Three Spokane Nordic skiers to compete in junior nationals

Three Spokane Nordic ski racers will compete with the top skiers in the country on a familiar set of trails next week.

Spokane Nordic Ski Association Race Team members Aaron Pooler, Becca Wade and Annika Burns will be part of the Pacific Northwest team at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Cross Country Junior National Championships in Utah.

The races, which begin Monday and run through Saturday, are being held at the Soldier Hollow Nordic Center, a world-class cross-country skiing center southeast of Salt Lake City that was built for the 2002 Winter Olympics.

All three Spokane skiers have been there before. Known to them as SoHo, they were there in January for races that drew ski teams from across the country.

That gives them a confidence boost.

“Definitely feel good about it,” Pooler said. “Because I know the course, know the venue, know the people I’m racing against. Just already having raced on that course and knowing it’s the exact same course, I can envision it in my head.”

Pooler, 15, is going to the nationals for the second consecutive season. Wade, 16, is also going back for the second time – in 2023, she represented the Pacific Northwest Team in Alaska. It’s the first time Burns, 14, has qualified.

All three have been on skis since they were young. They went through Spokane Nordic’s kids skiing programs when they were younger and then joined the race team.

Making it to junior nationals is the culmination of a long season full of evening practices at Mount Spokane and weekends spent traveling to races all over the region.

“I’m just proud of them,” said Jason Halloran, the Spokane Nordic Race Team coach. “This is a hard sport. It’s not a school sport, it’s not easy to show up for practice.

“Sometimes it’s junky weather and sometime’s it’s great weather. They have to be prepared with equipment and their bodies and their minds. I’m just proud they did that.”

Their spots were secured through their performance in four junior national qualifier races this winter, beginning in December in Bend, Oregon. They were in Utah in January. They competed in the Methow Valley next, followed by races at Mount Spokane in February.

Skiers compete in classic and skate races at sprint and distance lengths. After the Mount Spokane races, the 10 skiers who earned the most points in each age division were named to the Pacific Northwest region’s team. It includes skiers from Washington, Oregon and parts of Montana.

Pooler, a sophomore at Mead High School, finished the season the top skier in the men’s U16 age group for the region, beating out the second-place skier by one point.

He said he was overconfident early in the season, thinking he’d easily get back to nationals. He admits he laid off on the training, putting in less effort than he could have.

A little urging from Halloran helped him focus, though, and he started putting in more effort and focusing on refining his technique. After the January races in Utah, his mind was in the right spot.

“I just locked in,” Pooler said.

Wade, a junior at North Central High School, said the season started busy, and that it was challenging to balance cross country practices at school with making it up to Mount Spokane for ski practices.

“There were moments where it was hard to find motivation to be training,” Wade said. “Then you just get out there and it’s so worth it.”

Nationals weren’t really on her mind until near the end of the season, when she noticed that her season had gone well enough to put her in a position to qualify.

“Just through races and practices, I realized it was within reach,” Wade said.

She ramped up the effort. At the end of the season, she ranked sixth among women in the U18 age group in the Pacific Northwest.

Her experience in Alaska in 2023 was a big motivator. Being around her Pacific Northwest teammates was fun the first time around and she wanted to have that experience again.

“It’s such a memorable experience. It’s so worth it to go,” Wade said.

Burns, an eighth-grader at the Libby Center, was in her first full season as part of the race team this year.

She’ll be the second member of her family in as many weeks to compete at the top level of the sport. Her older sister, Bridget, skis for Michigan Tech and raced in the NCAA championships this past week.

The younger Burns raced against older skiers in some races last season, which gave her the confidence to make getting to nationals a goal for this season.

She said her first race was “interesting,” and showed she needed to work harder on a few things – like focusing on technique and working harder on intervals in practice.

The work paid off.

“On my next race, I improved and I was like, ‘Oh, this is nice,’ ” she said.

When they raced in Utah in January, she was among the top 30 skiers in her age group and advanced beyond the first round of the competition. The success kept coming. At the end of the season, she ranked fifth in the women’s U16 group in the Pacific Northwest region.

She’s excited for the races this week, and to get to know the other competitors from around the country. She’ll also be glad to be on familiar territory.

“I’m happy it’s a place I’ve been,” Burns said. “I know the course.”