Cross Country Bronze for Kramer, Koch at Youth Olympic Games

Kendall Kramer and Will Koch led Team USA, each skiing to Youth Olympic Winter Games bronze medals in their respective classic events Tuesday in Lausanne, Switzerland. 

"Winning a medal feels absolutely amazing, particularly after getting fourth place earlier in the week," Will said. "My dad was out on the hardest part of the course cheering me on and giving me splits, so I knew for the entire race that I would need to fight for each second if I wanted to get onto the podium."

In the women’s 5k classic, Kendall skied to the biggest accomplishment of her young career, finishing 20-seconds off the gold-medal time set by Sweden’s Maerta Rosenberg (14:15), and 12 seconds back from the silver-medal time of Siri Wigger (14:28). Sydney Palmer-Leger just missed the medals by a few seconds, finishing fourth. Nina Seemann was 35th.

In the 10k classic men’s race, Koch took the bronze with a time of 27 minutes, 29 seconds. Russia’s Lliya Tregubov won the gold with a time of 26:40, and Elias Keck grabbed the silver medal with a time of 27:25. Brian Bushey was 13th, and Kai Mittelsteadt was 48th.

"I was in a podium position for nearly the entire race,"  Will said. "But then, with one kilometer left, I moved into fourth place. In the last couple of minutes, I skied harder than I have ever skied in my life and secured the bronze by three seconds."

Up next, the Youth Olympic Winter Games wrap up for cross country, ski jumping and nordic combined with a mixed team Nordic event on Wednesday.

RESULTS
Women’s 5k classic
Men’s 10k classic