When you reach the Northwoods of Wisconsin, the trees all grow and mature. Earlier this month, as went the trees, so went the skiers.
Cable, Wisconsin, home to the American Birkebeiner, has always riffed off this tendency for the big woods to inspire tall tales. “Birkieland” itself is a relatively recent contrivance. Largely thanks to one ebullient personality, Tony Wise – the owner and proprietor of the former Telemark Lodge – the glacial folds of this particular corner of the Wisconsin cutover lands are infused with a mythos spanning a millennia in the form of the Birkebeiners. Yet, the eponymous race turned fifty a couple years ago. The Birkie trail is a few years younger, and cuts a proud super highway of cross country skiing over terrain that on first glance wouldn’t inspire it. When the national ski community converged on the American Birkebeiner trailhead for a week of racing at 2026 Junior Nationals, evidence that the myth of the Birkie was in active transformation was stuck out like a stonehenge…
….Or rather, “Tele-henge,” the last remaining structure from the old Telemark Lodge, the elevator shafts. Driving past them on the way to the courses each day was a reminder that the mere presence of some four-hundred junior athletes from across the nation, plus their cadre of coaches, is an unlikely but grand occasion to be happening in Cable, Wisconsin. And by the measure of that essential Birkie paradox – unlikely, but grand – the skiers at this Junior Nationals got a true Birkie experience.
The dynamic also brought the proceedings into line with what so many junior athletes are seeking when they attend Junior Nationals. Every year, I get the pleasure of hearing the unique stories of how the skiers which represent New England found their way to pushing towards competing against their peers from across the nation in cross country skiing. For some, they’re tracing the steps of a parent or relative who also loved skiing. For some, they couldn’t conceive that an event like Junior Nationals existed, let alone that they’d be competing in it as a cross country skier, less than a year ago. All of them, however, show up with some nervous anticipation not sure quite knowing what to expect, and a hope that they can trust that the way they pushed to get to Junior Nationals will allow them to push towards big goals at Junior Nationals.
In that regard, Team New England had a wonderful week of racing which spanned six days, included four races, and was supported by a Staff which looked to make our junior skier’s Paul Bunyan sized dreams a reality by working like Babe the Blue Ox.
Monday March 9th – 7.5k Skate Individual Start
Early March felt like early March as the week of racing kicked off with a 7.5k Individual start for all age groups, U16, U18, and U20, in Cable. Sun and slush were on order, and us New Englanders, encased in the grip of a GOOD, snowy winter at home, got some of the first slush conditions of the race season. For New England, the tone for a good day was set early by our U16 athletes, with Wren Chalmers (Stratton Mountain School, SMS) skiing to an 8th place finish to earn the first All-American (Top 10) honor of the year. Acadia Enman (Mansfield Nordic Club, MNC) followed in the girls race, earning 10th place, and leading a U16 girls group who all finished within the top 20.
The highlight of the day came in the U18/U20 Women’s start amid the afternoon sun. Hanna Koch (University of Vermont) led the way, finishing 2nd in the U20 Girls race. A U18 Girls team consisting of Clara White (Orono High School), Elli Englund (Holderness Nordic Club), Ollie Hanna (Ford Sayre), and Mary Harrington (Green Mountain Valley School) went 5th-9th place on the day, forming a full half of the All-American honors given in the race. Both Beth (Middlebury) and Matthew McIntosh (Green Mountain Valley Shcool) also earned All-American honors on the way, with Beth 6th in the U20 Girls and Matthew 10th.
Wednesday March 11th – Classic Sprint
Somewhere between Monday and Wednesday, winter set in again in Wisconsin, and would hold (and then some) for the rest of the week.
If you hold the measure that more is better, Classic Sprint days are the best race days in cross country skiing. They are, after all, the longest days. And the most heavy of the complicated aspects which define nordic skiing, including ski service. This one was defined by hard waxes, zeroes, klister, and klister mixes too, sometimes all at once.
The skiers of New England though, pushed hard on whatever they pushed on. Early highlights in the day included Claire Serrano (Craftsbury Ski Club) and Astrid Longstreth (MNC) skiing into the B-Final in the U18 Girls, with Claire Serrano earning All American honors in by finishing 7th. In the U20 Girls, Hanna Koch and Ava Schneider (Dartmouth) sprinted into the A-Final, and were on their way to a 2-3 podium finish when Ava unexpectedly caught herself in the finishing stretch and took a brief tumble. After a quick recovery to 4th place, her take was typically upbeat and exuberant, “that was a very Ava thing to do!” Hanna and Ava were joined by Beth McIntosh in 7th and Nyla Scott (Colby College) in 9th to put four New Englanders in the All American honors for the day.
The U20 Boys matched their peer’s performance, with the Bowdoin College pair of Ollie Swabey and Beckett Cote skiing to 4th and 5th place in the A-final, while Ellis Slover (Colby) skied to 10th place.
The highlight of the day though, would come late. The U16 Girls and U16 Boys all qualified for heats, and then the U16 Girls sprinted ahead into semi-finals and finals. In the U16 Girls A-Final, the MNC duo of Acadia Enman and Mia Gorman took the field out the steep wall of a hill which edges the stadium in Cable. Around a horsehoed downhill, the pair caught a draft into the A-climb. Once there, Acadia moved to make a definitive move for a win. Mia followed and made a break alongside an Alaskan, and held to keep herself in podium contention. Acadia pushed on to earn a national championship, with Mia holding to join her teammate on the podium in third place. At the podium ceremony, it turned out that the Alaskan she had followed was competing as a guest from Canada, giving New England and MNC a 1-2 finish on the day. Not to be forgotten either, their New England teammate, Merritt Goodell (Ford Sayre) earned All-American honors in the B-final finishing 9th.
Friday March 13th – Classic Mass Start
The snow fell hard on Friday, and fell all day. It made for soft, and all together sloppy conditions for a 15k U20, 10k U18, and 5k U16 classic mass start.
Clara White led the way in the first race of the day, finishing 5th in the U18 Girls race. While in the U18 Boys, Henry Swartzentruber (Stratton Mountain School) led the way in 17th place.
The longest race of the day, done in a heavy snow (a kind of unknowing preview for a World Cup in Lake Placid a week later), proved to be a good one for the U20s. Beth McIntosh held on through an early break to finish on the podium in third placer in the U20 Girls race, with Hanna Koch adding another All-American finish in 8th place. Meanwhile, the Polar Bears of Bowdoin showed up once again, with Ollie Swabey and Henri McCourt finishing 8th and 9th place.
The U16s closed out the week of individual racing, with Acadia Enman and Mia Gorman again earning All-American honors – Acadia in 3rd place and Mia in 8th place.
Saturday March 14th – Skate 4×3.3k Mixed Relay
By Friday night, all attentions among those in Cable had turned past Saturday and towards Sunday, when a historic Blizzard shaping up to hit the Upper Midwest. Contingency plans were being hatched to get skiers on the road and safely into accomadations closer to the airport. Flight delays and cancellations mounted.
It would have been easy to overlook the 4×3.3k mixed relay that now caps Junior Nationals. In the chaos, it would have been easy to lose focus.
Yet, when the U20 race kicked off on a cold, sunny, Saturday morning in Wisconsin, Team New England was right in the mix. Or rather, three team New Englands were in the mix. Team 1, consisting of Hanna Koch, Beckett Cote, Beth McIntosh and anchor Ollie Swabey, Team 2, consisting of Nyla Scott, Joey Sluka, Ava Schneider, and Silvester Williams, and Team 3, consisting of Hannah Grohman, Ellis Slover, Estella Laird, and Quinn Uva, all came out of the first leg within earshot of the top 5 teams which earn podium positions on relay day at Junior Nationals.
In leg 2, Beckett Cote caught the break to put Team 1 in the hunt to win. Joey and Ellis remained in the fight for the top 5.
On leg 3, Beth McIntosh shot to the front of the race, putting in a leg which left Ollie Swabey with a lead to hold.
On Ollie’s part, he had a fairly simple anchor task. Stay ahead. Behind him, Far West had handed off to an individual champion from the skate race on Day 1. Over the top of the A-Climb, Ollie was holding a lead, and though there was some gain from Far West after, he would come into the final stretch with enough time to put his arms out in a celebratory shout, as Team New England 1 became national champions. Behind, strong legs from Ava Schneider and Silvester Williams had been enough to put team 2 into 5th place, with Estella Laird and Quinn Uva putting Team 3 into a solid 6th place finish.
In the U18 race, the New England Team of Ollie Hanna, Donovan Van Citters, Clara White, and Henry Swartzentruber combined to ski to a third place podium finish. The effort was bookended by strong legs by Ollie and Henry, who held the position through jockeying throughout the race.
The final race of Junior Nationals saw the U16 Team of Acadia Enman, Wren Chalmers, Mia Gorman, and Isaiah Bowen jockey through a hectic first couple of legs to find themselves in a position to try and hold a 3rd place podium spot over a quick-gaining Rocky Mountain team. Isaiah Bowen was given the hard task of holding off a hard charge. As he free-skated over the last hill, it became clear he had done it, and the U16 team would finish 3rd, to place at least one New England team on the podium in each race of the day.
Amid the rush to beat the storm, our Junior Nationals Head Coach Matt Boobar sent the team a brief message to call attention to what had happened. After the trial and tribulations of a week of racing, our skiers had given themselves a performance which not only capped a season of racing and showed their competitiveness with the entirety of the country, but boosted them into the year-long season to come with confidence to pursue even more next here.
In short, over the course of the week, Team New England had grown, matured, and become ready to grow even taller still, till they resemble the kind of outlandish, tall tales which live in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, and linger with those that travel far and wide from it.
FULL RESULTS from 2026 Junior Nationals
*The team at Skinnyski, the Midwest’s grassroots nordic skiing news outlet, did a tremendous job capturing a week of racing in photos and videos. We’re immensely grateful for Bruce and hist team’s work!
