An Alaskan has struck silver in the Winter Olympic Games in Italy.
Anchorage cross-country skiing superstar Gus Schumacher was nearly perfect racing the anchor leg Wednesday in the team sprint event.
Schumacher teamed up with Vermonter Ben Ogden, and the duo secured only the second men’s cross-country skiing medal for the U.S. in 50 years, after Ogden’s silver medal in the individual sprint earlier in the Games.
Anchorage reporter Nat Herz is in Italy following the Olympics, he saw the race unfold, and joined Alaska Public Media's Casey Grove to talk about it.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Nat Herz: Yeah, this was definitely a medal-hopeful event for Schumacher and Ogden. But Schumacher had some ups and downs early in the Olympics. Also, this was a pretty tight field.
So, the sun came up this (Wednesday) morning. It was an absolutely blue bird, sunny, gorgeous day. But unlike the past week and a half, it was cooler overnight and cooler during the day. So it actually stayed really firm and fast for just perfect ski racing.
And yeah, really, all the heavy hitters were there, especially on the Norwegian team, Johannes Klæbo, this guy who had before today won four gold medals in a row here, plus six last year at the last championships, and then some strong Italian teams and a strong French team, and Switzerland as well.
Casey Grove: So Gus Schumacher was looking to bounce back. We talked about that. People can find that story. There's a couple pieces of audio from Gus himself talking about that. But then, for this race, it was Ogden at the starting line first, right?
NH: So they're actually alternating — so it's Ben and then Gus, Ben, Gus, Ben, Gus — and those first four laps, really, what they're trying to do is stay out of trouble. And both of them did a pretty good job of staying out of trouble, although it was a little chaotic during this tag-off at the end of each lap, because you've got all these skiers with, like, skis and poles coming in, and actually, the potential, real potential, for crashing.
France's team, which was a serious contender, they had a skier who broke two poles today, but they managed to kind of stay clean. And then you had Ben Ogden on his last lap, the second to last of the six laps, go out and actually really pushing the pace, and gets around and tags off to Gus in a medal position. And then it's Gus turn.
CG: I heard Gus's anchor leg described as "near perfect." What did he have to do to be near perfect?
NH: What Gus had to do was be Gus. And Gus is a guy that, I think at his best, is just what he described today, was kind of skiing uninhibited and skiing free. And so Klæbo has a little bit of a lead going up this hill and starts to make his move, and Gus actually goes with him, and, sort of for the first time at these Olympics, maybe with the exception of the individual sprint, where Ben Ogden actually sort of pushed Klæbo a little bit, Gus Schumacher actually appears to be kind of keeping up with Klæbo and pushing him a little bit.
And there's a little bit of a gap, but Schumacher is holding it steady. And they get to the top of this last big hill, pulled away a little bit from the rest of the pack, and it becomes pretty clear at that point that Gus is in the medals. And here was how he described the last few hundred meters of the race.
Gus Schumacher: I think I did a good job of not thinking too, like, results-wise, until, you know, I could see Ben on the other side there, and knew I had space. But yeah, I'm really proud of how I just sort of skied with abandon, in a way. And yeah, because when I'm skiing free, I'm the best.
CG: Nat, describe the moment that Gus Schumacher crossed the finish line. What was that like?
NH: It was an electric moment. You had the whole U.S. Ski Team there screaming at these guys. Gus gets to the finish line and just lets out this, like, primal scream and just ends up in a pile with his teammate, Ben Ogden, who's not just a teammate, but lie a close friend, someone he's known basically since he was at least a teenager, if not childhood. They're roommates here, have been through a lot together.
Total bedlam. Huge celebration by the U.S. team. And I think what's really cool about this is Gus is 25, grew up in Alaska, and he and everyone else here have really talked a lot about how it's a whole community and the place that helped make Gus what he was today, which was one of the very best skiers in the world.
GS: (It was) amazing to cross that line and celebrate with Ben and just everyone who's helped us along the way. Like my parents are here, and the whole wax staff and the staff in general and coaches and everything, like, yeah, it means a lot to all of us.
CG: That's really cool. So folks will remember seeing homegrown Olympian Kikkan Randall bring home a gold medal in this same event, actually, eight years ago. Are we going to see Gus Schumacher's shiny silver medal here in the Last Frontier? And I think, maybe more importantly, what does that mean to people in Alaska, especially kids growing up skiing here?
NH: Yes, absolutely. I mean, there's nowhere else this medal is going to come home to, other than Alaska, for Schumacher. And I think it was a really fun moment today. You had all these team members there, including JC Schoonmaker, another Anchorage resident, he was 8th in the individual sprint here.
At the end of the race, I run into him, he just has this huge grin. He said really emphatically, like, he's so excited to see this medal get back to Alaska, and just knowing how many young, junior skiers, younger than junior skiers, people, maybe, who aren't even skiers, who are going to see what Gus Schumacher has accomplished today and be able to sort of celebrate and feel a little bit of ownership of and just the amount of excitement, enthusiasm for cross-country skiing that this medal is likely going to bring home to Alaska.
It's like this is how future medalists are made, getting to witness accomplishments like this and then to get to see and feel and literally touch a little piece of it.
CG: Yeah, that's cool. It's definitely some inspiration coming home to Alaska here. All right, Nat, finally, you told me to remind you to tell me about a dog. Something about a dog?
NH: Yeah, there was actually a global viral moment at today's cross-country ski race, where a canine ran out onto the middle of the course in the preliminary qualifying sprint round. And there was a second where people were like, "Is this a wolf? Is this a dog?"
And the dog actually ran through the finish line, got a great photo on the finish line camera, is taken away by race organizers. And then I am trying to figure out, you know, can we interview the dog? Maybe not. The dog's gone. But I'm talking to the volunteers, and one of the volunteers is like, "Oh yeah, that's my relative's dog." And I get the dog's whole biography. His name's Nazgul, after the villainous ring wraiths in Lord of the Rings. He is a 2-year-old Czechoslovakian wolfdog.
So no shortage of excitement here at the Olympics, Casey, and I felt like that was, you know, knowing that we have a lot of dog lovers and dog enthusiasm and dog mushing in Alaska, that felt like a important part of the story today.
CG: Yeah, who hasn't been skiing in Alaska and seen a loose dog, right?
NH: There you go, yep.
