Team Sprint Day in Cogne; Three Advance to Finals with Schumacher, Schoonmaker Tenth
The Stifel U.S. Ski Team has once again arrived in a new country, this time for three more races before the 2025 FIS Ski World Championships, which kick off at the end of February. Today was the team sprint, where two athletes teamed up together. Gus Schumacher and JC Schoonmaker take home the top result of the day, crossing the line together in tenth.
The athletes were ready to get things going with the sun shining bright and Italian fans packing into the sprint course atmosphere. With the team sprint format, the top 15 teams advance to the team sprint finals in a qualification round, similar to a standard sprint race. Though you have a teammate, you qualify individually and to advance, your combined times must be within the top 15.
The women kicked things off. For the USA team, Montana's Bridger Ski Foundation athletes Erin Bianco and Emma Albrecht qualified 14th to clinch a spot in the final. Bianco and Albrecht had their first World Cup debuts last season and are excited to be back racing at the sport's highest level.
For Albrecht, this weekend in Cogne is a chance to feel more comfortable on the World Cup. “I hope to leave with the confidence that I have what it takes to be competitive at the World Cup,” she said before the races. For Bianco, it’s all about gaining more World Cup experience. “I’m excited to hopefully treat this race as any other and stick to what I know how to do,” said Bianco. “It’s important to know you don’t have to do anything special and just ski your race.”
In the women’s team sprint classic final, the pack was together for the first couple of laps, then it began to break up lightly, with USA trailing off the back. The pace from the leaders was fast - Norway, Switzerland and Sweden each taking turns with the lead, with the Finnish team not letting go of that podium potential.
With quick bumps, steep and short uphills and long straightaways, this course favored those with a strong double pole and fast transitions. In the finish, the podium ultimately went to Finland in first, Sweden in second, and Germany in third. USA finished 15th.
Now, the men's turn at the course. Two USA teams were on the start list, with USA One represented by Gus Schumacher and JC Schoonmaker and Team Two by Zak Ketterson and Luke Jager. In the qualifier, Schumacher showed his speed - qualifying in fourth place. All men were in the top 30, putting up fast enough times to qualify USA teams one and two to the team sprint finals.
In the first lap of six, Jager put the foot on the pedal and went for it. Into the first exchange, Schumacher and Jager gave their teammates—Schoonmaker to Schumacher and Ketterson to Jager—a perfect chance at maintaining their position in the front pack.
Going into today’s race, Schumacher focused on feeling good and finding the speed he knew he had. For Schoonmaker, his focus was to “race my best and walk away feeling like I executed the races well.”
Into the race's second half, the Americans were falling back into the tight pack, with Norway, Finland and France expanding the gap ever so slightly. The pace began to accelerate, but the Americans could not hold on. At the end of the race, the Norwegians took home their fourth team sprint victory of the 2024-25 season, outsprinting France, who took second and Sweden in third.
"It was fun to get to do a team event and team up with one of my best friends and a great guy, Zak!" said Jager. "I'm proud of and very thankful for all the hard work our team did to give us really good skis today, too."
"I am really proud of how Luke and I asserted ourselves and skied where we felt we belong," said Ketterson. "We had a really unfortunate crash that took us out of the fight, but prior to that I felt like it was some of the best skiing Luke or myself had ever done. Taking a lot of positives away from the experience into the next days."
The USA’s first team, including Schumacher and Schoonmaker, was 10th, and the USA team two, with Jager and Ketterson, was 14th.
Tomorrow, the team is back to racing in another classic sprint. Watch live and on-demand on skiandsnowboard.live with heats taking off at 7:00 a.m. ET.
