STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK
PHOTO BY BECKY FLYNN
The Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation held Winterstart--its first home ski race of the season--this past weekend at the Lake Creek trails on Ketchum’s north side.
Seventy-nine competitors turned out for the interval start skate races, with XC Team Alums mixing it up with Gold Team skiers, local team members, parents and other community members. Skiers representing the U.S. Ski Team, Dartmouth College, Williams, Colby and Stanford donned Sun Valley suits just as one of those in the mix—John Steel Hagenbuch—was named to the U.S. Nordic Ski Team’s Tour de Ski Team for the second period of the winter season. Hagenbuch had sat out the first period to concentrate on his studies at Dartmouth.
The day was warm and the snow good.
“The cross-country community was out in force for a beautiful day of ski racing,” said Kelley Yeates, Sun Valley Ski Education Foundations assistant program director.
“We had a great day on Saturday at the Winterstart watching all our skiers our there together!” agreed Becky Flynn, SSEF’s Cross Country Program Director. “It was nice to get the season going.”
Winterstart has always been the kick-off to the Nordic season, but sometimes it can’t be held because of low snow. This year the snowpack started off good in mid-November, and it has continued to be good despite near-record warm temperatures through the month of December.
Competitors competed in 10-kilometer, 5K, 3K and .5K youth races. John Steel Hagenbuch, Duncan Fryberger, Nina O’Sullivan, Geffen Shya and Farmer Juniper were the overall champions.
The top three competitors in each race:
10K Male—John Steel Hagenbuch—21:19.0; Galen Grohusky—24:15.8; Peter Wolter—24:41.8
10K Female--Annika Landis—26:32; Sammy Smith—27:11.2; Cora Faye Scott—28:12.8
5K Male—Duncan Fryberger—13:27.9; Lloyd Thijs, 14:54.3; Tait Boschen—14:59
5K Female Payton Daley-Scheingraber—16:26.6; Joan Scheingraber—16:28.1; Sydney Nelson—17:01.5
3K Male—Jed Schmidt —11:25.7; Silas Seppa--12:09.1; Eli Sattler—12:35.0
3K Female--Nina O’Sullivan—10:51.4; Hazel Schmidt—11:32.6; Adeline Jacoby—13:28.6
1K Female—Geffen Shya—3:43.4; Chloe Pawliw—4:06.9; Ramsay Ford—4:14.3
1K Male--Gardiner Vance—4:09.6; Emil Beatty—4:10.9; Geffen Taylor—4:24.2
.5K Female—Farmer Juniper—1:59.5; Amelia Reuter—5:21.0; Sidra Paxson 5:57.2.
.5K Male—Arne Beatty—2:36.3
The U.S. Ski Team announced on Monday that John Steel Hagenbuch, a Sun Valley Community School graduate, would be on its 2024-25 Tour de Ski team for Period 2 of the 2024-25 World Cup season as the 2024-25 Overall Super Tour Leader. He will be joined by Gus Schumacher, Ben Ogden, Zanden McMullen, Jack Young, JC Schoonmaker and Luke Jager.
The women’s team consists of Jessie Diggins, Rosie Brennan, Nina Seemann, Sophia Laukli, Julia Kern and Alayna Sonnesyn.