SOHO hosts XC US Nationals where Rosie Brennan tops a podium

Park City's 2-time cross country Olympian Rosie Brennan skid on to the podium in Finland on Saturday. Pictured here in 2021. Photo: Tom Horrocks/U.S. Ski & Snowboard.

MIDWAY, Utah — Between Sunday and Friday, hundreds of athletes competed in the US Ski and Snowboard’s Cross Country Skiing United States National Championships at the Soldier Hollow Nordic Center (SOHO), a venue of the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Games.

A fraction of the varying categories of entities represented included Harvard, New Mexico, Jackson Hole, Michigan Tech, The Utah Nordic Alliance (TUNA), Mexico, Sun Valley, Park City Ski and Snowboard, GMVS High School in Vermont, St. Scholastica College in Minnesota, the University of Denver, Chinese Taipei, and the US Paralympic Team. 

Sprint distances were contested in the second half of the week. In the long-distance races, PyeongChang 2018 Olympian Rosie Brennan, who graduated from Park City High School, won the Women’s Free 20 km Mass Start event by a whopping 1.20.6 as compared to the gap between second and third place which was only 1.9 seconds.

Brennan races for Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center (APU). Just one of the multiple teams from Alaska, an APU athlete placed second to Brennan’s win while a woman from Craftsbury Green Racing Project in Vermont placed third.

APU also swept the podium in the Men’s Free 30 km Mass Start event.

Two University of Utah students, Walker Hall and Brian Bushey, finished first and third, respectively, in the Men’s Free 10 km Mass Start event. An athlete representing Dartmouth Ski Team took second.

Most of the teams lodged at the Homestead Resort and the Zermatt Resort both in Midway.