Ben Ogden

Age: 25
Home: Landgrove and Richmond
Profession: Nordic Ski Racer
Family: Mother, Andrea; Sisters, Katharine and Charlotte
Primary Sport: Nordic Skiing

By Phyl Newbeck

Ben Ogden has come a long way since his days skiing out of a converted horse barn at the Wild Wings Nordic Skiing Center in Peru, VT. This month, the Landgrove native will be in Cortina for his second stint as a USA Olympian. The two-time NCAA Nordic Champion finished 12th in the freestyle sprint race in the 2022 Olympics which was the best individual sprint finish for a US skier. The following year, his 8th place overall finish in the FIS World Cup was the highest by an American man and his 13th place finish in the Tour de Ski was the highest by any American. This January, he and teammate Gus Schumacher became the first American duo to podium in a World Cup team sprint with a third-place result.

Ben loves his home state but during the winter, he doesn’t get to spend much time here. He left for Europe on Nov. 17 and won’t return home until mid-to-late March. Ben feels good about his season at this point, noting that there is so much racing on the World Cup circuit that there are bound to be ups and downs. “I feel really good about the way I’ve been sprinting,” he said, “but my distance racing isn’t there yet.”

Life on the road can be difficult, but it helps to travel with teammates. Ben said the season is divided into chunks where there is a race every weekend for three to four weeks, followed by short breaks. The team stays at hotels at the race locations, going straight from one venue to the next. Teammates may split up during the off periods to spend time with friends or family and do some travelling but there is no time to go home.

Ben was initially coached by his father, John, a beloved figure in the Vermont cross-country ski community who passed away in 2023 after a battle with cancer. Ben has been on skis for almost his entire life, and he continues to love both the sport and the competition but for different reasons. “What I love about cross-country is the peacefulness,” he said. “Sometimes, you’re in the woods and it’s snowing and pretty and also quiet because the snow dampens the ambient noise. There is no moment in life that I consider as peaceful as cross-country skiing on a nice winter day. That’s something that continues to amaze me about what I get to do.”  

Ben loves the solo nature of the sport but also appreciates the fact that it’s so easily enjoyed with friends and family. He admits that he also loves the technical element, adding that technique is a lifetime pursuit. “There is always something to work on,” he said, “because it keeps you in the growth mindset.” He described a constant learning curve of working on various aspects of the sport including poling, striding, and skating.

“Awesome” is how Ben describes the competitive aspect of skiing. “I love the sensation of toeing the starting line and believing you can do it,” he said. Ben says he has liked virtually all the people he has met on the local, national, and international levels. “Everyone is like-minded and humble, hardworking, and often very funny,” he said. “From the athletes to the coaches and wax technicians, the people from just about every country have been fantastic.”

Ben’s favorite discipline is the classic sprint because of all the variables involved. He described it as very tactical, fast, and furious. He started his racing career as a sprinter, but he has been trying to improve at distance racing and has seen incremental increases in his speed over the years. One of the races Ben is most proud of was a 10K skate race he did last year in France where he ended up on the podium. “I was very close to winning,” he said, “and that validated a lot of work and effort that I’ve put into my pursuit of distance racing.”

Although he doesn’t get to ski much in Vermont these days, Ben still considers his first ski area – Wild Wings in Peru – to be his favorite. “There are a lot of memories there from racing as a little kid,” he said, remembering a snowbank he and his friends would jump out of. “Whenever I go back there it reminds me of why I do this,” he said. Ben also praised von Trapp Family Lodge & Resort, which was the home course for the Catamounts during his days on the University of Vermont Ski Team.

Outside the Green Mountain State, Ben likes skiing at the Sjusjøen Ski Center in Norway which he said has 150K of groomed trails. He enjoys the low light Norway gets in the winter that makes everything seem very peaceful. He has also become fond of the trails in Seefeld, Austria which he visited for the first time this winter.

Ben recognizes that the cross-country skiing hasn’t been a big competitive sport in the US, noting that alpine skiing and ice hockey are much bigger draws. However, he said that in the last 10 years, that has been changing. “I hear about clubs across the country with 100+ elementary school kids,” he said. “I think we’ll see some results from that.” 

Ben added that another problem in America is the lack of World Cup races which means US born skiers rarely get any kind of home field advantage. He said the results for Americans in the 2024 World Cup races held in Minneapolis, MN (the first US World Cup event in over 20 years) and even Cranmore, Canada were better than their European results. His teammate Gus Schumacher, who he said might sometimes break the top 20 in European races, had a first-place finish in Minnesota. “The more races we can have in the US, the better we’ll do,” he said, adding that he was looking forward to racing at the Cross-Country World Cup Finals in Lake Placid on March 20-22.

One of the things Ben likes about cross-country skiing is the opportunity to cross-train in the off-season. “It’s a real blessing,” he said. Ben tends to spend a lot of time on roller skis but said that since it isn’t a perfect simulation, he has to make sure he doesn’t do it too much which might result in bad habits. Instead, he supplements that activity with running, weight training, road, gravel, and mountain biking. “There’s so much diversity, so nothing is particularly repetitive,” he said. He also trains with the SMS T2 Elite Team at Stratton Mountain School.

Ben said most World Cup caliber athletes train between 800 and 1,000 hours a year and their heart rate is elevated most of that time. However, a significant amount of training is in Zone 1 where your heart rate is 50-60% of your max – roughly 100-130 beats a minute or lower. “That way,” he said, “you can get a group of friends and go and get training done together.”

During his time in Vermont, Ben has been working on a project which has nothing to do with skiing – rebuilding a 1973 Series III Land Rover. He’s been working on it for four years and thinks he might be done in the spring. “The purpose of the project is to give me a little bit of an outlet to plug my brain into something other than skiing or racing,” he said. “When it’s done it will be an incredible moment and I’m looking forward to the inaugural drive.”

Ben is already planning what his next project will be. He has enjoyed visiting the saunas that are ubiquitous in Scandinavia and would like to build his own in Richmond. “I was recognizing this summer that so many of the things I do with my friends are so aggro,” he said. “When you can’t run or bike you sit around thinking about what to do so this would be a good way to do something with friends that isn’t intense.”

Thanks to his travels, Ben has picked up hobbies from other cultures. He enjoys using a Japanese skill toy called Kendama which consists of a ball, a rope, three cups, and a spike. “It’s a good way to fidget without exerting too much energy,” he said noting that it is perfect for airports and for calming pre-race jitters. 

Ben was on the 2022 Olympic team, but this year feels different. He describes his first experience as being a “low-pressure Olympian.” His goal had been to qualify for the team but not much was expected of him. “It didn’t even feel like a ski race until a few minutes after I started,” he said of the experience. “It felt like something out of another person’s life.”

Ben believes his 2022 experience has prepared him for the Olympic environment but not necessarily the nitty gritty of each race. This year, he has loftier ambitions but recognizes how hard it is to have everything come together for one race. “You need a good stretch of races to qualify,” he said, “but then you need to perform on one day for one race.” He expects that his best races will be the classic sprint and the team skate sprint. He has been trying to visualize the events and hone in on the details. “That’s been both stressful and fun this summer, fall, and winter,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about the specifics of my technique and my abilities and where I need to improve on a specific course.” 

Ben has been racing for a long time. In 2018, he and his teammates became the first US Juniors to medal at a World Juniors Championship event when they won the silver in the relay race. The following year, he joined the US Cross-Country team. Maybe this will be the year that all that training pays off, and he’ll be the first American male skier since Bill Koch to stand on an Olympic podium. 

You can usually find Phyl Newbeck outdoors, cycling, swimming, and kayaking in the warmer months and skiing and skating in the cooler ones. She moved to Jericho in 1995 and although still technically a flatlander, she stacks a mean woodpile. Phyl (vtphyl72@gmail.com) has written for a variety of local and regional newspapers and magazines and is the author of Virginia Hasn’t Always Been for Lovers: Interracial Marriage Bans and the Case of Richard and Mildred Loving.