Last week, the Stifel U.S. Ski Team announced the 2024 recipients of the Stifel Awards, named after the team’s title sponsor for the 2023-2024 season.
Awardees for the “Athlete of the Year” and “Best Comeback of the Year,” among other categories, were nominated and voted on by team members and staff; with Stifel’s backing, those categories were awarded with a monetary prize attached. The 2023-24 season is the first time each discipline represented within the Stifel U.S. Ski Team nominated and awarded within its discipline, rather than the previous format in which awardees came from a pool of nominees across divisions, per US Ski and Snowboard’s press release.
STIFEL U.S. CROSS COUNTRY SKI TEAM AWARD WINNERS
- Athlete of the Year: Jessie Diggins, Gus Schumacher
- Rookie of the Year: Sammy Smith/Haley Brewster (tie), John Steel Hagenbuch
- Most Improved: Sophia Laukli, Zanden McMullen
- Best Comeback: Rosie Brennan, Gus Schumacher
- Staff Member of the Year: Kristen Bourne
With the Stifel awards all handed out, we’re taking the opportunity here to take a brief look back on the individual accomplishments of the awardees accounting for one of the most successful seasons in American skiing history.
Athletes of the Year: Jessie Diggins and Gus Schumacher
Jessie Diggins – The headline accomplishment of Diggins’ 2023-24 season was her second career World Cup Overall Crystal Globe. By winning, she built on her legacy as one of two Americans to ever capture the Overall classification of the World Cup (Bill Koch won the first official classification in 1981-82). Diggins became the first American skier to win the World Cup Overall multiple times.
In the most simple terms, Jessie Diggins was the best skier in the world this season. From a dominant early season win in a 10 k skate in Gallivare through to her victory in the season’s final race(20 k in Falun), Diggins was a factor in every race she started. Beyond just distance wins, she also skied to sprint podiums, and won her second-career Tour de Ski. For all of her accomplishments on the World Cup, Diggins realized a career accomplishment in where the World Cup was held, as well, leading a successful effort to bring a World Cup to her home state of Minnesota. Just one week later she won her first American Birkebeiner (and if you’re from the Midwest, like Diggins, you know that’s all that counts!).
“Athlete of the Year” designation doesn’t come without world-class results, but it doesn’t come exclusively because of them either. Diggins 2023-24 ski season was defined as much for her racing as for her vulnerability regarding her motivation to race. Last Fall, Diggins detailed her struggle to manage disordered eating, doing so in part to spell out the priorities she had going into the World Cup season. She was going to ski race because she loved to ski race. She was going to celebrate that she was capable of doing so by taking each day, and each race, as they came. As the World Cup season progressed—as Diggins’ results started to string together into a Crystal Globe-winning campaign—she let that approach to ski racing shine through. The result was a World Cup champion who wasn’t afraid to acknowledge that champions are human too; an empowering notion in and of itself.
Gus Schumacher – The biggest moment of Gus Schumacher’s season coincided with arguably the biggest moment of the season for the sport, when he won his first career World Cup in Minneapolis. That, of course, had a whole lot to do with Schumacher’s “Athlete of the Year Award” from the Stifel U.S. Ski Team. The 24 year old also scored other milestones on his way to the historic win in Minneapolis, including qualifying for his first World Cup Sprint Final during Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski. Overall, Schumacher made leaps forward in his consistency in World Cup racing, reflected in his Overall finish: Schumacher skied to 15th on the final World Cup points list, his highest career finish, and a radical improvement from 62nd the previous season. He was a consistent top-30 presence in every distance race, with the potential to put together an extraordinary result on any given day. As it turned out, the extraordinary result would be a milestone for more than just Schumacher, with his Minneapolis win being the first distance win for a male World Cup skier since Bill Koch in 1984.
Schumacher’s win in Minneapolis also brought a golden conclusion to a neat narrative arc for which his teammates awarded him “Comeback of the Year.” Four years ago, he became the first American man to win a World Junior Championship distance race, placing first in the 10 k Skate race at the 2020 Championships in Oberwiesenthal, Germany. He made the jump to primarily racing World Cups over the next couple of seasons, and was open about his struggles in doing so. Schumacher was learning though; training, resting, coping with the mental pressure of racing, working alongside a generation of talented US Skiers. The 2023-24 season was a sign of steady progress, until it was an exultant one, taking his first World Cup win in front of a home crowd, and reiterating why all the mistakes were worth working through.
Rookie of the Year
Haley Brewster – There’s always a vague hope that we’ll be able to pinpoint the moment an athlete’s potential coalesces into a result that is truly special. For Haley Brewster, that moment came during the final lap of the US National Championship 20 k in Solider Hollow, Utah in January. There, the University of Vermont Junior made a decisive up-tick in the pace that separated her from the lead pack, and won her first National Championship. A whole new world of possibility flowed from that moment, and as it would turn out, it would be the possibility for Brewster to be one of the best U23 skiers in the world. A month on from Soldier Hollow, Brewster was skiing alongside her countrywomen Novie McCabe in a lead pack of five skiers at the World U23 Ski Championship 20 k in Planica, Slovenia when again, she made a decisive up-tick in pace to help separate the pack, and skied to a World Championship silver medal. In doing so, Brewster became the second American woman to ever to medal in a distance race at U23 World Championships, after Liz Stephen did so in 2008. She also became the fifth American woman to medal outright, a list that includes Stephen, Laura Valaas, Julia Kern, and Jessie Diggins.
Her first World Cup starts followed in Minneapolis, where Brewster made her distance debut on the senior circuit with 25th place in the 10 k skate. Two NCAA runners-up finishes back in March wound down the season for Brewster. The time and place circumstances of those Championships, held at Steamboat Springs right down the road from her hometown of Eagle, Colorado, helped ground the whirlwind that had seen her ski to the very top of the world. As the calendar turns towards 2024-25, the possibilities seem boundless.
Sammy Smith – Smith’s season started at the SuperTour in Anchorage, Alaska, where she promptly skied to victory in three of four of the Kincaid Park Opener’s races. From there, the Sun Valley junior spent the rest of the winter on the World stage. Her first World Cup top 30 distance performances soon followed at the Tour de Ski, and she became a staple on the list of qualifiers in sprint races the rest of the season. The only interim Smith took from the World Cup was to compete at the Junior World Ski Championships in Planica, Slovenia, where she became the first American woman to earn a Junior Worlds medal in a sprint race, taking silver, and the first individual American woman medalist since Hailey Swirbul in 2018. The full run-down of Smith’s season should come with the obligatory note that she accomplished all she accomplished at just nineteen years old, which only serves to make her season stand out even more. For a hint on what drove her teammates to bestow her “Rookie of the Year” honors though, one should look at her performance in the World Juniors Mixed Team Relay. After a strong opening leg from Team USA’s Zach Jayne, Smith started out her leg from eight place. On classic skis and in a driving rain, Smith skied to the fastest time in her leg, moving Team USA from eighth to third place and fighting for a podium. Team USA eventually finished fourth, but there was a clear winner within the race. For grit. For drive. For competitiveness, no one could beat Sammy Smith.
John Steel Hagenbuch – In the quarterfinal of the U23 World Championship sprint race in which he would eventually earn a bronze medal, Hagenbuch waited until the field hit the hardest part of the course. Then, he hit the hardest part harder than anyone else could. “That’s the move,” he said afterwards. The poise, confidence, and ability to make his move when the toughest part of a race came defined Hagenbuch throughout the 2023-24 ski season. When things got frigid in December at the World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden, Hagenbuch skied to his first career top 15 result. When falling snow started to slow down a crowded 20 k mass start US Nationals field, Hagenbuch took the cue to make a decisive move towards his first National Championship. When the time splits were tight at the NCAA Championship 7.5 k, Hagenbuch split the field to win. The Dartmouth Junior built a consistency in his approach to racing, while crossing as many venues and circuits as a young skier could this winter. With at least one more year at Dartmouth, Hagenbuch is unlikely to stop hopping from the NCAA to the World Cup and other circuits too. It’ll be a tough balance, but then again, when it comes to pushing hard in the tough spots, “that’s the move” for Hagenbuch.
Most Improved
Zanden McMullen – It was a winter where it was hard to keep up with the pace that members of the US Ski Team were reaching milestones on the World Cup. Ben Ogden and JC Schoonmaker skied to their first World Cup podiums. Sophia Laukli and Gus Schumacher to their first World Cup wins. Jessie Diggins and Rosie Brennan were in contention for a win nearly every weekend. The success was a sea change from a generation or two ago when top thirty World Cup results from American skiers would grab headlines. All of which is to say, that Zanden McMullen’s season was an accomplishment in the old-fashioned, stick-it-out variety, exhibiting the persistence that it takes to get results on the way to the headline grabbing finishes his older teammates skied to this winter. McMullen made starts at nearly every World Cup weekend this season, with his results stacking up consistently across discipline and distance. Skate sprint? Classic 20 k? McMullen could be counted on to turn in within the top twenty-five in either. In the Men’s World Cup, he was a crucial piece of US Skiing’s added depth, and at just 22 years old, there is a lot of directions for the versatile Alaskan to go as he looks to the World Cup again next season.
Sophia Laukli – The award of most improved for Laukli comes as a testament to her creativity. Laukli has been open with FasterSkier over the last year on how much has changed, and been changed intentionally, in her skiing career. After graduation from the University of Utah last spring, she moved to Norway and joined Team Aker-Daehlie, becoming the first American athlete on the innovative Norwegian club team. She also made the decision to pursue a budding running career, and subsequently won the Golden Trail Series, which included wins in some of the world’s most prestigious ultra-running events. When Laukli began the running season last year, she was considered a wild card within the Golden Trail Series. And as she put together her winning campaign, it led to another wild card prospect. Running, moving across the world, graduating – how would it all affect her skiing? A 14th place in Ruka during the last race of World Cup opening weekend in November seemed to be an affirmative. Seemed to help. Laukli had her most consistent season on the World Cup to date. In the World Cup distance classification, she jumped to 15th place this season from a previous career high of 35th in 2021-2022. In a year where Jessie Diggins and Rosie Brennan were expectant top ten finishers in every race, Laukli was the reliable next name up, and never very far behind at that. That consistency would be enough to celebrate, but with Laukli, it also came punctuated, when she skied to her first World Cup victory at the Alpe Cermis Hill Climb. Laukli now gets the chance to do it all again, as she begins to fine-tune the mix and match of her running and skiing careers in 2024-25.
Best Comeback
Rosie Brennan – The definitive quote on Rosie Brennan belongs to her former teammate, Sadie Maubet Bjornsen, after Brennan’s near-miss on a podium finish at last season’s World Championships 30 k in Planica. “Ninety-nine percent of the time you’re fourth,” commented Maubet Bjornsen. “That’s just the reality of life. And the way you keep coming back from that is what is really inspiring. It’s such a theme of Rosie’s story: Knock me down, I’ll bend. But I don’t break.”
In the 2023-24 World Cup season opened in Ruka with a 10 k Classic race, and Brennan skied to her first career classic podium. Then Brennan’s results began trending the other way; throughout the 2023-24 season, she skied with a confidence that she could be on the podium in any race. She was on the podium in many—six to be exact—and among those, the real testament to Brennan’s accomplishments was that they were shared across distances and disciplines. She opened with a classic distance second place, went on the next day to take third in a skate distance race, and finished the season with a third place in a classic sprint. Well into a distinguished career, Brennan showed new and brilliant range that hammered home the principle of persistence at the heart of her skiing story.
Staff Member of the Year
Kristen Bourne – The current US Ski Team D Team coach got her first World Cup experience as an Women’s Sports Foundation Tara VanDerveer Fellow during the 2021-2022 season (when she was serving as the Assistant Coach for the College of St. Scholastica Ski Team). “[Having a moment where] my plane ticket [was] in hand and I was like, ‘whoa, I’m really gonna go to the World Cup and wax skis,’” she said. Two seasons on, Bourne has become a staple on the circuit for the Team USA, taking on the wholistic and varied role of coach, logistician, technician and tester that she first experienced then, and becoming a key component in bringing the world-class support required for skiers to get world-class results. Bourne’s journey in coaching has also left a unique imprint on US Skiing. Her initial fellowship on the World Cup circuit—an immersive two-week experience as part of the Team USA’s World Cup Staff—became the model for the The National Nordic Foundation (NNF)’s Trail to Gold Coaching Program, that saw eight more women coaches join the US World Cup staff for stints throughout the season. Team staff members, including Head Coach Matt Whitcomb, have been quick to point to the benefits of the Trail to Gold Program in not just providing another staff member week-to-week on the World Cup, but in bringing a more diverse set of coaching experiences throughout the season.
**Correction: An earlier version of this article asserted that Haley Brewster was the first American women to medal in a U23 World Championships distance race. In fact, Liz Stephen also medaled in 2008. The article has been updated to reflect this fact.**
Ben Theyerl
Ben Theyerl was born into a family now three-generations into nordic ski racing in the US. He grew up skiing for Chippewa Valley Nordic in his native Eau Claire, Wisconsin, before spending four years racing for Colby College in Maine. He currently mixes writing and skiing while based out of Crested Butte, CO, where he coaches the best group of high schoolers one could hope to find.
