Lake Placid in New York hosted the 2026 United States Senior National Cross Country Ski Championships from Jan. 4-9.
Nine athletes and two coaches from the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club made the journey, which served as the choice website for the Junior World Championships and the under-18 worldwide journey to Norway and Sweden.
Georgia Bishop and Tristan Thrasher every claimed one of many six spots for the lads’s and girls’s classification on the U18 journey. Bishop took fifth within the junior 10-kilometer freestyle mass begin, shifting all the best way up from her beginning spot of forty fifth.
Thrasher took second within the U18 10K freestyle mass begin. The duo will head to Trondheim, Norway and Ulricehamn, Sweden from Jan. 27-Feb. 9.
Thrasher additionally certified for the U.S. Biathlon Junior Cup Team and the U.S. Junior Worlds Team within the final week of December. He is ready to compete in biathlon in Latvia and Finland in January, and Germany at the top of February.
“I had a rough start but was able to pull through,” mentioned Thrasher. “I compete to be the very best version of myself, learn to adapt and get a little better every day.”
Montana State racer and SSWSC alum Grey Barbier certified for the 2026 FIS Junior World Championships. The Junior World Championships will happen Feb. 25-March 9 in Lillehammer, Norway. Barbier earned one in every of six junior males’s spots nationally and positioned second within the junior 10K traditional at the trials.
Two youthful skiers additionally had sturdy showings.
Bode Rhodes was victorious within the U16 B race within the mass begin occasion. The duo of Rhodes and Sawyer Landers positioned third and fourth, within the U16 10K traditional.
The SSWSC cross-country workforce will subsequent compete at the Soldier Hollow Super Junior National Qualifier on Jan. 23–24. It is the most important junior cross-country ski race within the United States and serves as each a Western Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association collegiate race and a junior nationwide qualifier for all Western divisions.