Brushing off the rainy-day blues, APU’s Michael Earnhart wins SuperTour sprint

APU’s Michael Earnhart skis toward a first place finish. Cross-country ski racers competed in the freestyle sprint event as part of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard SuperTour on January 7, 2025. The SuperTour race was held in conjunction with the U.S Cross Country Ski Championship races, which concluded Sunday. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Michael Earnhart was not feeling it on Monday.

And who could blame him? Rain poured down on Anchorage as roads and sidewalks turned glossy and slick with ice — hardly ideal skiing weather.

But Earnhart, an APU elite team skier, found his groove by the time he took the starting line at Tuesday’s SuperTour sprint races.

Earnhart took the top spot on the podium on the 1.4K course with a time of 2 minutes, 51.9 seconds, edging out a tight group of racers in the six-skier final.

“I was hoping the race was going to be canceled,” Earnhart said. “I was feeling a little checked out yesterday. I think it showed today in the qualifier, I wasn’t quite in it yet. I kind of had to work into the day. But once we got into the heats, skiing next to people, then the competitive(ness) kind of came out again. All right, I’m racing.”

Skiers compete in a men’s semifinal race. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Earnhart said he would have been happy to reach the finals. After starting the season on the World Cup circuit, finishing a week of racing with his best performance was a major confidence boost.

“Getting (places) like 50s and 60s (in World Cup racing) doesn’t feel that good, so to come back here and having to win a race (was affirming),” he said. “OK, I still know how to race.”

The stadium at Kincaid Park was dotted with puddles as skiers, coaches and race officials delicately tiptoed over icy patches that just two days earlier were snowy for the final day of the U.S. Cross Country Ski Championships.

Racers in a men’s quarterfinal race pass a soggy portion of the stadium at Kincaid Park. (Marc Lester / ADN)

While no national champions were crowned, Tuesday’s races were part of the larger event and Monday’s off-day allowed race officials to prepare for the impending soaking.

“It’s nothing that is any different than a lot of these skiers have faced in their careers,” said Matt Pauli, the event’s chief of competition. “And I knew it was coming. That’s the cool thing about weather forecasting now. It’s a lot more accurate and I knew what was going to happen in regards to water in the stadium. We started realigning everything last night before we did any trail prep.”

That didn’t mean Pauli was thrilled with what he saw Tuesday morning leading up to the 10 a.m. start of the race.

“It was raining to beat hell and the wind was blowing hard,” he said. “You couldn’t see anything and you start looking at water (on the ground). My fear was because the ground was so hard, this was going to be solid ice, but the air temperature brought it up.”

Kristoffer Alm Karsrud of Northern Michigan University, left, APU’s Luke Jager kick up snow as the approach the finish line. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Pauli said the race jury met Tuesday morning and, with safety being the main determining factor, decided to race on Tuesday. Aside from moving the starting line to avoid a patch of sitting water, the sprint course ran just fine. Pauli said that had it been a longer course — or a classic race that necessitated tracks — it may have been a different story.

Montana State’s Kate Oldham climbs during a quarterfinal race. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Kate Oldham earned a national title on Thursday and added a podium finish on Tuesday. Like Pauli, she feared that after a day of rain, the freeze would make Kincaid Park a big sheet of ice.

“I don’t know how they kept it in such good shape but it was pretty amazing,” she said. “Gong Hill was definitely getting slushy, but I’ve done way worse at Junior Nationals. Whatever the race crew did was pretty amazing.”

Pulles, who finished her master’s degree at UAF in climate security, is headed back to her native Estonia on Wednesday for the first time in 18 months. She said she will continue to finish out the season with Team Birkie and may try to find a job in the U.S.

“I’m going to ski through the season and then decide,” she said. “You never know what happens.”

University of Utah’s Erica Laven starts her quarterfinal race. (Marc Lester / ADN)

APU’s Luke Jager pushes into the finish line of a semifinal race. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Northern Michigan’s Luke Fricker, left, and Carl Rune of University of Utah compete in the quarterfinals. (Marc Lester / ADN)