SOS Outreach, a sport outreach and mentorship program serving 15 communities and 24 mountain resorts nationwide, was awarded U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Champion Award. The award is focused on recognizing a person, group, organization, or program that has contributed significantly and sustainably to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in skiing and snowboarding.

This past season, SOS Outreach and U.S. Ski & Snowboard partnered on opportunities to give participants a unique close-up experience with U.S. national team athletes, including at the VISA Big Air at Steamboat and two community programs in Summit County, Colo. and Park City, Utah. In addition, U.S. Ski & Snowboard will host an SOS Outreach intern this summer.

“SOS Outreach’s work to make skiing and snowboarding accessible for all in our resort communities is really vital to our future as a sport,” said U.S. Ski & Snowboard President and CEO Sophie Goldschmidt. “Its work to bring the values of our sport to youth from underserved communities is really what drove U.S. Ski & Snowboard to partner with SOS Outreach.”

Since the program’s inception 28 years ago, SOS Outreach has engaged over 80,000 youth in resort communities around the country. “These are young people who would not have been a part of the sport,” said SOS Outreach Executive Director Seth Ehrlich. “This recognition goes to each of those kids and to all the ones who will follow them. Our entire team at SOS Outreach is dedicated to continuing our work and to expanding the reach of our impact. Thanks to U.S. Ski & Snowboard for walking with us to make it possible.”

SOS Outreach’s philosophy is that no matter what social, societal or economic barriers exist, every child deserves the opportunity to thrive. Its programs start with powerful outdoor experiences. On the slopes or trails, kids unearth the courage to step outside of their comfort zones, discover new strengths within themselves and develop lifelong skills. Through its proven curriculum, they empower kids in our communities to discover their true potential.

U.S. Ski & Snowboard looked to SOS Outreach to help the organization plot its course in making skiing and snowboarding more welcoming, accessible, and diverse, raising awareness across its membership and the entire sport community.

“U.S. Ski & Snowboard wants everyone to have the opportunity to experience the sense of accomplishment and well-being that participation in skiing and snowboarding brings,” said Club Development Manager and DEI Committee member Ellen Adams. “We commend SOS Outreach for being a leader in bringing youth from all backgrounds to the joy of winter sports.”

With its commitment to being best in the world, U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s focus is often seen as being on developing elite athletes. But Adams cited the work of SOS Outreach, and local clubs nationwide, as being vital to the success of the sport. “Before an athlete is competing at an elite level, and even before they are identified as an emerging athlete, we rely on our member clubs and partners to introduce families and athletes to the sport and help them develop the fundamental skills necessary to pursue their goals,” said Adams. 

DEI Champion Award annual recipients are selected based on a matrixed review of various factors reflecting the nominees’ impact on advancing DEI. The criteria include leadership of DEI in ski and snowboard, advancing education, collaborative coalition-building, development of equitable systems and implementation of effective programs.

The U.S. Ski & Snowboard DEI Committee was founded in 2017 to increase racial, ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic diversity at all levels of skiing and snowboarding. SOS Outreach was the second recipient of the award, after National Brotherhood of Skiers President Henri Rivers was recognized in 2021.

U.S. Ski & Snowboard recently announced its U.S. Ski Team nominations for the 2022-23 season. Of the 22 athletes named to the team this season, six were not on the previous year’s roster, either newly named or renamed: Michael Earnhart, Walker Hall, Zak Ketterson, Will Koch, Finn O’Connell, and Sammy Smith.

To help fans get to know these new(er) faces, FasterSkier is doing a series of interviews, providing insights into the factors that have contributed to the development, progress, and growth of these athletes last season. In this installment, we talk with Zak Ketterson about his renomination to the U.S. Ski Team on its B-Team, his World Cup breakthroughs this past season, and the growth of his club, Team Birkie. 

Ben Theyerl/FasterSkier (FS): Can you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Zak Ketterson (ZK): I grew up in the Twin Cities area in Bloomington (MN). I didn’t really start skiing until 7th grade, when I got into it because my older brother (Jan) was on the high school team. Up until then, I had been into more of the traditional American sports – basketball, football, baseball – and even after my first few seasons of nordic skiing, I really didn’t like it that much better. I really wanted to play basketball, but I kept with skiing because I was having a lot of success in it, which is always fun, and like I said, I was getting to spend time with my brother and our teammates.

My first introduction to competitive skiing was the Minnesota high school league and trying to win the Minnesota state meet. That was the highest level of skiing in my head at the time, and in Minnesota, that’s the thing to win. Even as I progressed to being at Junior Nationals and started competing nationally, I wanted to win the State Meet.

When I got out to JNs, it was like, ‘oh, there’s a lot of good skiers from elsewhere,’ and that made me start thinking I wanted to continue with skiing – maybe do it in college. I went to Northern Michigan University (NMU), so stayed very local because being from the Midwest is pretty important to me. I just think it’s the coolest ski community, and always have, and going to NMU was cool because I got to follow the footsteps of Ian Torchia, Adam Martin, Kyle Bratrud, and go there with Leo Hipp and be teammates with them all – I didn’t have to leave.

Read the Full Story by Benjamin Theyerl at FasterSkier.com

U.S. Ski & Snowboard announces today that Kristen Bourne will join the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team staff as D-Team coach.

Bourne, who has worked with the team on several projects as a ski technician and coach, replaces Kate Johnson, who coached the D-Team for the past two seasons. 

“It was such a great experience to be with this team for the past two seasons,” said Johnson, who will return to the collegiate coaching ranks. “Kristen is an outstanding coach and will make a great addition to the team. I’m looking forward to being a huge supporter of the team from the sidelines.”

Thanks to a Women’s Sports Foundation grant and support from the U.S. Ski Team, Bourne joined the team for the Davos, Switzerland, Dresden, Germany, and Lahti, Finland FIS Cross Country World Cups last season, working with multiple athletes, in addition to joining the service team for ski testing and preparation.

“We were grateful for those opportunities to work directly with Kristen and to expose her to coaching and (ski) teching at the World Cup level,” noted U.S. Cross Country Team Director Chris Grover, who added that Bourne was very instrumental in the team’s success in all of these events. “She meshed super well with the team and added immediate value with both her coaching and teching ability.”

“I'm super excited to be joining the team and to hit the ground running,” Bourne said. “I had a couple of opportunities this past year to get a taste of the World Cup with the team and learn the system. Both experiences left me feeling inspired, excited, and ready for more. I'm really looking forward to getting to know all of the athletes better and being part of their pursuit of excellence and success at the highest level.”

Last summer Bourne also worked with current D-Team athletes Will Koch, Sammy Smith, and Michael Earnhart during a National Training Group camp in Park City. “Due to the poor air quality from all of the fires we spent a decent amount of time indoors on the roller ski treadmill,” she recalled. “We ran interval sessions and distance technique sessions on it which ended up being a great opportunity to work one-on-one with some of the athletes.”

Bourne holds Bachelor's degree in Sports Science from Northern Michigan University, in Marquette, Michigan, and she is currently working on her Master's degree in Exercise Physiology from The College of Saint Scholastica, in Duluth, Minnesota. She is also a former professional cross country athlete having competed in numerous FIS races, and U.S. and Norwegian National Championship events. She was also a two-time member of the U.S. Junior/U23 FIS World Championships Team. 

For the past few years, she has been the assistant cross country coach at The College of Saint Scholastica, and a U23 coach for the Craftsbury Green racing team in Craftsbury, Vermont. She also served as World Cup ski tech for U.S. athlete Bill Harmeyer in Lahti, Finland, last season.  

In addition to cross country skiing, Bourne is an avid outdoorswoman. “I love going on trail runs and adventures with my dogs and I just started dabbling with mountain biking,” she said, adding that she will spend her summer in Craftsbury, Vermont, and spend time working with many U.S. Cross Country Team athletes who spend their summer prep period training in Vermont, while also working with Development Team athletes across the U.S.

Bourne joins an experienced U.S. Cross Country Team staff that includes the following:

• Cross Country Program Director: Chris Grover
• Head Coach: Matt Whitcomb                    
• World Cup Coach: Jason Cork                                     
• D Team Coach: Kristen Bourne
• Development Team Coach: Greta Anderson                                                                            
• Cross Country Sport Development Manager: Bryan Fish                       
• Cross Country Sport Coordinator: Adam St. Pierre              
• Cross Country Communications Manager: Tom Horrocks

With three-time Olympic medalist Jessie Diggins leading the way, the U.S. women’s cross-country team has made major strides in recent years.

But outside of the athletes competing, the world of cross-country skiing remains something of a boys’ club.

“Women are really underrepresented in ski coaching, but also in the technician roles, which are massive in cross-country,” says U.S. cross-country program director Chris Grover.

A new proposal submitted to the FIS cross country committee by U.S. Ski & Snowboard aims to change this paradigm. Under the new guidelines, each cross-country team on the World Cup circuit will receive a maximum of eight “course access” bibs, so long as two are used by women.

Read the full story by Alex Azzi at OnHerTurf.NBCSports.com

Believe it or not, it is mid-May. For those following a traditional cross-country calendar, this means the start of a new training year, building toward the 2022/2023 competition season. And, for many of the top American athletes, this means it’s time to make an annual pilgrimage to Bend, Oregon for the on-snow camp of the season at the Mt. Bachelor Nordic Center.

The weather gods were kind to the camp attendees, with nearly a foot of fresh snow falling on Mt. Bachelor last weekend, restoring it to mid-Winter conditions. April was also a fruitful month for snowfall, setting up for a base-depth of 92” currently reported on the trails – not bad for May!

To learn more about the camp and what has made Bend and Mt. Bachelor a staple of the U.S. Ski Team’s early season training, FasterSkier connected with head coach Matt Whitcomb, who shared that he has been coming to Bend almost-annually for the last 26 years. 

He first experienced the trails at Mt. Bachelor during the 1996 U.S. National Championships. 

...Read the Full Story by Rachel Perkins at FasterSkier.com

 

 

 

 

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U.S. Ski & Snowboard has announced the 22 athletes nominated to the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team for the 2022-23 season. Nominations include those active athletes who qualified based on the published selection criteria in the prior season.

In addition to established veterans, including three-time Olympic medalist Jessie Diggins and two-time Olympians Rosie Brennan and Scott Patterson, the 2022-23 Team includes five new members. Moving up to the A Team and joining Diggins, Brennan and JC Schoonmaker for the coming season are 2022 Olympians Julia Kern, Novie McCabe, Ben Ogden and Patterson. 

B Team nominations include 2022 Olympians Hailey Swirbul, Sophia Laukli, Gus Schumacher, Kevin Bolger and Luke Jager. John Steel Hagenbuch and Hunter Wonders move from the D-Team to the B Team, and Zak Ketterson re-joins the national team program as a member of the B Team for the 2022-23 season. Finn O’Connell has been nominated to the B Team for the first time after finishing fourth in the overall SuperTour standings, which included nine individual top-10 results. 

Development Team nominations include returning team athletes Sydney Palmer-Leger – the 2020-21 NCAA Champion – and Zanden McMullen. New Development Team athletes include Sammy Smith, who finished fifth in the freestyle sprint at the 2022 Junior World Championships; and three members of the bronze-medal winning U.S. men’s relay team from the 2022 Junior World Championship – Will Koch, Michael Earnhart, and Walker Hall.

“This team is the largest in U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s XC history, and it could become our most successful one, too,” noted Head Coach Matt Whitcomb. “There is clear talent, as well as a history of impressive results, but most importantly, these are individuals from many different clubs in the U.S. that are interested in connecting and believing in one another, and pushing hard. Talent and past results don’t get me as excited as a bunch of athletes that are ready to lock in together.”

Notable retirements following the 2021-22 season include 2022 Olympian Hannah Halvorsen, and Junior World Championships bronze medalist Katharine Odgen.

The 2022-23 FIS Cross Country World Cup season is scheduled to kick off with races in Ruka, Finland Nov. 25-27. The 2023 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships are scheduled for Feb. 21 through March 5 in Planica, Slovenia.

A 2022-23 staff announcement will be forthcoming, while an official U.S. Cross Country Ski Team announcement will be made in the fall.

2022-23 Cross Country Nominations(Hometown; Club; Birthdate)

A TEAM
Women

• Rosie Brennan (Anchorage, Alaska; Alaska Pacific University Ski Nordic Center; 12/21/88)
• Jessie Diggins (Afton, Minn.; Stratton Mountain School Elite Team; 8/26/91)
• Julia Kern (Waltham, Mass.; Stratton Mountain School Elite Team; 9/12/97)
• Novie McCabe (Winthrop, Wash.; Methow Valley Nordic Team/University of Utah; 12/15/01)

Men

• Ben Ogden (Landgrove, Vt.; Stratton Mountain School Elite Team/University of Vermont; 2/13/00)
• Scott Patterson (Anchorage, Alaska; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center; 1/28/92)
• JC Schoonmaker (Tahoe City, Calif; University of Alaska Anchorage/Sugar Bowl Ski Team and Academy; 8/12/00)

B TEAM
Women

• Sophia Laukli (Yarmouth, Maine; University of Utah; 6/8/00)
• Hailey Swirbul (Aspen, Colo.; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center; 7/10/98)

Men

• Kevin Bolger (Minocqua, Wisc.; Sun Valley Gold Team; 4/11/93)
• John Steel Hagenbuch (Ketchum, Idaho; Sun Valley Gold Team; 10/1/2001)
• Luke Jager (Anchorage, Alaska; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center/University of Utah; 1/17/00)
• Zak Ketterson (Bloomington, Minn; Team Birkie/Northern Michigan University; 4/2/97)
• Finn O’Connell (Bozeman, Mont.; Bridger Ski Foundation; 6/26/1998)
• Gus Schumacher (Anchorage, Alaska; Alaska Winter Stars; 7/25/00)
• Hunter Wonders (Anchorage, Alaska; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center; 8/7/98)

DEVELOPMENT TEAM
Women

• Sydney Palmer-Leger (Park City, Utah; Sun Valley Gold Team/University of Utah; 2/4/2002)
• Sammy Smith (Boise, Idaho; Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation; 9-22-2005)

Men

• Michael Earnhart (Anchorage, Alaska; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center; 8-11-2002)
• Walker Hall  (Winthrop, Wash.; Methow Valley Nordic Team/University of Utah; 6-11-2002)
• Will Koch (Peru, Vermont; Stratton Mountain School T2/University of Colorado; 2-21-2002)
• Zanden McMullen (Anchorage, Alaska; Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center/Montana State University; 5/31/2001)

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