The Alaska Junior National crew is on their way to Minneapolis, Minnesota for the Junior National Championships beginning March 6th! APU Nordic's Rosie Conway was selected as the official Cup Bearer to escort the Alaska Cup to the championship races. First thing's first - get an Alaska Cup photo with the Alaska Airline pilots! We wish them all safe travels and good luck in the upcoming week! To follow all things Junior Nationals head to the website here. APU Nordic has 22 athletes nominated to this year's team. To read the list of skiers nominated to race (highlighted in blue) click here!

The American Birkebeiner is the single largest ski race in North America with over 10,000 racers competing in the 50, 30, and 15km distances. Luckily the great state of Alaska is always well represented by our APU Nordic athletes Elite to Alum and Masters! This year’s Birkie was held on perfect conditions with a firm track, sunny skies, and temperatures climbing from 3F at the start to nearly 30F by noon!  The women’s wave went out first at 8:30am from Telemark Lodge outside of Cable, WI. The top women stayed together for almost the entire race with only a few seconds separating them at the finish line:

In the men’s race, starting at 8:50am, had the top 15 athletes holding together until 40k when our own David Norris led the charge to separate the field. After repeated surges only the top few remained across the lake and unfortunately the Frenchman Gerard Agnellet out lunged David at the line for the win by a boot length. 

We were especially lucky to have our Alumni Elite Erik and Sadie Bjornsen coming out of retirement to show they still have what it takes. Several of our Master Skiers also joined making for an awesome day for a ski race!

Full results can be found here. Even more fun, enjoy special production of the 2022 Slumberland American Birkebeiner Men’s and Women’s Elite Race & Finish Line Coverage here: https://vimeo.com/682571135