Mushing ahead: A brief history of the Republic of Alaska at the Winter Olympics

Amerigo Vespucci

As is my style, this will be posted in several parts, with one part per day until all parts have been exhausted. It's much shorter than "The Alamo" or "Lake Kennedy", and was written largely as a reaction to watching the Olympics on TV. It does borrow heavily from my notes for the in-progress "Alaska Revolution" story, but you won't be spoiled by reading this, which will add a bit of color to your eventual enjoyment of that story. As always, questions, comments, concerns and complaints are very welcome -- it's how I know you're reading. Enjoy!

When most people think about Alaska's participation in the Winter Olympics, sled dog racing is the first thing that comes to mind. Alaska’s domination of that sport since its introduction in 1952 is no secret, even with the strides the rest of the world has made in the past two decades. More knowledgeable fans of the Olympics might also consider Alaska participation in Nordic skiing, the biathlon, and the luge. But there also have been Alaskans in figure skating, ice hockey — both men’s and women’s — and the snowboard sports. In this year’s Vancouver games, for example, the Alaska contingent includes 75 competitors in 14 different sports. This figure is by far the biggest Alaska contingent to participate in the Winter Games, and is due in large part to the proximity of the games to Alaska.

With limited travel expenses, the Alaska Olympic Committee (AOC) was able to spread its budget across a wider range of sports. Alaskans are participating for the first time in women’s ice hockey, skeleton, and snowboarding. Naturally, Alaska’s limited population puts it at a disadvantage compared to more populous but geographically smaller competing nations, such as Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Nevertheless, Alaska’s arctic climate affords its residents ample opportunities to participate in winter sports, thus allowing for more potential competitors than might otherwise be the case. The reverse is of course true in the summer games, where Alaska’s contingent is extremely limited.

Alaska participation in the Winter Games began just 15 years after independence, at the height of the industrial gold boom in the far north. Despite the booming economy driven by high gold prices during the Great Depression, there was not much Alaska interest in the Olympics, which had begun winter games in 1924. Those initial games had brought about a spark of interest among some Alaska citizens, but because the country was still recovering from the revolution of 1917 and still faced many of the problems of independence, that interest didn’t manifest itself in physical support. The 1928 Winter Olympics likewise passed without too much notice. In no small part, this was due to the immense cost of transporting athletes from Alaska to Europe for the games. The 1924 games were held in France, while the 1928 edition was in Switzerland. Transcontinental air travel had not yet been established, and the prohibitive cost of circumnavigating the world just to participate in the Olympics was too great.

That changed with the 1932 games, which were scheduled for Lake Placid, New York. Because the games were much closer to Alaska, a small group of businessmen created the first Alaska Olympic Committee with the goal of sending one or more participants. Their motivation was purely commercial — they hoped to draw attention to the possibilities of outside investment in Alaska through the media coverage surrounding the games. Their choice of event was settled when it was announced that sled dog racing would appear as a demonstration sport in Lake Placid. This announcement also drew a large amount of attention from ordinary Alaskans, because sled dog racing was and still remains a national sport in the country.
 

Amerigo Vespucci

In sled dog racing, teams of Alaskan (or Siberian) huskies are paired in tandem to pull a sled guided by a single driver, known as a musher. The practice originates in the 19th and early 20th century practice of using sled dog teams for transportation and communication in isolated portions of the far North. Polar explorers used teams of dogs on their treks to the farthest corners of the Earth, and in Alaska and Canada, they were used for everyday life. Common tasks included maintaining fur trap lines, carrying mail, or bringing supplies to mining camps. Snowmachines and aircraft have largely replaced sled dog teams in Alaska today, but racers still keep teams of dogs bred for their quickness and toughness over long distances. The sleds also have changed — where lengthy 18-foot cargo sleds were used to carry a ton or more mail and were drawn by teams of 20 or more dogs, today’s light and fast sleds are short, built of titanium or composites, and almost seem to fly across the snow.

In the early 1930s, sled dog racing was even more popular than it is today. There were no international satellite sporting broadcasts, and traditional northern sports like curling, hockey, and sled dog racing dominated the scene in Alaska. Races like the All-Alaska Sweepstakes were covered across the country and even received attention in U.S. and Canadian newspapers as well. Men who had participated in the Yukon gold rush at the turn of the century had brought their knowledge of sled dog teams back to the United States and Lower Canada, ensuring there was a knowledgeable audience for reports of these races. Sled Dog racing leagues sprang up in New England and Canada, with The Pas, Manitoba being a particular hot spot for mushing, as the sport was known. That term is a corruption of the French marche, which became “mush on” and mushing.

As soon as it became common knowledge that the Olympics would have a sled dog event, a clamor arose to send an Alaskan to represent the country in what it saw as “its” sport. The only question was who to pick, and that conundrum became a hot topic across the country as almost every musher claimed that he would be the best choice to represent Alaska in international competition. The Alaska Olympic Committee, as the group fronting the money to transport musher, dogs, and sled several thousand miles to New York, naturally had final say. But hundreds of ordinary Alaskans also demanded to have their say, and many wrote to the businessmen who made up the committee to say that they would refuse to shop at their stores if the committee didn’t pick their particular favorite musher.

After weeks of contentious debate and acrimony, the committee narrowly voted to send Norwegian Leonhard Seppala to represent Alaska. Seppala was a natural choice, in many respects. He was born in Norway but had been attracted to Alaska by the prospect of becoming rich in the Czarist goldfields. Unfortunately, he arrived in Alaska just at the tail end of the Nome gold rush, as Russian prospectors were beginning to head inland in their search for new deposits. To stay supplied during the winter, dog teams were needed to carry supplies and communications. With his hope of becoming a gold miner evaporated, he took to this task — dog mushing — as the best option available. It was a fortunate choice, as he was a natural at handling dogs and selecting the right ones for the task. He won the All-Alaska Sweepstakes in the years immediately before the revolution, then served the revolutionary cause as a messenger. His feats were well-known in Alaska, but it was an event in 1925 that gave him international acclaim.

In January of that year, an outbreak of diphtheria threatened Nome. Unfortunately, the nearest supply of vaccine was in Seattle. Rushed by steamer to Valdez, there was still no way to transport it to Nome, which lay 1,200 almost-trackless miles away. There were no railroads or roads across much of the stretch, and it typically took 36 days for a stage to traverse the distance — in good weather. The weather that January was anything but good, however. Blizzards marched in unending succession from the west, carrying snow and — worst of all — Arctic winds that dropped temperatures to -80F when wind chill was factored in. Nevertheless, the only option to help the 3,000 people threatened by diphtheria was to transport the serum from Valdez to Nome via dog team — the quickest means available. And so the legendary Nome Serum Run began. In only 25 days, dog teams and mushers — working in relay — transported the fragile glass vials of serum across the breadth of Alaska. The wooden cases were carefully moved from sled to sled at the roadhouses that served as waypoints along the trail, and each musher typically covered 50-70 miles at a stretch. Seppala’s team carried it more than twice that distance, and that portion was over the frozen waters of Norton Sound, an arm of the Bering Sea. In those frigid conditions, there were no trees or hills to block the screaming westerly wind. Given the need to reach Nome, which is almost at the western extremity of the Alexander Peninsula, Seppala and his team marched directly into the teeth of the gale. Despite all the odds against them, they reached the safety of Nome and delivered the vaccine that saved countless lives. Many died because of the time needed to reach the isolated town, but the casualties would have been far worse were it not for Seppala’s accomplishment.

Word about the serum run and the incredible feat of the mushers received wide coverage in newspapers around the world, particularly in the United States. Seppala was invited to tour the country with his team, and he did so for two years, drawing crowds to see his dogs and their ability to pull huge weights. They also did a great deal to spread knowledge of sled dog racing throughout the U.S. In the culmination of his tour, Seppala faced the champion of the New England Sled Dog Club in a race at Poland Spring, Maine. The New Englander was heavily favored, as his larger dogs were believed to have more pulling power, and in any event the man was extremely familiar with the trails in the area. Despite the odds stacked against him, Seppala emerged victorious again. This last success allowed him the backing to start a kennel in Maine, which ran until 1931, when he returned to Alaska.
 

Archangel

Subscribed, Amerigo!:)
Is this an ATL Alaska which was never sold to the US, and when the Revolution happened, it stayed controlled by members of the White forces?
 

Amerigo Vespucci

Archangel said:
Subscribed, Amerigo!:)
Is this an ATL Alaska which was never sold to the US, and when the Revolution happened, it stayed controlled by members of the White forces?
Click to expand...

I'll go into more detail in "The Alaskan Revolution," but a czarist Alaska until 1917, when it goes independent. Lots of Russian influence, obviously, but lots of Anglo (Canadian/American) influence as well, and increasingly so as time goes on.
 

Amerigo Vespucci

During this period, he won many races in the United States, not least of which was the annual competition in Laconia, New Hampshire, which featured many of the best racers from the U.S. and Canada. Seppala entered three times but only won once, in 1929, when he defeated Emile St. Godard, widely considered Canada’s best musher. St. Godard was from Winnepeg, Manitoba, and his annual competition against Seppala at the Eastern International Dog Derby in Quebec was an event anticipated among mushers in both the United States and Canada. In the six times between 1925 and 1931 that the two men competed, St. Godard won four times and Seppala twice. The rest of the field didn’t come close to either.

After Seppala’s return to Alaska, he did not anticipate leaving for some time. He had a steady job patrolling water conduits on a dog sled, and he was satisfied with his accomplishments in life. When approached by the Alaska Olympic Committee, he initially turned down the offer to participate in the Lake Placid games. Public pressure, however, convinced him to change his mind. An apocryphal story that Arkady Kirakaevich, the President of Alaska at the time, made a personal appeal to Seppala to attend the games is of doubtful veracity. What is likely, however, is that Seppala was contacted by friends — both close and distant — and pressured to go. Popular opinion held that Seppala’s experience racing Outside and the strength of his dog team — led by the legendary Togo — gave him an edge that no other musher could match. With his reluctance eroded, Seppala caved.

To help cover Seppala’s travel expenses — which were considerable, as he had to ship eight dogs and a sled in addition to himself — a popular subscription drive was organized. In exchange for pledges of certain amounts, participants received souvenirs of various kinds. The most common was a simple printed thank-you note, but they grew in quality as the donated amount climbed. There were photographs of Seppala, autographs, and even the possibility of a personal visit — only the residents of Chena, Valdez, and Sitka gave enough for this top prize. These subscription fees freed more money for the Alaska Olympic Committee to pay for its original goal — advertising Alaska industry in the United States.

Seppala’s dogs and sled were loaded aboard a steamer in Valdez on January 2, slightly more than one month before the games’ beginning. Almost from the start, however, the voyage ran into problems. The steamer was delayed by ice in Prince William Sound, then again by the need to pick up passengers and cargo in Juneau, Sitka, Wrangell, and Ketchikan. Upon reaching Seattle, Seppala was appalled to learn that his sled had been damaged in transit. Its flexible birch frame had been bent out of shape by having some heavy object stacked atop it, and only through the intervention of a friendly lumber mill — which offered its assistance for free — was Seppala assured that the sled was OK. The dogs and sled were loaded aboard an eastbound train, and the entourage — which also included several members of the Alaska Olympic Committee — arrived at Lake Placid in late January.

There was scarcely time for Seppala to properly exercise his dogs and return them to their proper physical condition before the opening ceremony was held on February 4, 1932. Adding to the problems was the weather at Lake Placid — it too much reflected its name. Unseasonably warm weather melted the snow and ice needed for the games, and more had to be trucked in from Canada and nearby mountains. Spectators were left standing in puddles, and the heat — though 40F probably isn’t considered warm to non-Alaskans — left the dogs unwilling to run too hard. Seppala’s thick-coated Siberian huskies were particularly vulnerable to the heat, and as the opening ceremony approached, Seppala prayed for a cold front to move through the Olympic stadium.

At 10 a.m. on February 4, the games began. The opening ceremony was conducted in the stadium, which rested in a forested valley and contained a sheet of pristine ice. An unblemished sun shone through a clear sky, and a light breeze moved the flags of the 18 participating countries. First to speak was New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt, who officially pronounced the games as opened, speaking through a loudspeaker system and addressing his speech to the cameras present as well as the spectators. The Star-Spangled Banner was played by an orchestra, then the parade of athletes began. Because it was done in alphabetical order, the first nation to emerge with its flag held high was the one with the smallest contingent of athletes — Alaska. Seppala marched alone into the stadium, accompanied only by the ebullient chairman of the Alaska Olympic Committee, who was too busy holding up the Alaska flag to do much in the way of waving to the crowd. He was followed by the athletes from Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and so forth. Great Britain’s contingent caused a stir, as its procession was led by a woman flag-carrier, a first for the Olympics. She overshadowed whatever media attention Seppala’s lonely entrance made, but that was the way Seppala liked it. The ceremony lasted no more than 30 minutes from the time Seppala stepped into the stadium, and after a brief intermission the stadium spectators were treated to the first event — speedskating.
 

DSS

Genious! A new nation at the Olympics? That is seriously awesome, sir, and this with your Cuban Missile Crisis timeline, you have my utmost respect, sir;):)
 
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Amerigo Vespucci

The sled dog race wasn’t scheduled to begin until February 6, so that gave Seppala a chance to run the course with his team in order to become familiar with the terrain and allow his dogs to become accustomed to the trail. While running, he was surprised to encounter another team. It turned out to be none other than his most familiar opponent — Emile St. Godard. Despite being in consistent opposition, the two men did not hate or even dislike each other — they shared a common interest, a similar background, and so both had many things to talk about. When their teams separated and the two men went on their separate ways, however, each vowed to do his utmost to beat the other.

Despite Seppala’s hopes, the weather did not turn cooler. Temperatures remained above freezing, turning the trail into a sloppy, slushy mess. Competitors in other events had a similarly difficult time — skaters found themselves dealing with dirty ice, while skiers similarly struggled with slushy snow. But by staying consistent, the conditions at least allowed Seppala to prepare for them. He insured his dogs were properly hydrated and groomed, and found them a cool spot to rest. The structure of the race promised to work against him — it would encompass two heats, one per day on successive days, and each covering 25.1 miles — 40.5 km. Each team was limited to six dogs, and since Seppala had brought eight, he could at least pick the six best-suited to fast, short-distance running.

The race began at 10 a.m. on February 6, and it was a staggered start — each team left the stadium 3 minutes after the team preceding it. The order was by random draw, and Seppala was sixth of the 12 racers competing. St. Godard was 12th — last — and Seppala hoped the soft snow would be so torn up by the passage of 11 teams before him that his team would be slowed. The crowd was a concern secondary only to the conditions. Seppala had raced in front of large crowds of spectators before, but nothing like this: more than 50,000 people were present in the Olympic stadium and scattered along the trail. His dogs were used to noise, but he feared the overwhelming tide of cheers and voices might startle them and cause them to veer off the trail. He needn’t have worried. When the appointed time came, his dogs leaped ahead as his handlers let go of the sled, and he and it rocketed forward.

From the stadium, the trail went north to Mirror Lake, which is just south of Lake Placid itself, then east for a ways before turning south, climbing a hill, descending into a river valley, turning west, then ascending out of the valley and heading back north to the stadium. He felt confident as the race progressed. His dogs, though not running to their full potential because of the heat, nevertheless passed three other teams despite the three-minute separation between them. In one instance, he passed a team that was halted so its musher could remove a dog from its harness and place it in the sled to rest. Under the rules of the New England Sled Dog Club — which was operating the demonstration event — a musher had to finish with all of his dogs, whether in the sled basket or in harness. Seppala had no fear that one of his dogs might not finish a mere 25-mile run, but he was worried that their ability to run long distances might allow a sprint-oriented team to outpace them.
 

Amerigo Vespucci

When his team returned to the stadium, the fourth to finish that day’s heat, the official timer recorded Seppala as having finished in two hours, 13 minutes, and 34 seconds. As other mushers entered the stadium, crossed the finish line, and had their times chalked up on a board reserved for the purpose, Seppala found himself counting the minutes go by. If just 18 minutes elapsed between his finish and St. Godard’s arrival, Seppala would be in first place at the end of the first day. But as the 15th minute ticked off the sweep-handed clock, another musher came into view from the stadium — it was St. Godard. Though he was moving somewhat slowly toward the end, the Canadian bested Seppala’s time by a bare 1 minute, 29 seconds. The other mushers were never a factor. The third-place finisher at the end of the first day finished 13 minutes slower than Seppala’s time, and the slowest finisher came in a full hour and 15 minutes behind. Though many of these competitors were capable mushers, there also were some competitors who simply liked the idea of racing their kennels, which were full of wholly unsuitable dogs.

The second day’s heat was a staggered start, based upon the finishing times of the day before. Seppala, 1 minute and 29 seconds behind St. Godard, started that amount of time behind the Canadian when the race began. Unfortunately for Seppala, the heat took its toll on his dogs. They were even slower than the day before, and the Alaskan was forced to put one in his sled basket before finishing the heat, a full 6 minutes, 20 seconds behind St. Godard. The Canadian thus won the race with a total time of 4 hours, 23 minutes and 12 seconds to Seppala’s 4 hours, 31 minutes and 1 second. Because it was merely a demonstration race, Seppala did not even have the satisfaction of returning to Alaska with a silver medal. By the standards of the day, it was a phenomenally close finish — and a fast one, despite the heat. Today, an average six-dog sprint team can expect to complete a 25-mile course in about 80 minutes. An Olympic-level team can do it in something close to an hour or less.

Seppala returned to Alaska having fulfilled the mission of bringing international attention to the young country, if not his personal mission of winning the race. He intended to return to the Olympics in 1936 to again race sled dogs internationally, but that year’s winter games, which were held in Germany, did not offer sled dog racing as a demonstration sport. Mushing was scheduled to return to the Olympics in 1940, in Sapporo, Japan, but the outbreak of World War II caused those games and the 1944 edition to be canceled. Seppala died in 1946 without ever getting a chance to mush in another Olympics. His challenger, Emile St. Godard, lived another two years.

Alaska’s next Olympic delegate had to wait another 16 years before making an Olympic appearance. Alaska didn’t send a delegation to the 1936 games, and after the resolution of WWII, the world was given only 18 months to prepare for the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Alaska’s participation in that war was largely limited to cold-weather combat, and the country was given a chance to show its ability in that field when military patrol was made a demonstration sport. Military patrol, a precursor to today’s biathlon, involved a team of four competitors. Each wore military equipment, a loaded pack, a military rifle, and used skis to move around. The event involved a 25-kilometer cross-country ski and a stage at a shooting range, where participants were required to shoot balloons at a distance of 150 meters. Each balloon of 10 successfully hit resulted in a deduction of one minute from the team’s cross-country skiing time. The team was made up of one officer — who did not shoot — two privates and one non-commissioned officer.

Alaska’s participation in the event came largely as a result of the postwar need to demonstrate Alaska’s relevancy at the dawn of the Cold War. Though not fully detonated until 1949 and the detonation of the first Soviet atomic bomb, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were apparent in 1948. The Berlin Blockade and resulting airlift caused many Alaskans to question whether Alaska might be the site of the next showdown between the two superpowers. The ending of Lend-Lease with the surrender of Japan had left Alaska largely an afterthought, and sending a military contingent to the Olympics was one of several ways in which Alaska attempted to raise its international stature in this early Cold War period.

The four-man team competed well, finishing the skiing portion in 2 hours, 50 minutes, and 17 seconds. Of the ten balloons, they hit seven, resulting in a total time of 2 hours, 43 minutes, and 17 seconds — good enough for fourth in the nine-country competition. Switzerland finished first, Finland second, Sweden third, Italy fifth, and the United States last.

Dog mushing also returned to the Olympics that year, but in a unique format. The other demonstration sport in 1948 was the winter pentathlon, which attempted to adapt that summer games event for cold weather. The five events were cross-country skiing, shooting, downhill skiing, fencing, and dog mushing. The mushing segment included a 50-kilometer marathon race, and it was the culminating segment of the event. Because of the short time available for preparation and a lack of funding for transportation and training, no Alaskans participated among the 14 athletes who attempted the event, which was won by Switzerland.
 

Amerigo Vespucci

Seppala at the 1932 Games, with some of his dogs:

Seppala at 1932 games.jpg
 

Amerigo Vespucci

Alaska’s first participation in a full-fledged Olympic sport didn’t come until 1952, when dog mushing was given official status in time. Norway’s long familiarity with mushing — the games were held in Oslo — plus pressure from Alaska, Canada, and several other countries brought the issue to the fore in International Olympic Committee conferences. Immediately upon word reaching Alaska that mushing was to be an official Olympic sport, the arguments began about who should represent the country in Oslo. There was no question about not fielding a team — even though the Alaska Olympic Committee had disbanded shortly after the 1932 games had ended. The new incarnation of the AOC was far less slapdash. It was formed by the Alaska Athletic Association — the semi-governmental body in charge of regulating sports in the country — and included private as well as public members. Because a musher had to be selected before the start of the 1951-52 mushing season — which traditionally begins in late December/early January — the AOC based its choice on the results from the 50-51 season. The balloting was democratic and proceeded in several rounds, with the candidate receiving the least votes being dropped from the next ballot. In the end, the AOC selected the man who had won the 1951 Open North American Championship — Horace “Holy” Smoke of Arctic Village.

In later years, the AOC would adopt a points-based system incorporating the results of races in the previous year, but the 1952 selection — though democratic — was wrought with controversy. Some Alaskans thought Andrew Kokrine of Tanana to be a better choice, while others wanted Peter Kotyuzkin of Denali Village. Subscription campaigns were started to pay for various other mushers’ transportation to the games outside the AOC’s authority, but these didn’t gain much traction and in any event likely would not have been permitted by the International Olympic Committee. Unlike in 1932, when Seppala was forced to take a lengthy ship and train journey to the games, Smoke and his team went via air — first to the United States, then across the Atlantic to Norway on a Lockheed Super Constellation.

Thanks to the early arrival of his team and the extra training time afforded them, Smoke’s team performed well in the first heat, which took place on February 17, 1952. He took a four-minute lead over his nearest competitor, a Canadian. The next day, however, Smoke’s lead dog sprained a wrist after stumbling on a descent. The dog halted, but the sled continued to move down the slick surface, causing a gangline tangle that took several minutes to unravel. The dog also had to be loaded into the sled basket, which further slowed his progress. During his work, he was passed by American Norman Vaughn, who went on to win the gold medal. Vaughn, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, had been the dog master during Richard Byrd’s 1928-30 Antarctic expeditions and had raced against Seppala in the 1932 Olympics. During the war, he led an Army Air Corps dog team unit that rescued aviators and delivered supplies in Greenland.

Smoke, despite winning Alaska’s first Olympic medal, was met with little acclaim in Alaska, where people expected that he would handily win the international competition. Though he won the 1952 and 1953 Open North American races with the same team that failed him in the Olympics, the second-place finish was forever a sore spot with him, and he retired from mushing competitively before 1960. In the 1956 Olympics, Huslia’s Jimmy Huntington — called the “Huslia Hustler” by fans — won Alaska’s first gold medal as he easily edged the second- and third-place Canadians in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
 

Amerigo Vespucci

This pattern largely continued through the 1960s and 1970s: Alaska’s sole Winter Olympics entrant was a musher, and he typically won silver or gold. The AOC, which granted a stipend of AK$7,500 (US$3,200) to mushers during this period, didn’t have the resources to send additional athletes, even if competitors of sufficient talent were available. That changed in the late 1970s when Alaska’s state oil company, AlaskOil, began to develop the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. The resulting surge of national income provided for a flood of new projects and opportunities, and the AOC did not fail to benefit. The investment came at an opportune time for Alaska’s Olympic dreams, for the national advantage in mushing had largely evaporated. In the 1976 Innsbruck Games, Alaskan George Attla won the bronze medal behind both the United States and the Soviet Union, which had developed a prominent mushing program as a result of its national Olympic program. Alaska’s declining lead was due to failing to keep up with national investment and the national decline in dog teams, which itself was a result of the introduction of snowmachines and cheap Bush planes on a large scale. With less need to keep dogs to do everyday work, there were fewer mushers to compete in the annual races, thinning the talent pool for the Olympics.

In 1977, the Alaska Legislature approved a large government subsidy for the AOC, funding not only the costs of sending competitors to the games, but also supporting those competitors in their training regimen leading up to the games. With a portion of the subsidy, the AOC founded the Alaska Olympic Camp — renamed Camp Attla in 1996 — in Girdwood, near Ankoridzh on the Cook Inlet. When opened, the camp included facilities for training mushers, downhill skiers, and cross-country skiers. It has since expanded to offer skating facilities and courses for snowboarding and sliding. The creation of Camp Attla and the announcement that the Winter Olympics would once again be held at Lake Placid offered Alaska a golden opportunity to show off its greatly expanded Olympic program.

In total, Alaska sent seven Olympians to Lake Placid in 1980: one in mushing, two in cross-country skiing, one in biathlon, one in ski jumping, and two in Nordic combined. Sarah Ilya became the first female Alaskan to compete in the Olympics, and she also became Alaska’s first medal winner in a non-mushing event when she won the women’s 10-kilometer cross-country skiing event. George Attla won gold in the mushing event, marking the first time that Alaska won two medals in a single Olympics. Alaska’s success in the 1980 games was balanced by its failure in the 1984 games, however. Alaska sent three athletes to Sarajevo, and for the first time in Alaska’s Olympic participation, none won a medal. Gareth Wright, who suffered a series of mishaps in the mushing event, finished fourth, out of contention for an Olympic medal.

This embarrassing performance caused a large-scale revision of Alaska’s Olympic committee and its training structure. So-called “feeder schools” were set up for elementary students and secondary students who showed promise in a particular sport. The best of these students were given scholarships to Camp Attla, where they were allowed to train while continuing their education. Alaska’s sliding program also was founded during this period, as the Chena Sliding Center was built at the same time that Camp Attla received a sliding track used by luge teams and bobsledders. The 1988 Olympics were the closest yet to Alaska, and the inclusion of curling as a demonstration sport allowed for two four-person teams to be introduced alongside Alaska’s medal-competing contingent. In total, Alaska sent 17 competitors: 10 in curling, one in mushing, two in cross-country skiing, one in ski jumping, one in biathlon, one in alpine skiing, and one in Nordic combined.
 

Amerigo Vespucci

George Attla, who had returned from retirement to attend the Olympics, won his fourth Olympic medal as he took gold in the mushing event despite temperatures even higher than those recorded during the 1932 Olympics in Lake Placid. Albert Northrim earned silver in the men’s 50-kilometer cross-country race, and Robert Sik won bronze in the 20-kilometer individual biathlon. Alaska’s curlers placed well in the demonstration games for that sport. The men’s team finished fourth, just behind the third-place Canadian team, while the Alaska women’s team placed third, ahead of Norway but behind Sweden and Canada.

In the 1992 Albertville, France games, the men’s and women’s curling teams switched places — the men’s team took third, while the women’s team finished fourth. In addition to the 10 curlers who participated, three Alaska mushers were eligible for the Olympics, thanks to new international eligibility standards implemented after the 1988 Calgary Games. These standards, which in simplified form mean that a competitor must be ranked at a certain level in international competition, ensured that several Alaskans will be eligible in the mushing category each year. Roxy Wright-Champain of Salcha won the gold medal, becoming the first Alaska woman to win gold in the mushing category, which — along with pairs figure skating — is the only Olympic sport to allow both male and female competitors in a single event. After a 120-pound Frenchwoman won the gold in 1996, however, limits were placed on the weight and height of competitors as well as their dogs and other equipment. Also at the 1992 games, Alaska medaled in the doubles luge — earning bronze — and silver in both the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint biathlon and women’s 15-kilometer individual biathlon. In total, Alaska sent 21 competitors and earned five medals: one gold, two bronze (the second was in mushing) and two silver.

The 1992 games also marked the debut of a new mushing-style sport: pulka. Pulka is a Nordic mushing sport that was demonstrated at the 1952 Oslo games and again in the 1960, 1964, and 1972 games. In the pulka, a dog pulls a weighted sled that is also attached to a skier. The skier cannot be dead weight — he or she must work with the dog to move the sled, especially on uphill segments of the course. Olympic courses are 10 kilometers long, and the competition mirrors the mushing competition in that it takes place in two heats: one per day on consecutive days. The weight of the sled has changed since the sport was introduced — initially, it was only 10 kilograms plus the weight of the sled. Today, it is 25 kilograms plus the sled. In the 1992 games, the Alaska Olympic Committee anticipated that one of the three mushers sent to the games would cross-train for the pulka. This proved to be a disaster, as the musher chosen to do so — Jacob Ek — lacked the training time to devote to either event. Though the pulka requires some of the same skills as mushing, it also requires a competitor to be a skilled and strong skier as well as a dog handler. Unfortunately for Team Alaska, Ek and his chosen dog had not had a chance to work on skis before arriving in France. In the pulka event, they finished dead last — and the lack of mushing training time caused him to finish no better than the middle of the pack in that event as well.

Because of a shift in the way the games were conducted, the next Olympics did not take place four years later. They came two years later, in 1994 in Lillehammer, Norway. This marked a shift from the way the games had been conducted since their modern revival — no longer do the Winter Olympics take place in the same year as the summer games. For the first time, the AOC made a serious effort to have an Alaska location host the games. Ankoridzh put forward a bid based upon the numerous athletic venues and infrastructure that had been built since the southern terminus of the great trans-Alaska oil pipeline had been built there, and in the first round of balloting, it earned the second-most votes — 23 to Lillehammer’s 25. In the second round of voting, Ankoridzh’s bid lost a vote as all the voters who had been behind the Sofia, Bulgaria bid — which was discarded in the first round — instead backed a venue in Sweden. This left Ankoridzh as the third-place bid. After Ankoridzh was eliminated in round two, the voters selected Lillehammer.
 

Thunderbolt

I was going to ask whether there would be a bid to host the games. I'm assuming that Ankoridzh is OTL Anchorage?

Excellent work, as usual.
 

Amerigo Vespucci

The next installment will be the final one.

The limited time between Olympics meant that Team Alaska could not improve greatly on its performance in the Pulka. Though it again won gold in the mushing event and earned four other, lesser, medals from its 22 competitors, the pulka was not among those medal-winning sports. Though the AOC selected a competitor with skijor skill — in that common Alaska sport, a dog or team of dogs pulls a skier along a trail — he was not fully prepared for the differences between that sport and pulka.

By the 1998 Nagano Olympics, Team Alaska was ready for a breakthrough performance. It had been 21 years since Camp Attla was built, and the first full generation of athletes to have gone through the Alaska Olympic training system were ready to compete. In addition, women’s ice hockey was made a contested sport for the first time. This factored into Alaska’s favor, because even though the country did not have the talent level needed to participate in the men’s competition, its women’s hockey program was proportionally larger and more experienced than those of other countries.

In addition to the 20 female ice hockey players who traveled to Japan, Alaska’s Olympic contingent in 1998 included two mushers, one pulka competitor, two curling teams of five members each, two bobsled teams of two members each, a luge competitor, a male figure skater, three competitors in alpine skiing, seven cross-country skiers, and two biathletes. In total, 51 Alaskans traveled to the games, by far the most competitors the country offered in any Olympics to that point.

Alaska’s contingent was the 18th largest out of the 73 nations that competed. Its 51 members was on par with far more populous countries like China (55), Belarus (59), or Ukraine (56). The greater number of competitors brought a correspondingly greater amount of success for Alaska. In addition to gold and silver in mushing, Alaska earned silver in pulka, bronze in women’s hockey, bronze in the 20-kilometer individual biathlon, silver in women’s curling, gold in the women’s 15-kilometer biathlon, bronze in the 25-kilometer combined cross-country, bronze in the 30-kilometer classic cross-country, and silver in the men’s 4x10-kilometer relay.

The medal total of two gold, four silver, and four bronze tied Alaska in the medal standings with Japan, which also earned 10 medals. Italy was just slightly behind with nine, and the Netherlands was slightly ahead with 11. This accomplishment proved to many observers the success of the Alaska Olympic Committee’s organized training program. Though it didn’t generate the absolute medal totals won by countries like Germany (29) or Norway (26), Alaska’s total was comparable or better than those top performers. With a population of just less than one million people, Alaska’s two gold medals worked out to one per 450,000 people as compared to Germany’s 1 per 6.83 million or Norway’s 1 per 427,000.
 
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