It was so enjoyable to feel I was skiing to my potential,” Kramer said. “A lot of confidence was gained today, and I’ll be chasing the feeling of feeling this good during a race for a while.”
Six other Alaskans raced
Kramer and Schumacher were among eight Alaskans in the race. The others finished out of the top 30 — Hailey Swirbul was 33rd, Rosie Brennan 35th and Novie McCabe 42nd in the women’s race, and Hunter Wonders was 47th, JC Schoonmaker 58th and Zanden McMullen 61st in the men’s race.
Three more weekends of racing remain. Skiers head to Lahti, Finland, for two races next weekend, followed by two races in Norway, a sprint in Drammen on March 12 and a 50K in Oslo on March 14.
The season ends March 20-22 with three races in Lake Placid, New York — a 10K classic, a freestyle sprint and a 20K freestyle.
Soule 35th in biathlon
Reine Soule of Anchorage placed 35th in a field of 115 racers Sunday in her first race at the IBU Youth/Junior World Championships in Arber, Germany.
Soule hit 17 of 20 targets in the 10-kilometer individual race to emerge as the top American. Her time of 39 minutes, 40.8 seconds, put her 6:25 behind winner Michaela Strakova of Slovakia.
