Top US college and high school skiers compete in Alaska's Winterstart Super Tour stop

Dec. 14—The first Winterstart Super Tour Nordic ski race series to take place in Anchorage in nearly two decades is being contested this week at Kincaid Park. Among the competitors are many of the top college and high school skiers in the country who just missed the cut for the first round of the World Cup and are attempting to qualify for the second circuit.

It has been nearly a decade since the last time Alaska hosted a spring series, but in the first race of this month's winter event, Samantha Smith of Idaho was the only force that was more relentless than Mother Nature on Tuesday afternoon.

Despite having to face unrelenting powdery snowfall, she paced all three of her heats in the women's freestyle sprint race including the finals where her mark of 3:47.34 sent her to the top of the podium.

"It was a really fun day and it is kind of the first real races of the season," Smith said. "It was a great day of super competitive racing and a lot of fun."

Smith had the best time of five first-round races, before taking a victory in the first semifinal.

"It was probably not the most tactically smart move to go pretty hard in all of the rounds but I wanted to try to set myself up for races later on in the year," Smith said. "I figured I'll go as hard as I can now, which will pay dividends at World Juniors and stuff like that down the road."

She admitted to not "really have any expectations" when it came to how she'd fare in Tuesday's race.

While this was her first time competing in the Last Frontier this year, it wasn't her first ever and marked her second visit in less than a month.

"I came up here a few days before Thanksgiving to get some time in on snow," Smith said. "I also raced here in 2019 for Junior Nationals."

Due to the copious amounts of snow, she believed that the course was a lot slower than many of the racers expected, which complicated what some of them were able to do from a technique standpoint.

"I'm just trying to have a good strong early season so I can hopefully qualify for some World Cup races later on this season," Smith said. "That's a really big thing."

She got her first World Cup experience last year at the age of 17 during period four in what she called a "pretty surreal experience."

Smith said she has been skiing for as long as she could walk and first got into competing in cross country races when she was four or five years old. However, it is not the only sport she is passionate about and plays at a high level. She attends two different high schools so that she can play soccer as well.

At Sun Valley Community School, she is able to compete in skiing for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation and at Boise High School, she competes in soccer at the IHSAA Class 5A level.

"I'm actually going to college for soccer and just committed to Stanford (University)," she said. "I love them both and I'm still hoping to ski as best as I can while in college too and try to make it work."

Playing both sports creates a lot of schedule conflicts for herself and her parents who couldn't be in attendance because they were accompanying her brother Tucker, who has an alpine race and followed by a soccer tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada.

"My parents are super supportive and have given up a lot to make it so I can pursue both sports as much as I can," Smith said.

She'll be playing alongside her older sister Logan who is currently a sophomore defender on the Cardinals women's soccer team.

For now, her main focus is staying on pace and racking up enough points to qualify for the next circuit of World Cup races that will take place in the United States.

"This year, Minneapolis (Minnesota) is the dream," Smith said. "Getting to race in the World Cup on American soil would be just an incredible opportunity."

On the men's side, seasoned senior class Canadian skier Julien Locke reached the top of the podium with a time of 3:16.06 in the finals.

"It was a great start," he said. "I raced last week in a small race in Canada but this was first big one of the year and it was good to come out on top. It was a tough course and the guys were skiing quite quickly so it was a good test of the legs and went well."

The 30-year-old competes through the Black Jack Cross Country Ski Club and hopes to return to the World Cup circuit for the first time in a few years.

"Hopefully I can get back this year," Locke said. "These races count for points and it's a good level I'm facing up here."

While he is an experienced skier, this marked his first time competing and visiting Alaska.

"The course is groomed super well and was great for racing," Locke said. "I wanted a hard fight and a good push with everyone else and get the legs ready for the rest of the year."

U.S. Ski Team member and APU skier Michael Earnhart finished third in the men's final with a time of 3:

Racing continues Wednesday with a classic individual start 10K and continues with races on Saturday and Sunday in coordination with the Besh Cup.

1.4K sprint freestyle

Finals

Women's

1. Samantha Smith, 3:47.34; 2. Liliane Gagnon, 3:48.44; 3. Anna-Maria Dietze, 3:49.14; 4. Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt, 3:49.95; 5. Sonjaa Schmidt, 3:50.35; 6. Erin Bianco, 3:54.99

Men's

1. Julien Locke, 3:16.06; 2. Walker Hall, 3:16.45; 3. Michael Earnhart, 3:16.99; 4. Jack Young, 3:20.31; 5. Pierre Grall-Johnson, 3:20.73; 6. Sahsa Masson, 3:22.95.

[Full results here.]

(Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that this year was the first time the Winterstart Super Tour had been contested in Anchorage.)