Joe Curran won a pulsating sprint finish to the Arctic Winter Games 10-kilometre freestyle race in Alaska on Tuesday, becoming Team NT’s first cross-country skiing champion at this level for 16 years.
On an exhausting course in the shadow of the mountains that line the Mat-Su Valley, Curran hung with a breakaway pack of five skiers that gradually became four before rounding the final corner into the home straight.
By that point, Curran had surged forward, carrying himself to victory by 1.17 seconds over Alaska’s Dylan Autrey.
The top four skiers in his U18 male event were separated by less than four seconds in a race that took Curran 27 and a half minutes to complete.
No NWT skier had won a gold ulu since Oliver Hodgins did so as a 13-year-old in 2008.
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“I spent the whole race strategizing about what I would do on the last little bit,” said Curran.
“At the end, I saw a gap and I went for it.”
Curran won a separate silver ulu in Monday’s opening day of racing. Earlier on Tuesday, prior to the race beginning, he had voiced the possibility that he could win.
Even so, two laps of Tuesday’s five-kilometre course meant having to stick with some of the circumpolar Arctic’s top young skiers through two gruelling uphill sectors – then outpace them in the final metres.
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“That’s probably the toughest race I’ve done. There’s a massive hill right there,” Curran said.
“It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done … but you’ve got to power through.”
Clair Littlefair, the ski team’s head coach and a veteran of multiple appearances as an athlete at Arctic Winter Games and Canada Games level, said she felt “instant tears” when she saw Curran crest the final hill in first place.
Littlefair has been working hard to learn more about waxing, the intricate process of choosing the right wax for the conditions and applying it to athletes’ skis before the start of the race. Making the right – or wrong – call on the kind of wax to apply can have significant consequences over a 10-kilometre ski.
“They are kind-of hard decisions,” she said. “And then to see the skis are pulling ahead and everything is coming together – you could see Joe’s improving, the skis pulled through, and it’s just, like, wow.”
“I want to be a good role model for everybody who’s younger and coming up,” said Curran, acknowledging the length of time that has passed since an NWT skier was last atop an Arctic Winter Games podium.
“I think a lot of people get a little bit discouraged,” he added, referring to the difficulty of winning in his sport at this level, “and it is possible, right? You can honestly go as far as you are willing to go.”
