An Unsuspecting Champion and
Other Stories from the Distance Nationals

Factory Team Shines; mid-race research showed Lillefjell eligible for U.S. podium

Stephen

The 2008 U.S. distance championships at Fairbanks held a fair share of drama. The eventual U.S. marathon champ, Frode Lillefjell, for example, skied half the race without knowing he could compete for the U.S. title.

Meanwhile, second place pursuit finisher Peter Eliassen almost missed the start and lost track of his lap count.

In the end, two skiers dominated, with Ivan Babikov winning both men’s events and Liz Stephen taking both women’s titles.

Babikov has a lot to celebrate this year. As a Russian citizen, he traveled to the U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Michigan, and finished first in both the 10k freestyle and 15k classic. His Canadian citizenship, a long time coming, arrived just in time for the Canadian nationals, where he again took first in both distance races.

At the U.S. distance championships, he again came away a double winner, earning first in both the 30km pursuit and the 50k classic.

Ivan Babikov

Now the resident of Canmore, Alberta, and citizen of Canada will end his successful tour with the Factory Team and join the Canadian national team next season.

The 30k pursuit involves skiing 15k classic style and 15k freestyle. Kris Freeman of the U.S. Ski Team put the hammer down on the fourth and final classic lap, dropping everyone in a pack of about ten skiers except Babikov. The two made the classic-to-skate transition with no others around.

Freeman, who had a frustrating year interrupted by illnesses, faded. Norwegian Peter Eliassen, German (and Alaska-Fairbanks) skier Marius Korthauer and the U.S. Ski Team’s Leif Zimmerman skied together, along with Kazakhstan’s Andre Golovoko. Eliassen dropped Korthauer with two laps to go and the race ended with Babikov, Eliassen and Korthauer finishing 1-2-3.

Zimmerman

Zimmerman took the U.S. title, finishing fourth overall. Other podium winners for the U.S. were Mike Sinnott in second and Torin Koos, who took second at the Canadian championships in the 50k, in third.Eliassen nearly missed the mass start, then lost count of how many freestyle laps he'd skied, but still took runner-up, 41 seconds behind Babikov. Korthauer barely hung on to the lead pack during the classical-technique 15 kilometers, but  found a second wind after switching to skate skis.   

In the women’s 15k pursuit, Liz Stephen, a Westminster College student and member of the U.S. Ski Team, led wire-to-wire, breaking away from a pack of four-to-five skiers after first classic lap. Runner-up Morgan Arritola hung with Stephen for the two classic laps (3.75k each lap), but Stephen began pulling away over the skating leg to win decisively by 50.2 seconds.

Taz Mannix was third, after being dropped in the early portion of the classic. Kassie Rice and Nicole DeYong rounded out the top five. Kristina Owen, Lindsay Williams, Laura Valaas, Kristina Trygstad-Saari and Lindsey Dehlin placed 6th-10th.

The final race of the season was the classic marathon – 50k for the men and 30k for the women. Babikov and Stephen both repeated as champions.

In the men’s race, Zach Violett took the early lead, skiing with a pack that included APU coach Frode Lillefjell, Babikov, Golovko, Korthauer and Lars Flora, who would later retire from the race. After about 12k, the field broke into a series of packs, with Babikov, Golovko and Lillefjell skiing more or less together, then Violett and Korthauer, then Kris Freeman with junior Noah Hoffman. Following were a group of sprinters, including Torin Koos, Andy Newell and Colin Rodgers.

Later in the race, Freeman made a pit-stop to scrape some ice and wax off his skis and dropped back to the sprinters' group.

For Freeman, a two-time Olympian and generally the top American distance skier, the race culminated a frustrating season that had started with great promise and a fifth place in a World Cup race in Finland. Freeman considered not skiing in Fairbanks, after a recent illness,  then wasn't helped on Sunday by slow skis.

"We were using klister as a binder,” he said. “It was just incredibly slow. When you're in a pack of four guys and lose ten seconds going down the hill and you have their draft, something's wrong."

He finished eighth in the race.

In the end it was Factory Team skiers Babikov and Golovko finishing one-two, with Lillefjell, at age 39, taking third and winning the U.S. championship. Some mid-race research by John Estle, chief of competition for the organizing committee, uncovered that Lillefjell, who has a green card and is considered a U.S. resident alien, was eligible for the championship.

Torin Koos took second for the U.S. and Andy Newell, another sprint specialist with the U.S.Ski Team, won the U.S. bronze medal and took fifth overall.

For the women, Liz Stephen skied away from Morgan Arritola in the second half of the 30k for the victory and the U.S. championship. Stephen and Arritola skied with a pack that included Sigrid Aas, Nicole DeYong, Kassie Rice and Kristina Strandberg for the first, short (5.5k) loop.

On the first long (8k) loop, Stephen and Arritola separated themselves from that group, and looked stronger and quicker, especially on the long steep climbs up from the bottom of the course. On the second long loop, Stephen started to pull away from Arritola, coming through the lap lane for the final time with an 18-second lead which expanded to 1:31 by the end of the race. Strandberg soloed in for third place, one minute behind Arritola and 30 seconds up on the next skier.

"I feel like it's been a pretty good season and it's always nice to end things on a good note. I think it's a great way to end the season. I'm in a really good place right now for sure.," Stephen said. "These really were some of my favorite events so to be able to come out here and do this well is really special and it means a lot to me."

The best race of the day was for the final position on the US Championships podium, between Kristina Owen who had started conservatively but came on strong during the middle of the race, and Kassie Rice, who skied steady.

Owen was 30 seconds back of the leaders after 5.5k, but fought her way through the pack into fourth place, pushing the pace in all types of terrain. She put a pretty good cushion between herself and Rice with about 5kto go.

As they came through the stadium the final time before the finish, with 1.6k to ski, Owen was still pushing, but beginning to struggle, and Rice was charging away from pre-race favorite Sigrid Aas. When they came back in site 115m from the finish line, it was Rice in fourth overall (third American), having overtaken Owen less than 150m from the line. Though a disappointment, it was certainly a breakthrough race for Owen.

Contributing to this report: Matias Saari, John Estle and Dean Woodbeck