BY KAREN BOSSICK
The Sun Valley Nordic Invitational that took place in Sun Valley this week brought about hundreds of the top cross-country skiers in the West to Sun Valley this week. Most of those named to the U.S. Olympic Nordic Ski Team were, in fact, there. racing on a course designed to emulate tough World Cup courses.
The event not only exposed those athletes and their coaches to what locals call “Nordic Town USA,” but it infused the local economy. But it’s just a stepping stone to the U.S. Junior Nationals in 2024, which will bring even more competitors and their families to Sun Valley over an 11-day period.
Eye on Sun Valley’s Luis Alberto Lecanda sits down with Rick Kapala, head of Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation’s Nordic Program, as Eye on Sun Valley shows some of the action at the Invitational.
He also talks with Johnny Hagenbuch, who is headed to Europe as part of the U.S. Ski Team; Katie Feldman, who is poised to have some of the best results of her career with the Boulder Mountain Tour and American Birkebeiner coming up, and Sophia Mazzoni, a Sun Valley Community School graduate now racing for Montana State University.