March 22, 2016 (Craftsbury, Vermont) – Jessie Diggins of Stratton SMST2 grabbed another win at the 2016 USSA SuperTour Finals in Craftsbury, takin the women’s 1.5km Classic Sprint, while Erik Bjornsen of APU Nordic Ski Center skied from 6th place in the qualifications to take his first win of the season in the men’s race.

Diggins bested fellow US Ski Team members Ida Sargeant, racing at home for the Craftsbury Green Racing Project and Rosie Brennan of APU, while on the men’s side Bjornsen led a podium sweep for APU, as the Hanneman brothers, Reese and Logan, were second and third respectively.

The women’s qualifier saw a dominant Diggins win by a seven-second margin over Sargent, yet she was running almost neck-and-neck with the Craftsbury native coming into the home straightaway in the final, where she managed to pull away for a narrow but decisive win. “The final today was hard, and it felt good to dig deep,” said the US Ski Team leader. It was her second straight win in as many days after winning the women’s 10km skate race yesterday by over thirty seconds.

“It was a good opportunity to work on making confident wax calls in a less stressful environment,” said the Minnesota-native who won her first individual World Cup earlier this year, “The atmosphere here is definitely more relaxed than at a World Cup, with less pressure, which makes it just a lot of fun.”

On the men’s side, Logan Hanneman won the qualification by 0.71 seconds ahead of his brother Reese, and grabbed the $150 awarded to the top qualifier. “I felt much better than yesterday, there was some spark,” said the Fairbanks, Alaska native who finished up his mechanical engineering degree at the University of Alaska Fairbanks last December. “Mostly it came from warming up and seeing the snow was rock hard. I really like those conditions.” The younger Hanneman, who recently returned from the U23 Worlds and Europa Cup finals in Europe, chose to race the course on classic wax, while Reese double poled.

The brothers also took different tactics in the race preparation, as Logan raced yesterday’s 13km skate while Reese opted to sit out. “I had a really bad race cough after Canmore at Ski Tour Canada for over a week and at this point in the season I was so tired that I didn’t feel like it was a good move,” said the second-place sprint CL finisher, “A 15-kilometer skate is not strategically going to be a race I am going to gain on people in the overall standings.”

Bjornsen qualified in sixth at 2.9 seconds behind, but said he focused on taking it step by step. “Yesterday’s finish [skate 13km race in which Bjornsen finished 15th] was a little disappointing,” said the US Ski Team member, who notched a couple of top-30 sprint finishes at the recent Ski Tour Canada, “This is my first top 5 of the season. It was really nice to ski in the finals. It was a goal to make it through to the quarters and have some energy for the last heats. I felt like my strategy was working. I’m still mentally pretty motivated, but maybe the body is a little flat.”

In the final round, Petter Reistad of the University of Colorado led going into the long descent with a quick start on skate skis, but was not able to break the draft of the classic skiers who followed. Eric Packer slid out and crashed on a downhill corner and was not able to regain contact, but Bjornsen and the elder Hanneman were right behind the leader coming into the climbing portion. “I was able to keep close enough to Petter [Reistad] to stay in his draft and turn up the heat on the uphill and try to drop everybody,” said Reese Hanneman of his race strategy, “It basically worked but Erik ended up going faster than me.”

On the women’s side, the final saw a clear separation between the top three World Cup regulars, Diggins, Sargent and Brennan, and the rest of the field. Brennan said it was her first sprint heat since Nationals in 2015, over twelve months ago. “I was really excited,” she said, “I tend to do better in the head-to-head racing and I haven’t done that in a while.” Fourth place went to Annie Hart of Stratton, and fifth went to the birthday girl Sophie Caldwell, also racing for Stratton.

Racing resumes on Thursday with the 4x5km mixed club relay.

Qualifier here
Results here.
Brackets here.

Women’s Sprint

Men’s Sprint