Sports

Kikkan, Inc.: America's favorite XC skier seizes her moment

Even before the torch is lit at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games, Kikkan Randall has accomplished what no other American woman has done: She is a gold medal favorite in an Olympic cross-country skiing event.

Nordic skiing is dominated by athletes from the Nordic nations, where the sport was invented. There are stars from Russia and numerous European nations. But for most of the history of World Cup and Olympic skiing, U.S. athletes have been also-rans, thrilled to crack the top 10 or even top 30. In most of the United States, warm-weather team sports rule, and cross-country skiing is an afterthought.

Only one U.S. skier -- the iconic Bill Koch, the Vermonter who brought the skate-ski discipline to international competition -- has ever won an Olympic medal in cross-country skiing. Koch took the silver in the 1976 Olympics and won five World Cup races in his career.

Now Randall is in Koch's rarified company. Though so far lacking an Olympic medal, Randall is the most decorated U.S. cross-country ever, with two consecutive World Cup season titles for the sprint disciplines, 10 total victories in World Cup races and podium finishes in past world championships, including a first place for a team sprint with colleague Jessie Diggins.

Her accomplishments make her a celebrity well beyond the tight U.S. cross-country skiing circles and well beyond Alaska, where pursuits on the fringes of American sport -- such as mushing, mountain running and cross-country skiing -- can attract passionate followings.

Randall just announced a sponsorship deal with L.L. Bean; a promotional video is already being aired by the clothing company. She stars in national commercials for Kashi, the cereal maker that that is another of her many corporate sponsors and has put her photo on its product boxes.

She recently started her second three-year term as an athlete representative, elected by her colleagues, to the International Federation of Skiing, where she negotiates and advocates on behalf of all cross-country competitors.

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Outside of Alaska and the Lower 48, people "definitely recognize" Randall, her mother, Anchorage attorney Deborah Randall, said in a recent interview. "She's like a rock star in Europe," Deborah said. Scandinavian television viewers are accustomed to hearing her name called out by excited sports announcers covering ski races.

Finnish newspaper readers learned about the origins of her unusual name -- a compromise between her Alpine-skiing-loving father's desire to name her after U.S. star Kiki Cutter and her mother's desire for the more traditional name of Megan. Norwegian television audiences saw her making a guest appearance on that country's version of the "Tonight Show".

The Polish government gave a nod to her sprint "superiority" in an official statement congratulating Justyna Kowalczyk for her victory in last year's Tour de Ski.

Alaskans are used to seeing Randall on TV, in public appearances and in our own sports events, such as the Mount Marathon race, which Randall won in 2011.

There are local commercials for Subway restaurants and Continental Motors. There are appearances at schools, where she often rides a unicycle, and promotions for kids' sports events. There are endorsements of the state's Healthy Futures program.

There is her high-profile work with Fast and Female, an organization founded by Canadian skier Chandra Crawford to encourage girls to participate in sports.

Now, with new sponsorships acquired and the run-up to the Sochi Olympics underway, Randall is starting to get star treatment even in the Lower 48. NBC, which will televise the Sochi Games, is promoting her as an athlete to watch. Access Hollywood quizzed her on her tastes in music and movies. Her workout routine was the subject of a Wall Street Journal feature.

Randall's parents say their daughter, the eldest of their children, has a personality well-suited to celebrity. She is an enthusiastic athlete who excelled at Alpine skiing and even dabbled in hockey and Alaska Native sports before turning to cross-country skiing, they said. She has a big smile, which plays well with audiences used to taciturn Scandinavian athletes. She has a willingness to be flashy and playful, as evidenced by the pink highlights in her hair, the striped socks she and her teammates wear during relays and the music videos they have made. And she is friendly with other teams, training with European athletes in the off season and socializing throughout the year.

"Everybody, I think, respects the competition," said her father, Ronn, who recently retired from a career with the Anchorage Department of Parks and Recreation. "But when the race is over, then they're best friends."

At European races, Randall's non-U.S. cheering section is loud and enthusiastic, said Erik Flora, director and head coach at the Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center, Randall's hometown ski club. The support she gets from European fans, who also cheer on other members of the improving U.S. team, is not just a matter of international goodwill, he notes. The more attention an American athlete brings to the sport of cross-country skiing, the more consumers and spectators there will be in the lucrative U.S. market, benefiting the whole cross-country industry, he said.

With his focus on distance skiing and endurance, Koch was the right personality to promote skiing in the 1980s, a boom period for running, Flora said. Randall's media savvy, he added -- including her fondness for social media -- makes her the right ambassador for cross-country skiing in 2014. "Kikkan is the perfect person at this time," Flora said.

Randall also has the good fortune to excel in a discipline, the skate-ski sprint, that is the most viewer-friendly of all cross-country ski events. Organizers have even staged stage urban sprint races, held in downtown districts of major cities like Milan, where snow is dumped on streets and spread through still-green parks and stylishly dressed office workers are able to watch the action.

In sprints, skiers race in multiple heats over short courses and have to jostle with each other for position in the front. "It has a roller derby aspect to it," Ronn said.

The characteristics that make sprint skiing exciting for spectators, however, also make it risky, even for top racers like Randall. Randall learned that the hard way in 2011, when she was the odds-on favorite to win the skate-sprint event at the World Championships held in Oslo. She was in top shape, getting intense media attention and competing in her best event in the "mecca of cross-country skiing," Ronn said. But in the quarterfinals, she tangled with a Swedish competitor's ski and fell.

Ronn and Deborah were there, and Norwegian race fans did not know they were Randall's parents. The Norwegians commiserated with them anyway, figuring they were spectators who were ordinary Americans, Ronn said.

"One said, "So sorry about your Kikkan,'" he said. "It meant a lot to me that they cared."

Contact Yereth Rosen at yereth(at)alaskadispatch.com.

Yereth Rosen

Yereth Rosen was a reporter for Alaska Dispatch News.

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