The James Clinton Show

Over Christmas break, D and I traveled to Lake Tahoe to check in on JC Schoonmaker. The word on the street was that he was at Tahoe, and being the creepers that we are, we wanted to find out if it was true. We went skiing at Alpine Meadows to get a feel for the snow conditions in the area. (They were excellent.) The Schoonmaker family home’s back yard is, in essence, the Sherwood Express chairlift at Alpine Meadows ski area. So it seemed a natural thing for us to stop in and say Hi as we were burning laps on the Sherwood Express one afternoon.  I asked the lifties which house was JC’s but they said, “No! Mr. Schoonmaker is in training right now. He is very focused and he mustn’t be disturbed!” We didn’t want to make the locals upset so we didn't push it.

This is JC's back yard, as viewed from the Scott Chairlift, my favorite lift at Alpine Meadows.

It seems JC's preparations for US Nationals this past week have paid off, because he kicked off the race series by winning the qualification round by a couple seconds over his old sparring partner, Gus Schumacher. When I saw the result in the qualifying round, I was reminded of an interview I heard on the radio with Gus last winter after he returned home from winning the World Junior Championships relay. When the interviewer described Gus as "...the fastest skier in the country in his age group", he called that statement "a stretch", credited "luck" for some of his wins, and said there were plenty of junior skiers in Anchorage who could beat him on any given day. A few weeks after that interview, JC provisionally beat Gus in the Junior National sprint race, but was later relegated for taking one too many skating steps coming into the finish lanes. 

After seeing his dominant morning qualifying time in Houghton last week, I was looking forward to seeing if JC could perhaps win the afternoon sprint national championship!  But alas, as his coach Marine told me later that day, he "got stuck" in the quarterfinal, failed to advance to the semifinals, and his day was over just like that.

But apparently, someone must have told the US Ski Team that our JC is a fast sprinter, because they requested the pleasure of his company in Dresden, Germany this coming weekend for a World Cup sprint race!  So there was an empty seat on the plane yesterday when the rest of the team flew west, back home to Anchorage. JC flew east, instead, to Dresden.  So I guess you're either going to want to get yourself to Dresden and buy a ticket for 26 euros and see JC racing live and in person, or you're going to want to sign up for whatever subscription TV service shows this kind of thing so you don't miss out!

JC Schoonmaker won't be the only Seawolf racing in Dresden. His UAA teammate from last year, Casey Wright, will be racing for Australia.  Sadie Bjornsen won't be there; I think she's currently ranked 7th overall in the World Cup standings (if I understand the FIS website correctly), but she and her brother Erik Bjornsen are skipping this particular World Cup weekend. Max Olex, formerly a UAF Nanook, will be racing for Germany. 

But it's not all about sprinting.  Later in the week, JC finished second in the junior mass-start classic race.  The combination of the week's results earned JC a spot on the US World Junior Championships team.  He'll be joining a team that will be returning to the World Junior Championships as the reigning relay World Champions. They were the most successful American team in World Junior Championship history. Most of last year's team are still juniors, and they have said they want to go back and be even more successful than they were last year. So anyway, it's fair to say JC's in a good spot right now.