Hometown: Anchorage, Alaska
Age: 30
Team: Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center – Elite Team
Club: APUNSC
Major Results:
- 2008 Tour of Anchorage, 1st (50km skate )
- 2006 US National XC Championships, 1st (10km skate)
- 2005 US National XC Championships, 1st (10km skate)
- 2006 US XC Olympian Torino, Italy
- 2005, 2007 Nordic Worlds US XC Team member
James was born and raised in Anchorage, AK in 1978 where he started skiing as a freshman at Dimond High School. After high school he spent a year racing for the University of Nevada followed by a year at Western State College before eventually moving back to Anchorage where he graduated from Alaska Pacific University in 2004.
While racing collegiately he never qualified for NCAA’s and didn’t win a race at any level until he was 25 years old. After graduating from APU he started racing for Team Rossignol where he won two US National XC Championships and garnered six US Championship medals. He also represented the USA at the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy and at the 2005 and 2007 Nordic World Championships in Obertsdorff, Germany and Sapporo, Japan respectively.
The 2008-09 season brings some big changes for Southam, his first year fully back with the APU program under Erik Flora – a switch to Atomic skis, and a new baby that James and his wife Anne are expecting this fall.