This morning started very well, with news from the Czech Republic that Kikkan Randall (Anchorage, Alaska) finished second (by a toe!) in the women’s freestyle sprint at the Nordic World Ski Championships. Kikkan – who is a prolific and adept blogger as well as a hellaciously fast skier – thus earned the first-ever medal by an American woman in cross-country skiing, and the first medal by an American cross-country skier since 1982 (the same year she was born). In winning the silver, Kikkan completes a decisive comeback from a blood clot that nearly killed her last summer.
What’s more, Kikkan’s medal puts the United States near the top of the medal count at the Liberec Worlds – one medal behind Norway, which literally invented modern skiing, and ahead of countries like Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Russia where many, many citizens ski at a very high level and where governments and companies rush to sponsor racers. By comparison, Kikkan’s biggest sponsor (besides the U.S. Ski Team) is her hometown Subway restaurant chain!
But years of hard work by the athletes and coaches are paying off at Liberec, and in a big way. As a longtime fan of U.S. nordic skiing (and someone who’s sent them a couple donations), I couldn’t be happier – not least because the championships calendar still includes a number of events in which Americans could conceivably medal.
(Photo from Universal Sports, where you can watch videos of all of the Nordic World Ski Championship races – including Kikkan’s silver.)