The Winter Olympic Games are set to kick off with a torch lighting in Milan, Italy. Team USA, obviously, will be in attendance. But at least as far as the sport of cross-country skiing is concerned, it might as well be called "Team Alaska," given how many of the athletes have ties to our state.
Anchorage-based reporter Nat Herz is in Italy to cover the Games and joined Alaska Public Media's Casey Grove for a preview of some of the interesting storylines to follow.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Casey Grove: Hi Nat.
Nat Herz: Buongiorno, Casey.
CG: Buongiorno! So Nat, the Winter Olympics, obviously, are a whole bunch of different sports, but you're there pretty much exclusively focused on cross country skiing. Why is that?
NH: I mean, it's pretty straightforward. You know, we've got a few Olympians from Alaska competing in other sports — NHL hockey goalie Jeremy Swayman, biathlete Maxime Germain — but most of the Alaska athletes competing are in cross-country (skiing). Half of the 16-person U.S. team, plus a couple more racing for other countries.
The geographic nature of this Olympics, sometimes they're a little more compact, with venues all in one city or mountain town. But in this case, they're spread across 150 miles of northern Italy with huge mountain ranges in the way. It took me five and a half hours, or six hours, to get here up in the mountains from Milan yesterday on a series of trains and a coach bus that almost made me throw up. So I'm staying here.
CG: That makes sense, yeah, roger that. So 16 cross-country skiers total, eight from Alaska. Who will you be following most closely?
NH: Well, we'll start with the biggest name, Gus Schumacher, who is a familiar face to many people who are just out on the trails in Anchorage at Kincaid Park. Gus grew up in Anchorage. I interviewed him for the first time when he was racing against adults at the National Championships at Kincaid Park when he was 13 years old. I think his coach said he weighed less than his dog at that time.
Gus is now 25 he was a world junior champion a few years ago and is now one of the very best cross-country skiers in the world. He was on the podium last month, racing against, effectively, all the same people that will be competing here in Italy. Gus is still young, he's not exactly a regular on the podium, so he's not a lock for a medal by any means. But there's a real chance he could become only the fourth ever American to win an Olympic medal in cross-country skiing in the next couple of weeks, and he's strong in a number of the different events that are on the table here.
CG: Gus Schumacher, you mentioned Kincaid Park. I'm pretty sure Gus passed me one time. I was huffing and puffing going up a hill, and he just was cruising, No problem, kind of looked over. Gus Schumacher, we will remember that name. Who else are you following?
NH: Not that many of the other athletes, I think, really are likely to medal, but they each really have their own stories and journeys to get here. Two that I think are interesting are Hailey Swirbul and Hunter Wonders.
Hailey grew up in Colorado, moved up to Alaska to train with the Alaska Pacific University club team. Hunter's also on that team and grew up in Alaska. Both of them were really strong at an early age and were really dedicating their whole lives to top level skiing and experienced real success. Hailey made it on the podium at a top level World Cup race. She went to the Olympics in 2022. Hunter was nearly at the same level.
But, also, neither of them was really having very much fun on the road in Europe, being away from home, being away from friends, loved ones, family. So they both retired in their early- to mid-20s, which is kind of wild. There were some people who I think were really disappointed to see this happening, especially with Hailey, who just had so much potential. But both of them, after taking some space and kind of finding some peace with the sport, have come back to it on their own terms and are doing it a slightly different way from some of their peers, who maybe find it a little easier to be laser focused on this one pursuit.
Hailey, last winter, was patrolling at an alpine ski area, and this year was coaching cross-country skiing in Anchorage before she made a decision over the summer to try for a comeback, and now she's here at the Olympics.
CG: Yeah, it's super cool. I mean, again, in Anchorage, you see these people around. I actually just saw Hailey maybe three weeks ago, before they named the Olympic ski team. And, you know, it's just interesting to think she's over there now competing.
Nat, anybody else that you're following?
NH: Well, yeah, in addition to these Team USA Alaska athletes, we also have another couple skiers with Alaska ties who will be racing in Italy for other countries. One is Rosie Fordham. She has a wild story where she grew up in Australia and kind of randomly got into cross-country skiing, even though she grew up in Sydney, really far from snow. She then cold emailed literally dozens of U.S. college programs and got maybe three responses, including one from the coach at University of Alaska Fairbanks who offered her a scholarship. Rosie Fordham spoke on a podcast I taped with her earlier this winter.
Rosie Fordham: All right, sounds good, sure, yeah, I want to get out of Australia. And I went to my parents, and I was like, "Yo, I'm going to Fairbanks." And they're like, "Where is that?" And I was like, "Alaska, can we book a flight?" And they were like, "Ohhh... yeah?"
NH: Fordham does some really cool and unconventional training sessions in Alaska. She goes wild ice skating. One time she cross-country skied the full 135-mile Denali Highway in one day. But it really seems to be working for her. She's placed in the top 15 against the best in the world this season.
CG: Wow, that is cool. And Australian ends up skiing for UAF and then in the Olympics. All right, Nat, wrap it up for us. Anything else?
NH: Well, one other thing that's fun, you'll be able to hear Anchorage resident and past Olympic gold medal-winning cross-country skier, now retired, Kikkan Randall helping call some of the races on NBC's national broadcasts. Kikkan, of course, became an Olympic champion in the team sprint in South Korea at the 2018 Olympics.
Beyond that, Casey, I am not going to tell you about the pizza or the focaccia or the tortellini. You'll probably be mad.
CG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, that was Nat Herz, who's reporting on the Winter Olympics from Italy. He will be back to talk to us more about the Olympics. You can find his work all over the place, including at our website, alaskapublic.org. Nat, have fun, thanks for being here.
NH: Grazie mille, Casey.
CG: Grazie!
