Canada look to play catch-up as World Cup returns to North America

The FIS Cross-Country Skiing World Cup 2023/24 is back – and it’s heading to North America for the first time since 2019. “My expectations are very high,” FIS race director Michal Lamplot said. “I know the people are very excited with the ticket sales and number of entries very high, so we’re expecting two fantastic weekends.

“This is the World Cup, so it’s important to be present in different continents and difference regions, not just Europe and Scandinavia. It’s also important to connect with the cross-country skiing community and both these venues have very strong cross-country communities.”

The first stop is the Canmore Nordic Centre in Alberta, which will host a 10km Freestyle, 20km Classic and two Sprints across four days of racing from Friday 9 February. It is certainly a world-class facility but do Canada have the athletes to match?

Not since 2019 when, on home snow in his last event before retirement, Alex Harvey (CAN) claimed the last of his eight victories – among 30 top-three finishes – has a Canadian stood on an individual podium.

“I got to ski the first years of my career with Alex and that was such an incredible experience for me seeing all the fans in Quebec City,” Antoine Cyr, another Quebec native, said.

At only 25, he is now one of the senior members of the Canada team.

“It’s crazy to think that I am one of the oldest,” Cyr said. “I don’t know how I feel about being somebody the crowd are looking up to. I don’t have the same profile as somebody like Alex, but I’ll try to lead by example.”

Since claiming a career-high fourth place in in the 15km Classic Mass Start in Val di Fiemme, Italy last season, Cyr has had a smattering of top-10 finishes, while in the women’s field, Liliane Gagnon (CAN), who only turned 21 in December, showed great promise with ninth place in the 20km Freestyle Mass Start in Goms, Switzerland in January.

“We’ve got one of the youngest teams out there – and a lot of talent coming through in the men’s and women’s,” Cyr said. “I think strength is in numbers so we’ve been trying to get as many young athletes in the team as possible and tried to replicate what the men’s team had from around 2010 to 2016, when we were super successful. We’ve also been taking notes from before that time when the women’s team was successful with the likes of [2002 Olympic gold medallist] Beckie Scott and Sara Renner [who won Team Sprint silver with Scott in 2006]."

Diggins homecoming “amazing” amid strong season for USA

One skier who won’t be lacking support is Jessie Diggins (USA). “Half of my family are Canadian,” she explained, “so everyone is coming here and it’s going to be really, really cool. On the other hand, of course you want to perform well when it’s the first time you get to race in front of your grandparents since you were 19 years old. That’s a big deal.”

The 32-year-old is certainly a big deal in cross-country skiing right now, claiming the Tour de Ski title and five victories to put her at the top of the overall World Cup standings with nine of 15 events completed this season.

Most important of all, though, the first US stop on the FIS World Cup calendar for two decades will take place in Diggins’ hometown of Minneapolis.

“It’s really impressive to see all the work and effort than is going in to making these courses ready,” she said. “And they’re really beautiful so I just want to say thanks to all the organisers. Having had a little peek behind the scenes for the last six years of what it’s taken to get Minneapolis on the World Cup [calendar], it’s no small task. A lot of people have sacrificed a lot to make this happen."

While Canada are gradually trying to make their way back to the top of the sport, US cross-country skiing seems to be in a position of strength already with Diggins being joined on the podium this season by fellow veteran Rosie Brennan (USA) and 23-year-old Sophia Laukli (USA).

On the men’s side, meanwhile, 23-year-olds JC Schoonmaker and Ben Ogden have both secured their first career podiums this season.

“That was a dream come true – for a lot of reasons,” Ogden said of his sprint bronze in Toblach, Italy in December. “One, because you always want to get on the podium, but also because my mom and sisters happened to be there. They watched me in Canada in 2019 but that was my World Cup debut so it wasn’t really like World Cup racing – that was the equivalent of going on a ride at the fair.”

After Toblach, Ogden and some of his teammates were struck down with Covid, forcing him to miss the rest of the Tour de Ski. “Everybody who asked me about it afterwards wanted to hear that I was out partying but unfortunately that wasn’t the case – it’s just part of life,” he said. “We’re young and not the most responsible when it comes to sickness. It’s just a good job we didn’t take down the queen [Diggins] – that would have been a huge problem!”

When asked where else in the US FIS might consider staging a World Cup event, Ogden jokes that it’s “only a matter of time before the world discovers the gems of southern Vermont”, referring to his home patch.

But with 43 nations having been represented in the World Cup this season, it’s a legitimate question: where next?

“We are committed to regularly come to Canada and USA with the FIS World Cup because the commitment to cross-country skiing is high,” admitted race director Lamplot.

But while all FIS member nations are allowed to host a World Cup event, sustainable travel and planning considerations – like the fact that the season starts in conjunction with the start of the Northern Hemisphere winter, in November – mean that taking the tour to places like Australia and New Zealand is “currently not on our list”.

Watch this space.