World Cup in the Neighborhood

On a stunning Saturday morning we left the house after breakfast and made our way down Theo Wirth Parkway to the World Cup cross-country ski races being held on the golf course at the bottom of the hill. They've been making snow and grooming trails for months, of course, but the arrival of six inches of new snow was welcome, to say the least. A large TV screen had been set up in front of the chalet and we could hear the distinctive tone of Senator Klobuchar's voice as we approached. By the time we got there her face had been replaced on the screen with that of Governor Walz, who was welcoming fans to the first World Cup races to be held on American soil in more than twenty years. 

We joined the stream of attendees who were continuing west to the trailhead. It was a colorful scene.

The sprints were set to begin in a few minutes, and we clamored up a hill past some handsome oaks to a vantage point above the finish line and the grandstand full of VIPs and full-blooded skiing fans on the other side. 

Hilary and I have skied these same trails many times, like lots of other people, but it was fun to wander the hills watching these remarkable athletes move so swiftly across them, even from a distance. But the greater pleasure was to find ourselves in the midst of this joyous and colorful scene, with flags from all parts of the world dangling in the breeze nearby.

All of the skiers looked the same, for the most part, though quite a few of the women had pony-tails. It was easy to tell when Jessie Diggins went by, because the crown noise suddenly increased. Diggins was later quoted as saying: "That was surreal. It was already the best atmosphere we've had all season, and that was an hour before the qualifier."

After a while we crossed an open vale to another vantage point closer to the track where we could see the skiers better. As they passed I found it hard to tell if they were competing or merely getting familiar with the track. 

Twenty minutes later we moved on to another hilltop from which point we could watch the skiers descend the final hill before the finish line.

Then we walked home. 

I didn't hear a single remark from fans in the crowd in Norwegian, Swedish, or German, but a few interesting remarks later appeared online.

"A little snow came the day that we arrived," Andrew Musgrave of Great Britain said. "It's beautiful now; so different from anywhere else we race. 'Minnesota Nice' has definitely proven true so far."

"I had big emotions before the start," said Italian skier Federico Pellegrino. "I almost cried with all these people knowing my name."

Diggins finished fourth in the sprint final behind Scandinavian sprint specialists Jonna Sundving, Linn Svann, and Kristine Skistad. 

Today they held the long-distance races. We  watched them on TV. Alaskan Gus Schumacher pulled off a surprising win in the men's division, four seconds ahead of the Norwegian favorite, Harold Ostberg Amundsen. 

Incredible.