Cross-Country World Cup Finals in Lake Placid

“This is a proper ski race,” one British athlete said to me in the mixed zone.

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” my editor warned me.

And I got two scoops this week! I’m almost a real reporter! We’ll get to that later.

As we approached the World Cup finals weekend in Lake Placid, Nordic Insights, another news outlet I write for, made plans to cover the action. Being local, I’d be boots on the ground all weekend. My colleague Adele would come from Yale University on Saturday. I’d write up all the men’s races. Adele and Gavin, my editor, would write the women’s races.

If I interviewed any of the women athletes, I’d send the sound files to whoever was writing the day’s race report. Likewise, Adele would send me any men’s interviews that she recorded. Wrecked after covering the Olympics on site in Italy, Gavin watched the live stream from Anchorage, Alaska.

The Tri-Lakes welcomed the World Cup circus with the full gamut of weather. Sixty degrees and sunny on Monday as teams began arriving in Lake Placid. Then a few days below freezing. Snow flurries on Friday turned into a dang blizzard as the women’s 10k classic race started. Bluebird day for the sprints on Saturday. It rained all day Sunday for the 20 km skate race. The weekend finale, Jessie Diggins’s big sendoff to her retirement.

Apparently, some European skiers were concerned that nobody would show up. Lake Placid, being basically in the middle of nowhere in the UpState, an hour from the nearest highway, yada yada. For context, part of the race course on Norway’s famed Holmenkollen goes alongside roads with traffic. Just outside Oslo. At the Winter Olympics, there are houses right next to the Tesero nordic center.

Surprise, surprise. Over 35,000 people crammed into Mount van Hoevenberg for three days of racing. This is on par with the World Cup in Minneapolis in 2024. You know, an official metropolitan area.

Every day, the scene was electric. Fans waved Swedish, Swiss, Norwegian, German, Italian and American flags along the course. There were even more, but I can’t remember them all. And the noise. Fans cheered every racer who passed. The foreign skiers noticed. Every one of them I talked to appreciated the support.

Back to the 10 km race. I love the powder shots that alpine skiers post on NYSkiBlog, but powder is hell for nordic skiers. The snow came so late that van Ho couldn’t get Pisten Bullys out to tame it. When I got home on Friday night, six inches of snow were in my driveway, and there was no driving through the knee high berm the village plow had left. I shoveled like someone half my age to get my car into the driveway. Then I fed the cat, then I started typing. Watching the race is only half the job, then you gotta power up your laptop.

Eight weeks post knee replacement, there’s no way I could roam the race course, as is my wont. Instead, I watched the races on the live stream in the media room in van Ho’s lodge. But as the leaders approached the finish, I went into the mixed zone in the stadium to interview them.

What’s the mixed zone, you might ask? The stadium setup for the World Cup weekend was the most elaborate that I’ve seen. From the finish area, athletes give their skis to equipment controllers, who test to see if anyone’s using fluorocarbon, which is now banned. There were two tents where skiers could change into dry clothes and debrief with coaches.

After that, they have to run a gauntlet of media for interviews. TV comes first, then print and online media. That’s the mixed zone.

So you’re waiting, and getting rained and snowed on, as skiers change, and talk to the media. For TV, there was NBC. There was NRK from Norway, and Viaplay from Sweden. There was a lone Swedish TV reporter, affiliation unknown, filming interviews with his phone.

Waiting in the mixed zone, my phone’s touch screen got wet and went haywire. Apps opened and closed on their own. Luckily, I managed to record all men interviews. For me, the challenge is to ask meaningful questions. None of the the, “how about that throw to Tyree” BS that you hear on sports talk radio. Sometimes I come up with good ones; sometimes, not so much.

The print section was cordoned off from TV. Along with me, there was a North Country Public Radio reporter, two young guys from a rival ski racing news outlet, an independent journalist, and Peggy Shinn, an freelance writer with an impressive magazine and newspaper portfolio. Periodically, the great Bill McKibben came by to take in the action.

The point is, we print people were the last in line. Standing still, and getting wet as the TV people were interviewing the top athletes. As skiers moved to the print, my hat was soaked.

Finally, the male skiers filtered to print media. If a top skier, for example Ben Ogden or Gus Schumacher from the US, came by, there was no way you’d get an exclusive interview. Five reporters would stick microphones in their face. I got pretty good at barging in and asking my questions first, but everyone got the responses. If a less well known skier, such as Finland’s Emil Liekari (No offense, Emil), passed through the mixed zone, one could get an exclusive interview.

While you’re interviewing one person, you had to have one eye on the action. Is that Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, the 20 km winner, talking to NBC? You need to see how he’s progressing through the TV talking heads and be ready.

You may be aware that Klæbo swept the gold medals at the recent Olympics in Italy. The year before, he did the same dang thing in World Championships in his hometown, Trondheim, Norway. He’s a generational talent, the Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant of our sport. He’s also a very nice, down to earth guy, and generous with his time.

Sunday at the World Cup finals at Mount van Hoevenberg was the 20 km mass start skate race. With rain and more rain it was a three-hat day. The men went out first. When the men were done interviewing, my hat was soaking wet and I was dang near hypothermic.

As I returned to the lodge, a stream of people were coming out, up to the spectator bridge near the start finish area. People – some of them families with young children – had been sheltering from the rain in the lodge. They were heading out to see Jessie Diggins, ‘Murrica’s most decorated skier, in her last race. You had best believe that when I got into the lodge, it was EMPTY.

In the media room, I got a dry hat, the second hat of the day. As I started my story, I kept one eye on the live stream of the women’s race. In the early going, 63 skiers were tightly packed. Astrid Øyre Slind of Norway tripped and fell, bringing down Sweden’s Frida Karlsson with her. I texted Gavin, who was reporting the women’s race, in case he missed it. Karlsson looked pissed as she got up.

As the women went out on their last lap, I went back out to the mixed zone. Still raining. The last race of the weekend and the season, and skiers could relax, looking forward to downtime. Many more athletes came into the mixed zone than Saturday. Again the phone went crazy with a wet screen, but I managed to interview nearly two dozen people.

And you never know who you’ll run into in a small town. Monday afternoon before the races, I was grocery shopping. Someone there was wearing a Team Norge jacket. It turned out to be Klæbo’s ski technician!

Let’s digress momentarily. Ten days earlier, in a sprint race in Drammen, Norway, Klæbo and Ben Ogden tangled. It’s often tight quarters in sprints. Klæbo, who never falls, fell and hit his head. He went from the race to hospital, where doctors diagnosed a mild concussion. Recovering, he skipped the Holmenkollen 50 km, and there was doubt as to whether he’d come to Lake Placid.

Anyway, in Hannaford’s coffee aisle, I asked Mika, the technician, if Klæbo would come to the US. He replied, tomorrow, Klæbo will do a hard workout and then make a decision.

I got that nugget to my editor, and we scooped all the competition! You never know where the news is!

After I’d bagged my groceries, skiers from Norway, Switzerland, and Finland streamed into the grocery store. My knees got week and I hyperventilated. We’re supposed to be pro and impartial, but here are heroes, demigods and goddesses walking on earth, coming in to the store. Before I broke down into gibbering, abject hero worship, I said, welcome to Lake Placid, and left.

Later that week, I ran into a couple wearing “Team Jessie” jackets in the same grocery store. It was Jessie Diggins’ in laws, with their grandchildren. Small town, you never know who you’ll meet.

On Sunday, I got my second scoop. ORDA had invited Thomas Wassberg, the winner of the men’s 15 km race in the 1980 winter Olympics, to Lake Placid. And here he was in the stadium. At first, he didn’t want to talk, saying his English was no good. My dude, you speak two languages and I barely speak one. He gave in, and I got a short interview.

At this point, ORDA deserves a massive shoutout. Putting on a World Cup is way more intense than national championships or junior Olympic qualifying race, and they did it with aplomb. During the January-February cold spell, they blew a mountain of machine made snow in the 1980 stadium, preparing for the inevitable March thaw. When it came, van Ho’s grooming crew got it done, touching up the trails where they needed it. The fans could move easily all over the various race courses. They built grandstand seating in the stadium.

As forerunners, ORDA recruited local junior skiers. High school kids from NYSEF and Craftsbury, and Saint Lawrence university athletes inspected each the course before the races. There may have been others. What a thrill it must have been for them.

The first-floor gym and rock climbing facility became the media center for maybe 100 people. Mainly TV and photographers. By contrast, at SuperTour Finals last March, and national championships in January, I was the only on-site reporter.

After all the awards on Sunday, Diggins set out for a final lap around the stadium with easily 500 children, ranging in age from first grade to middle school. One last lap in her stellar career. I get choked up every time I write about it.

This might be the biggest event I’ll ever report on. In addition to the races, I got two scoops, and I also got to interview Kikkan Randall, who shares the 2018 Olympic team sprint gold with Diggins. It was hella work, and so worth it.