Author: Beth Bragg, Alaska Sports Report
Sunday was a day of courage and glory for Alaskan skiers on the world and national stage.
Grit: Rosie Brennan, Scott Patterson and Zanden McMullen survive the alpine ski climb in the final competition of the Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy, completing the toughest race in the toughest cross-country ski series I completed the race. .
GLORY: Luke Jager wins the men’s classic sprint race at the Super Tour event that marks the end of a week-long battle at Soldier Hollow, Utah. Prior to Sunday, skiers competed for the national championship in three races.
Yeager was one of three Alaskans to medal in the U.S. championship race. He won gold in the men’s 10km classic race on Tuesday, David Norris won bronze, and Kendall Kramer won silver in the women’s 20km freestyle race on Friday.
In Italy, Brennan, Patterson and McMullen, all members of the Alaska Pacific University Ski Club, were among the 53 men and 30 women who remained until the end of the Tour de Ski. The Tour de Ski is a difficult challenge that brings skiers from Italy to participate in seven races over nine days. Back to Switzerland and then to Italy.
The series started with 169 of the world’s best skiers (99 men and 70 women), but daily entry fees narrowed down the participants.
The big news of the day was Sofia Laukri’s win in the Tour’s most famous race, the 10km freestyle that ends with a steep climb up the alpine ski slopes of Alpe Cermis. In the last 4 kilometers of the race she gains 1,400 feet of elevation.
Rauchli, a 23-year-old from Maine, is a dual-sport athlete whose trail running resume includes wins at Alaska’s Bird Ridge Hill Climb and the Alyeska Silk Race.
She finished third in last year’s Alpes Chelmis race and proved comfortable in the mountains on Sunday, winning by 17 seconds in 38 minutes 16.9 seconds.
Minnesota’s Jesse Diggins finished sixth, earning him the career overall tour title. Diggins, 32, won one race and finished third in the other three races, building a huge lead in the Tour standings.
Brennan was 12th in Sunday’s race and 12th overall. Her best results were second place in the 20K Classic Pursuit Race in Davos, Switzerland, and fourth place in the 10K Classic Race in Toblach, Italy.
In the men’s race at Alpe Celmis, McMullen finished 36th and Patterson 42nd. Both races were more than three minutes behind France’s Jules Lapierre’s winning pace of 33:00.7.
McMullen and Patterson were the only American men to complete the Tour. Patterson finished 26th in the overall standings and McMullen 36th.
The best result for a male from Alaska was APU’s Gus Schumacher, who achieved a career-best 4th place finish in the Torbrach Classic Sprint, the fourth race in the series. He dropped out the next day due to illness.
At Soldier Hollow, America’s next tier of skiers competed all week to win national championships in three events and earn Super Tour points in Sunday’s Classic Sprint.
Sunday was the game for Jaeger, who is on a World Cup tour with the U.S. Ski Team and started the season in Europe. He beat Sunday’s qualifying with the fastest time by a margin of 5.81 seconds and had a huge lead in the sprint race.
He also won the final by over four seconds.
Yeager competed in the six-a-side final along with APU teammate Michael Earnhardt, who won the bronze medal, and UAA’s Peter Hynes, who placed sixth. A total of 14 Alaskans advanced to the senior division quarterfinals.
Third place was a nice consolation prize for Earnhardt, 21, who came close to the podium in two national championship races. He placed fourth in the freestyle sprint, the fourth American in the 20K free, and fifth overall.
On Friday, 21-year-old Kendall Kramer of Fairbanks took second place in the 10K freestyle, earning her first career national championship medal. Kramer, a former UAF skier, finished 6.3 seconds behind Haley Brewster of the University of Vermont, who won in 54 minutes, 37.2 seconds.