The Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center is fulfilling the founding vision and mission of providing a high level of coaching, training and support for skiers who aspire to competitive success at the regional, national, and international levels. The 2005-06 season was another hallmark year. APU athletes at all levels achieved more and placed higher at many national and international competitions than the year before.

The APU community-based Junior Program has been revitalized with the hiring of well-known skier Erik Flora as coach in the summer of 2005. The Junior Program is a high level program geared for juniors seeking to excel in the sport at a state, national or international level. The program strives to provide expert coaching, advice and guidance to developing athletes, based upon their individual goals and needs. In addition, the Women Masters and Masters Group continue to be the backbone of our community-based Nordic ski programs with a total of 55 members. This program also provides professional coaching to adult skiers.

The APU Team continues to provide student athletes the opportunity to train year-round and pursue an academic degree with flexible schedules. The APU Team skiers are all highly motivated students as well as extremely committed athletes. The group includes undergraduates Iain Morris, Caitlin Hague, Chet Fehrmann, Taz Mannix, Aleta Phelps, Colin Quinn-Hurst, Lauren Fritz (Early Honors), and Nico Ambrose (Early Honors). Lauren, Aleta, and Nico all qualified and competed in the 2006 Junior Olympic National Championships, and had outstanding seasons. Caitlin, Iain, and Chet all competed in local and regional events, proudly representing APUNSC. Taz and Colin competed nationally in SuperTour and U.S. National Championships. As a result of her placing at U.S. National Championships, Taz qualified and competed for the U.S. Junior World Championship Team. Colin had solid results in the SuperTour Central U.S. series, following his graduation in December.

The Elite Team members are focused on national and international success, and this season the athletes had very consistent and improving results. The group, including Kikkan Randall, Erin Hood, and Andy Hunter, competed for Olympic team berths at the U.S. National Championships at Soldier Hollow in January. Kikkan went on to represent APU on the U.S. Olympic Team at the 2006 Olympics after sealing another national championship in the sprint, and produced the best Olympic results for a U.S. woman Nordic skier in history; a 9th place in the 1.2 km sprint event. Throughout the remainder of the season, she continued to improve her ranking in World Cup sprints, placing 5th in a subsequent post Olympic World Cup in Borlange, Sweden.

Erin Hood and Andy Hunter continued racing on the North American Continental Cup SuperTour race series after the National Championships, and improved their race consistency in the process. Erin raced to 5 top 3 finishes in the middle and late season SuperTour races, including a national team sprint championship at Spring Series with former APU/Gold 2002 team mate Wendy Wagner. Andy Hunter improved his results over the previous seasons, racing to 5 top ten results in a very competitive men's field throughout the SuperTour series.

The activities of the APU Nordic Ski Center are made possible in part by the support of many individual and corporate donors who provide needed annual operating funds for the program, as well as significant scholarship support for our student athletes. In particular we offer special thanks to ConocoPhillips, our Silver level sponsor, and Cellular One, our Bronze level sponsor.

Thanks to the support of our donors, the hard work of our staff and student athletes, and the participation of our many community athletes, the outlook for the coming years is very good. And, with ongoing recruiting, training, and consistency, the future is very bright.