Gus Schumacher, a Junior World Champion from the 10km classic in 2020, made a breakthrough in World Cup in season 2020/2021 with 8th place in the Val di Fiemme stage in the 15km classic and 9th in Falun stage in the 15km skate, as well as posting the 5th fastest time on the 15km pursuit on the opening weekend of World Cup 2021/2022 at Ruka, Finland, just to mention few results. He also made the U.S. Olympic selection and consistently worked his way up on the World Cup scene. 

Despite not having the smoothest latter part of the season, Schumacher decided to end his season early after a disappointing Olympic trip and World Juniors in Lygna, Norway, in mid-March; he looks back to the 2021/2022 season on a positive note. 

“My highlights were that our World Cup team gained a lot of younger people around my age, so the whole circuit was a lot of fun. We’re really close, making the travel a lot easier.” 

“My low point was probably the Olympics. They were awesome, but I really wanted to do well, but something went wrong in my preparation, and I fell short of how I wanted to perform. It was still a good time with the boys, and it was so fun to see them and everyone else ski so fast,” Gus states, noting his teammates’ performances, such as Ben Ogden’s 12th place in the Olympic Sprint semi-finals. 

Even though he decided to cut his season short, Schumacher was on the road for several months with the U.S. Ski Team. He competed in the early stages of the season in World Cup and even stayed in Europe over Christmas to train with his teammates and prepare for Tour de Ski. 

“It can definitely get lonely to be away from home for so long, but it helps a lot to have such a close team. It feels like a family, and being on the road with them is really fun. In the future, I’m going to start trying to go home mid-season with more regularity, but overall I enjoy traveling with the USA group.” 

Studying and Being a POW athlete

Like many young Americans in the World Cup, also Schumacher studies alongside chasing his dreams as a professional skier. He studies Civil Engineering at the University of Alaska Anchorage (although he is not part of the collegiate ski team). Many of his peers in the U.S. Ski Team study and ski collegiately, such as Novie McCabe, Sophie Laukli, and Luke Jager, who all ski and study for the University of Utah, Ben Odgen for the University of Vermont, James Schoonmaker for the University of Alaska Anchorage. 

All of them were born in 2000, besides McCabe who was born in 2001, have placed in the top 30 several times in the World Cup and even Olympics despite their young age. The young U.S. Ski Team athletes (U23) achieved 3 top 30 places in men’s Olympic Sprint and 2 top 20 placings in women’s 30km skate. 

On top of his athletic duties and studying, Schumacher is now part of the Protect Our Winters athlete alliance (POW). 

“Being a POW athlete is a huge honor for me; it makes me proud to live up to my childhood expectations of using my platform to push for climate progress. As skiers, we see the results of climate change every winter, and even training in the summer, so I think it’s extra important for us to use those images and examples to bring attention to the biggest problem in the world in this generation.” 

Constant Development 

“I think my development as a skier has been driven by a pretty consistent training process, and therefore yielded a mostly consistent progression as I’ve gotten older. I got introduced to skiing through my parents and liked my programs in Anchorage as a young kid, so I kept going with it.” 

Schumacher shares his thoughts on the development of young stars in the U.S. Ski Team: 

“I think some success from Kikkan Randall, and now Jessie (Diggins) has opened our eyes to the possibility of top results, which has helped the nationwide push for more junior development through camps, information, and racing. We all had more support, both financial and opportunity-wise, than many people before us, and I think that’s really helping drive the growth of U.S. skiing. I hope our generation can keep the ball rolling by starting to get on podiums and getting that energy back to our home clubs!”

Working the Way to the Upcoming World Championships

“The new training season always starts perfectly with our National Team camp in Bend, Oregon, and from here, I’ll mostly be home training in Alaska. We, USST boys (U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team), have some travel planned to Vermont and then Norway for rollerski racing in August. Not changing too much, trying just to streamline the process.”

For next season’s goals, Schumacher concludes: 

“Yea, I’m really focused on World Championships in Planica, so I’m prioritizing that over some other mid-winter stuff like U23 World Champs, but I still hope to race pretty well there. If I’m in really good shape in the fall, I think I can win U23s and get top 10 in Planica; those are my goals.”