BY KAREN BOSSICK

Samantha “Sammy” Smith won a national championship Tuesday at the US National Cross-Country Ski Championships being held this week at Lake Placid, N.Y.

Smith, who is on the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation’s elite Gold Team, topped the podium after winning the freestyle sprint at Mt. Van Hoevenberg.

She won her qualifier, quarterfinal and semifinal leading up to the final race. And on the final race she pulled away on the final hill, edging out Alayna Sonnesyn by .07 seconds.

Smith also won a national championship in the classic sprint in 2025.

Norway’s Mons Melbye finished first in the men’s final, besting Sasha Masson of Canada and American Zachary Jayne.

What makes Smith’s win remarkable is that she skipped the first portion of the World Cup ski season to compete with her soccer team at Stanford University for the National Championship.

This is the second straight year that Smith has missed early Nordic training to compete with her university team in soccer.

Smith’s team played in the national championship game on Dec. 8, losing to Florida State which won its fifth national title with a 1-0 win. The Stanford sophomore then flew to Alaska where she competed in her first Nordic race in nine months on Dec. 12.

She finished second in that race, then headed home to Sun Valley where she trained on roller skis while waiting for snow to build up on local cross-country tracks.

She finished fifth—third among Americans—in the 10-K Individual Classic at Lake Placid on Sunday.

Smith is hoping her strong showing at US Nationals will help her earn one of eight spots on the U.S. cross country ski team competing in the Milano Cortina Olympics in February. Only Jessie Diggins has clinched a spot so far and Julia Kern is assured a spot based on her World Cup standings.

Smith might have scored points towards a spot on the Olympic roster had she posted good results at the early season World Cup races that she did not compete in.

But she has always said that she wants to do both soccer and Nordic racing. She told a reporter from Faster Skier that she was taking fire from her final game and pouring it into her skiing: “I know my path is different from others but I’m doing what I love and I think there’s a  lot to be said for staying true to that.”

She also played with the U.S. National Soccer Team at World Cup competition in 2022; the Pan American Games in 2023, where she helped her team win a bronze medal, and at  World Cup competition in 2024 in Barcelona

The US National Cross Country Ski Championships continue today with a Freestyle Mass Start 20km National Championship. It concludes Friday with a Classic Sprint SuperTour.