Ford Sayre Ski Club’s Junior Nordic Team has set a record for its program, with nine athletes qualifying for the 2026 Cross Country Junior National Championships in Cable, Wis.
Olin Walker (Lebanon), Donovan Van Citters (Hanover), Joey Sluka (Reading, Vt.), Annie Hanna (Lebanon), Ollie Hanna (Lebanon), Lucille Dent (Hanover), Lea Perreard (Hanover), Lila Marchetti (Norwich), and Merritt Goodell (Norwich/Putney, Vt.) qualified for the championships, which began on Monday and runs through Saturday.
In addition to the nine current athletes, two alums from Woodstock, James Underwood and Quinn Uva, also qualified for the championships.
The championships feature “10 divisional teams from across the country,” where each division can “bring up to 25 male and 25 female athletes spread across the U16, and U18/20 age groups,” per its website.
Local athletes made it to the championships by competing in a series of races over four weekends, hosted by the New England Nordic Ski Association.
The aforementioned athletes beat out a range of 60 to over 100 other competitors — based on age and gender — to earn their way to Cable, Wis.
“This is a really big deal,” said Izzy Seay, the assistant coach of Ford Sayre’s Junior Nordic team. “I think for all the kids that qualified, this was their A goal for the season.”
She later added, “New England is such a strong region — making the team is a massive accomplishment itself.”
That’s not the only good news out of Ford Sayre. Last week, three skiers with ties to the program, Annie Hanna, Underwood, and Caroline Chor, a Hanover High freshman, competed at the FIS (International Ski and Snowboard Federation) Junior and Under 23 World Ski Championships in Lillehammer, Norway.
Athletes qualified for the event through placements at the United States Nationals event held in Lake Placid, N.Y., this winter, which featured hundreds of competitors.
“To come out, top eight or top six in a field that’s the biggest it has ever been and the highest quality it has been is pretty cool,” said Hilary McNamee, the head coach of Ford Sayre’s Nordic program. “They’ve been putting in the work, and now they’re reaping the benefits of it.”
Hanna and Underwood represented the United States in cross-country skiing, while Chor represented Singapore in jumping and Nordic Combined. She was the first athlete to compete for Singapore in those disciplines at these championships.
Key results from the event, which had a field of about 70 women and 100 men, included Hanna finishing as the top American (18th) in the sprint qualifying rounds. She would advance to the elimination rounds and finish 27th. Underwood finished 57th in sprints, while Chor finished 21st in the women’s Gunderson Normal Hill Nordic Combined event.