Eight cross-country skiers from Alaska are going to the 2026 Olympics in Italy next month. U.S. Ski and Snowboard announced the team Thursday morning.
Alaskans make up one half of the 16-skier U.S. cross-country ski team. All eight of the athletes ski with Alaska Pacific University’s team in Anchorage. APU coach Erik Flora said it’s unusual for so many cross-country skiers on Team USA to come from one state, and one club. He said APU is one of the biggest, strongest ski clubs in the country.
Flora said the team has been steadily improving over the last decade. This year, he said, it’s very likely that Alaskans will bring home some medals for the United States.
Gus Schumacher, Hunter Wonders, Zanden McMullen and JC Schoonmaker are skiing for the U.S. men’s team.
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Rosie Brennan, Kendall Kramer, Novie McCabe and Hailey Swirbul are skiing for the U.S. women’s team.
It’s Gus Schumacher’s second Olympics. He said the skiers themselves already knew who’d made it since the criteria is pretty clear, but he’s glad the news is out.
“Fun to share with everyone, officially,” he said. “Nice to tell people and just being sure about it.”
He’s feeling good, he said, because he thinks this year he and his teammates have a real chance to help Team USA bring home a men’s cross-country medal. The only other time the U.S. men’s team medaled at the Olympics was 50 years ago, in 1976. Earlier Friday, Schumacher earned a third-place podium result in a World Cup relay sprint race with teammate Ben Ogden in Switzerland.
“It’s exciting to be feeling good, and have a big opportunity to do something that hasn’t been done in a long time,” he said. “And yeah, it’s exciting. It’s a little daunting, but just got to go there and experience it and realize how lucky we are to be able to do this.”
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It’s 37-year-old Rosie Brennan’s third Olympics. But this year is different for her. Brennan has been struggling with what she calls “mysterious health issues” for over a year.
Now, she’ll have what is likely her last chance to compete in the Olympics, she said. It’s bittersweet, since she had hoped to contend for medals in Cortina but she said that’s not her reality anymore. Now, she’d just love to have a race where she feels like herself again.
“It’s been a long time since I felt like the Rosie I’m accustomed to racing with for the last 15 years,” she said.
There were times she wasn’t sure she was even going to make it to this year’s Olympics.
Now that she’s going, she’s thankful her teammates are with her, helping her stay focused.
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“They’re the people that have seen everything that I’ve gone through and have been there to help me through it,” she said. “So that just gives you such a sense of comfort on the road, and especially like in big events like the Olympics.”
Hailey Swirbul competes in the 2025 Alaska SuperTour in Anchorage’s Kincaid Park on Dec. 6, 2025.
Hailey Swirbul didn’t have a straight path to the Olympics this year either. She quit skiing in 2023 because she wanted to experience life outside a stressful ski racing career – she was burned out.
Then, this summer, she started coaching for APU. She was skiing and feeling strong and thinking about the limited time she has to do the things she loves. The idea of competing at the Olympics bumped around in her head for a few months until she eventually decided: Let’s do it, take the risk, go for something big.
But she said she’s thinking about the Olympics differently than she did when she competed four years ago in Beijing. Taking a couple years away from competitive racing has really given her a perspective about what’s important in life.
“Sports are important but what really matters is the people that you know are there through the ups and downs,” she said.
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She’s talking about her teammates, and friends and family, but also her role coaching at APU.
When the news came out that she’d made the Olympic team, a big group of her middle school skiers made a video for her, cheering and chanting her name. She said it made her heart swell when she got it.
They inspire her to work harder, she said. The real inspiration in an endurance sport like cross-country skiing comes from seeing someone’s grit, she said. It comes from watching athletes as they dig deep to push through the suffering.
“Those kids are watching and they notice and they pay attention,” she said. “And I think it’s so important to try to lead by example with your effort.”
This year, she said, her goal at the Olympics is to race in a way that inspires the kids back home.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
A new home under construction in Potter Valley in Anchorage. (Loren Holmes / ADN)
This June, two very different offers reach Alaska families, and both amount to the same thing: $10,000. The difference is everything.
Bill Walker, running for governor, would hand every eligible Alaskan a one-time $10,000 check and then end the Permanent Fund dividend for good. Ask one question: Where does his $10,000 come from?
It comes from the Permanent Fund, the people’s own money and the savings Alaskans built for their children. Walker would spend that endowment once to pay Alaskans to give up the yearly dividend forever.
Think about what that does. It cancels the annual check that gives a family a reason to keep an Alaska address and replaces it with a single payout. You hand people their own savings, call it a gift and cut the tie that held them here in the same motion. It is the oldest mistake in governing money: raid what you have saved to buy a moment’s applause and call the spending generosity.
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A plan that spends the people’s savings to send the people away is not bold. It is foolish.
Now consider the other $10,000. Through Alaska Housing Finance Corp., the state offers families up to $10,000 to build a new, energy-efficient home. AHFC raids nothing. It earns its own way. Over the years, it has returned more than $2 billion to the state treasury, and it spends some of that income the way any good business does: to win a customer.
Here, the customer is an Alaskan who wants to own a home, put down roots and stay.
That is the oldest sound move in business: Invest a little of what you earn to bring in someone who stays. The homeowner remains, the community gains a family and the corporation keeps earning. The money spent comes back. A plan that puts earnings to work to bring people home is not charity. It is clever.
Same amount. Opposite source. Opposite wisdom. One spends savings; the other spends earnings. One pays Alaskans to leave; the other pays them to stay. One empties the state; the other fills it.
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This Homeownership Month, the choice is the size of a single check, and the whole question is where the check comes from and what it asks of you. Ten thousand dollars of your own fund, to wave you goodbye. Or $10,000, earned and reinvested, to help you stay and build.
Evan Swensen is the publisher of Publication Consultants in Anchorage and the author of “What’s the Money For: A Permanent Fund Mortgage Proposal.”
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