The likes of a younger Jesse Diggins or Rosie Brennan – two of the best U.S. cross country skiers currently - will be in Wasatch County next week competing for top honors in both sprint and distance races on both classical and skate skis.
More than 430 athletes between 14 and 20 years old will compete. They will travel from the 10 junior ski regions across the country. Soldier Hollow Special Events Manager Josh Korn says 60 athletes from the Intermountain region, including Utah, have qualified based on their season results. A third of them are local.
“The Intermountain division that's comprised of Utah, Idaho and Montana, and we have 19 local athletes from Team Soldier Hollow, Park City Ski & Snowboard, and the Utah Nordic Alliance based out of Salt Lake,” Korn said. “So, 19 of the 60 Intermountain division athletes are coming right from right here.”
There will be four days of racing over six days. The longest race is a 15k mass-start freestyle race on Friday, March 14.
“It's a super hard course,” he said. “It's a brand-new course that we actually just homologated right here for our super qualifier that we chatted about a couple months ago, and it's going to be great. I think these kids are going to be extremely challenged, and we're going to get high marks on this one.”
There will also be a mixed-team relay race on Saturday, March 15, with two girls and two boys each doing a single lap around the 3.3k course.
He said the course is in exceptional shape, given the challenging weather conditions.
“We're pretty blessed up here at Soldier Hollow with a really robust snow making system,” he said. “So, even on a lean snow year like we've had this year, we've got really great snow. The entire depth of the racecourse is somewhere between 30 to 45 inches of compressed base. So, the snow isn't going anywhere for quite a long time. This will be actually some of the best conditions that the kids are probably going to have skied almost all year, right here in March in Utah.”
The opening ceremony at Soldier Hollow is Saturday, March 8, at 5 p.m.
All of the races are free to watch and the full schedule can be found online.
