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Photo courtesy UAF

After only five hours of sleep, Marius Korthauer nervously awoke early Friday morning with a sore throat. Then while warming up at the Bohart Ranch ski area, the even-keeled Alaska Nanooks senior admitted feeling a bit of pressure.

“Everybody is telling you you should win on your birthday in your last college race,” Korthauer said by phone from Bozeman, Mont.

He’d stood on the podium four times in the last three NCAA Skiing Championships but never reached the top step. If Korthauer was nervous, it drifted away once the 20-kilometer classic technique race got going.

After 63 minutes and 8 seconds of hard work, the German raised his arms in victory. Korthauer, on his 24th birthday, became the first male NCAA Ski Champion for the Nanooks. Norwegian Sigrid Aas won the 5K freestyle and 15K classic races in 2004.

“I worked for it for four years,” Korthauer said.

Alaska coach Scott Jerome was there to greet him. In 2004, he took a chance by giving Korthauer a scholarship when many schools in the West passed, saying he wasn’t fast enough.

Jerome said Korthauer’s reaction in the finish area was fitting of his character.

“I’m getting choked up,” Jerome said. “I gave him a big hug, and in typical Marius fashion, he says ‘Thanks for the skis.’”

Forrest Karr, athletic director at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, was among those in Fairbanks awaiting the results from the Big Sky State.

“I just couldn’t be happier for a young man. It’s funny how humble he is and thankful he is for everything given to him,” Karr said. “But he’s given so much more to the athletic department and the university than he’s taken from it.”

Korthauer also is an Academic All-American with a 3.8 grade- point average in finance.

“It couldn’t happen to a more deserving person,” Jerome said. “The nice guys don’t always win, but in this case the nice guy did win.

“As long as he had good skis, I don’t think anybody was going to stand in his way today,” said Jerome, admitting he was a “basketcase” while waiting for updates when Korthauer was out of sight. “He was ready to win.”

After coming close with a runner-up performance in Wednesday’s 10K freestyle, Korthauer and Colorado University’s Kit Richmond separated themselves by the midway point of the mass-start race from a sizable pack that included Nanook Vahur Teppan.

At about 11 kilometers, Korthauer, seeded second of 38 skiers, made his move on an uphill when he sensed he could gap the top-seeded Richmond.

“Kit was maybe not able or didn’t want to help working at the front,” Korthauer said. “I decided it was time to take off. Gradually up the hill I kind of double-poled away.”

By the 15-kilometer mark of the four-lap event, Korthauer had built a lead of 12 seconds. Then on the steepest hill, he broke the race open by extending his margin to 30 seconds.

“At that point, I knew unless he fell, broke a pole or hit a tree, he was in pretty good position,” Jerome said.

Added Korthauer: “When you know the guy’s not following you, then you start figuring out that he might not catch you anymore.”

Korthauer hammered the final uphills (“So that I wouldn’t give anybody the opportunity to think about coming closer”) and cautiously navigated the downhills near the end. He held on to finish 12 seconds ahead of Richmond and 13 in front of Vermont’s Juergen Uhl, a German friend. Then he congratulated both in the finish area.

Soon Korthauer had company on the NCAA All-American First Team when Teppan — grinning from ear to ear — crossed fifth 30 seconds behind. He’d been seeded 13th.

“I think in some ways (Vahur) was more excited than Marius,” Jerome said. “Vahur bleeds blue and gold and is so proud to wear the (Nanooks) uniform.”

The race was great a redemption for the Estonian, who, slowed by sickness, placed 30th in the NCAA classic race a year ago.

But the day belonged to Korthauer, who called it “a nice coincidence” that the race landed on his birthday.

“I’ll probably celebrate a little bit,” an exhausted and sunburned Korthauer said at his hotel room in mid-afternoon. “First I need to get my nap in. Then I’ll see how I feel.”

Women don’t wax poetic

While conditions stayed below freezing for the men’s race, the women’s 15K that followed was trickier to wax for. With the sun blazing and a weather prediction of 40 degrees for the middle of the race, the Nanooks got burned by going with too sticky of a wax.

“We gambled as a coaching staff. We felt the sun was going to stay, but the clouds came in and it cooled down,” Jerome said.

Junior Aurelia Korthauer, Marius’ sister, still managed a respectable 14th in 59:05 while sophomore Anna Coulter took 26th and Elisabeth Habermann of Soldotna placed 38th.

Korthauer was kicking clumped snow off her ski bases early on while Coulter even stopped for 30 seconds to rewax during the race, Jerome said.

“I’m extremely proud of Aurelia that she didn’t mentally pack it in,” Jerome said. “She kept fighting.”

Colorado’s Maria Grevsgaard, from Norway, completed a Nordic individual sweep after winning by nearly a minute in 55:05.

The Nanooks, one of just six schools to field a full six-member Nordic team, finished seventh of 21 teams in the Nordic standings. Colorado was convincingly first in Nordic and holds a narrow lead over Denver in the overall standings (calculated by adding Nordic and Alpine scores) going into today’s Alpine finale.