U.S. names 21 skiers for 2026/27, with Ogden, Schumacher and Schoonmaker on the A Team
U.S. Ski & Snowboard has named 21 athletes to its 2026/27 cross-country team, the squad that will carry the American program into the first season after Jessie Diggins’ retirement. The federation says all of them qualified under its published selection criteria and have accepted their nominations.
The U.S. comes off what the federation calls the most successful Olympic Winter Games in its cross-country history: three athletes won three medals in Milano Cortina, two silver and one bronze.
The A Team: three men
- Ben Ogden, two-time Olympic silver medallist, described by the federation as the most decorated American man in cross-country history
- Gus Schumacher, Olympic silver medallist, who finished 7th in the 2025/26 Overall World Cup
- JC Schoonmaker, two-time Olympian
No woman is on the A Team this season.
The B Team
Women: Julia Kern, Kendall Kramer, Sophia Laukli, Novie McCabe, Sammy Smith and Ava Thurston. Kern, a two-time World Championships medallist, leads the group. Thurston moves up from the Development Team.
Men: John Steel Hagenbuch, Zak Ketterson, Zanden McMullen and Jack Young. Young’s career best is 4th in the Davos sprint.
Kramer, McCabe, McMullen, Ketterson, Laukli and Young have all finished in the top ten in World Cup races.
The Development Team
Women: Haley Brewster, Neve Gerard and Sydney Palmer-Leger. Men: Corbin Carpenter, Tabor Greenberg, Zach Jayne, Murphy Kimball and Jack Leveque.
Gerard, Carpenter and Leveque are new to the national team. All three raced for the U.S. at the 2026 World Junior and U23 Championships. Leveque, born in 2009, is the youngest on the roster. He finished 10th at the 2026 World Juniors, and eight of the 21 team members are from Alaska.
A reshaped staff
Matt Whitcomb is head coach and Chris Grover program director. New this season are World Cup coach Ville Oksanen, development coach Lizzie Larkins and three new World Cup service technicians: Nick Brown, Esben Tøllefsen and Simen Finjord.
“We are very excited to start the new Olympic cycle with some proven veterans, some exciting new talent and a revitalized coaching and service team,” Grover said in the federation’s announcement. He said the athletes are targeting the 2027 World Championships in Falun and the World Junior and U23 Championships in Otepää.
What it means for the World Cup
The men are the U.S. team’s centre of gravity now. All three A Team skiers are men. Schumacher finished 7th overall last season, in a top ten where seven places went to Norwegians. With two Olympic medallists on the A Team, the American men are one of the few teams that can challenge Norway’s depth from outside.
The women’s team is in transition. With Diggins retired, and with Rosie Brennan having said in April that she would no longer race World Cups, the U.S. women start the season without two of their most experienced skiers. Laukli, McCabe and Kramer have World Cup top-ten results and Kern has two World Championships medals, but none of them is on the A Team.
The season starts in Ruka (FIN) on 27 November.