Five women Olympians will join us on our virtual Red Bench to discuss how they helped pave the way for today’s medal-winning women Nordic Olympians on Thursday, March 31st at 7:00 as part of our Writer's on the Red Bench series.
Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall made history when they won gold in the team sprint at the 2018 Winter Games, winning the first Olympic medal for U.S. women cross country skiers. But there was also history behind this win—the story of 51 other U.S. women who had tried to win medals in cross country skiing. Although they had come up short, they laid tracks, so to speak, for Diggins’s and Randall’s eventual success. A new book, “Trail to Gold: The Journey of 53 Women Skiers” brings the stories of these women to light. With great pictures, it is a comprehensive history of U.S. women’s cross country ski racing and also could be used as a primer for anyone trying to achieve similar results in cross country skiing—or any sport.
The book derived from a team-building exercise begun in 2013 by Matt Whitcomb, the U.S. women’s coach at the time and now the program’s head coach. He suggested to the women team members that they interview the female Olympians who had come before them. He thought their stories would both inform and inspire the current team.
After many of these women reunited in 2019, the team-building project became a book. The volume is more than just a series of Olympic bios—although those do exist, at the back of the book. The women’s stories are woven into chapters that capture their voices.
In our Trail to Gold Red Bench presentation, five of the Olympians featured in the book will talk about their years skiing at the highest level and how the book “Trail to Gold" came together.
One of our panelists, Trina Hosmer recalls the story of skiing with the UVM men’s team, which her husband helped coach, because, of course, there was no women’s team in the mid-1960s. Trina made the first world championship team in 1970 and remembered sharing a housing block with the Soviet team. She is a 1972 Olympian. Trina founded the New England Women’s XC Ski Day, runs a weekly Masters ski program in Stowe, and has won countless medals at World Master’s Championships.
Panelist and Olympian Sue (Long) Wemyss spearheaded the committee that created “Trail to Gold”. Sue switched from alpine racing to cross country skiing while attending Middlebury College landing a spot on the World Cup team. She raced all four events at the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984 and continued racing internationally for two more years. Sue became a ski coach, working with many different age groups. She’s spent the last 21 years teaching skiing at Great Glen Trails in Pinkham Notch, NH.
Olympian Nancy Fiddler will be joining us on the panel. She began her Nordic career at Bates College in 1976 with no prior experience and went on to win the 1986 USSA Championships before racing for the U.S. Ski Team in 1987 when she was 30 years old. Nancy competed in the 1988 and 1992 Olympic games and in the '87, ’89, ’91, ’93 World Cup races.
Leslie Thompson Hall will be zooming in from Washington’s Methow Valley for this event. Leslie grew up in Stowe and began focusing on Nordic skiing at age 13 when Bill Koch won his silver medal in 1976 at the Innsbruck Olympic Winter Games. She attended Stratton Mountain School and Dartmouth College. She competed on 5 World Championship teams from 1987 to 1995 and three Olympic teams ('88, '92, 94).
Two-time Olympian, Laura Wilson Todd was raised in Montpelier and attended Burke Mountain Academy. While there, she switched from alpine ski racing to cross-country skiing while recovering from an injury and began her first season winning junior national titles. At UVM she was a four-time first-team All-American and the first skier, male or female, ever to win four NCAA individual championships. In 1992, she was a finalist for the NCAA Women of the Year Award. After UVM she went on to win five U.S. senior national titles and represented the United States at the 1994 and 1998 Olympic Winter Games, competing in all five events at the 1998 Games. In 1999, Sports Illustrated selected Wilson 18th in its list of the Top 50 Vermont Athletes of the 20th Century.
The evening’s moderator Peggy Shinn is a senior contributor to TeamUSA.org and has covered seven Olympic Games. An award-winning writer, she has contributed to just about every North American ski magazine that’s been published in the last 25 years. Her second book, World Class: The Making of the U.S. Women’s Cross-Country Ski Team (2018) delved into how the current U.S. women’s cross-country ski team began finishing on the podium and is a look at what it can take to build an effective team. She lives in Rutland with her husband and daughter (when she’s home from college) and a full quiver of skis.
This series is sponsored by:
rk Miles
AJ’s Ski & Sports, Schoeller, Sisler Builders, and VT Ski + Ride.
This event is supported by:
Trapp Family Lodge
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