Boise native wins U.S. national ski title. She started training just 10 days earlier
Coming off her freshman season with the Stanford women’s soccer team, Boise native Sammy Smith entered the U.S. Cross Country Ski Championships last weekend with limited goals.
She’d spent only 10 days on skis before toeing the line for the opening race in Anchorage, Alaska. So she put herself at 60% heading into the national championship series, looking to get a few solid times in and build a base for the rest of the season.
Instead, she returned home with a national championship.
The 19-year-old captured her first senior-level national title Saturday, finishing third in the women’s 1.3-kilometer classic sprint. She finished behind two international competitors at 3 minutes, 30.46 seconds, making her the U.S. champion in the race.
“I didn’t really have any expectations or even a rough idea of where I would be,” Smith told the Idaho Statesman in a phone interview Wednesday after returning to Stanford. “I was obviously on the soccer field so much this fall and didn’t really get in any ski-specific training.”
“... A national title wasn’t something I was thinking about.”
Yet that’s exactly what Smith captured in just her second race of the season.
The two-sport, international-level athlete said she “got my butt kicked” in her first race, finishing seventh among Americans (12th overall) in the 10-kilometer individual start on Thursday. But she quickly found her footing Saturday, winning her sprint classic quarterfinal and semifinal groups.
Ever the competitor, Smith felt she could have performed better in the finals, though. She said she slipped several times at the starting line in the finals, putting herself in a hole she spent the race trying to dig herself out of.
“I was actually super excited, but a little bummed, too,” Smith said. “I thought I could have maybe skied a little bit smarter in the final.
“… I got pretty behind initially, and then I kind of had to bounce around between tracks. I definitely did not take a very efficient line around the course, because I was trying to get around people and make a move.”
The 2024 Boise High grad also added a fifth-place finish (sixth overall) in the 20k mass start Sunday. Not bad for someone who turned their eyes to the mountains a few weeks ago.
Smith appeared in 13 games as a reserve last fall as Stanford’s soccer team mounted a run to the national semifinals, stretching its season all the way to Dec. 8. Smith said she fully dedicated herself to the soccer team during the season, only squeezing in some extra runs and strength training to prepare for the ski season.
She didn’t touch her skis until Stanford’s title run ended, leaving her well behind her competition on the winter tour.
“I definitely did not go into the week feeling as prepared as I would have liked to, or even comparable to any other skiers,” Smith said. “But that’s OK. I did what I could getting ready for it, and it ended up going pretty well.”
The national title added to Smith’s budding two-sport career. She spent parts of the past two seasons on the World Cup ski tour, competing against the best in the sport internationally. She won a silver medal at the Junior World Championships last February — tied for the best-ever finish by an American in her event. And the U.S. Ski team named her to its A squad this season, making her one of the youngest skiers in American history on the team.
But she’s also an international-level soccer talent, suiting up for the U.S. national team at the U-17 World Cup and earning a bronze medal at the 2023 Pan American Games as part of a U-19 squad competing against senior national teams.
Smith said she’s not sure what the rest of her ski season will look like yet. She plans to compete in the Junior World Championships Feb. 3-9 in Italy, and is waiting to hear whether she’s earned any World Cup starts.
But for now, she’s back at Stanford and training with its soccer team. Smith said she’ll keep juggling both sports for as long as she can. Her ultimate dream remains both skiing in the Winter Olympics — possibly as early as 2026 — and competing for the U.S. women’s soccer team in the Summer Olympics.
“I don’t know that that is super realistic,” Smith admits. “But that’s the dream, anyway. So I want to do whatever I can this year to put myself in a position where I can be considered for it.”
This story was originally published January 9, 2025 at 11:50 AM.
