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ANCHORAGE — The U.S. Cross Country Ski Championships finished in celebration for Kikkan Randall and Kris Freeman. They ended in bitter disappointment Thursday for disqualified Tyson Flaharty of Fairbanks.

In Kincaid Park conditions that the World Cup veterans deemed as windy and cold as they’d ever competed in, hometown hero Randall and distance specialist Freeman won the classical sprint in similar fashion — by setting a blistering pace to grab the lead, then refusing to relinquish it.

“Because I spend all my time working on endurance, I don’t have a super-high top speed, so the best thing I can do is make the fast guys tired, so they can’t (sprint) at the end,” Freeman explained after his 12th national championship but first as a sprinter.

Freeman caught two breaks that helped enable his breakthrough. The first was that U.S. Ski Team teammates and sprinting gurus Andy Newell and Torin Koos skipped the championships in order to train for upcoming World Cup races in Canada.

“It’s too bad they weren’t here,” Freeman said. “(But) I knew that certainly upped my chances.”

The second was that multiple cancellations due to cold encouraged Freeman to enter after he initially hadn’t planned to. Freeman actually arrived in Anchorage last Saturday after the sprint was to have been contested, but it was canceled due to a temperature that never reached the legal limit of minus 4.

Then it was canceled again on Sunday, and yet again on Wednesday. Freeman only entered the sprint after the classic technique and team sprint events were shelved.

“It’s a little ironic, things worked out and hey, I got my first sprint national title,” said Freeman, who finished 1 second ahead of Mike Hinkley (of Denver University and formerly Anchorage’s Service High) and 1.3 seconds in front of USST’s Chris Cook, the 2006 sprint champ.

The win didn’t come easily, not with temperatures around zero and a wind chill that at reached minus 24. With the late qualifying round start of 2 p.m., the finals weren’t run until after 5 p.m., when Kincaid’s stadium lights blazed and a near full moon added a surreal twist.

“This is some of the nastiest weather I’ve ever raced in,” said Freeman, who skied the 1.5-kilometer course once in qualification and three more times in the elimination heats.

Meanwhile, winning sprints for Randall is nothing new, as they have produced all but three of her 10 U.S. titles. But Thursday’s in front of friends and family was extra special coming three days after taking second in the freestyle on her home trails.

While the competition never threatened her (Laura Valaas, a teammate on the Alaska Pacific University club team was a distant 2.3 seconds back), regulating her own temperature proved challenging.

“Hot and cold. Hot and cold,” Randall said in a nearly dark semi-heated tent shortly after the finish. “You put on so many clothes to get warmed up and you get really hot. And you switch to your spandex suit and that’s pretty cold.”

Randall said she’s raced sprints in the rain and in minimal snow conditions, but Thursday’s race was unprecedented.

“I never had to do one where it was this cold and windy,” she said. “So this was kind of a one-of-a-kind race.”

Not that anyone was complaining after the race jury’s call to proceed after several frustrating days of delays and demoralizing cancellations.

“We were just glad to race,” Valaas said. “Nobody took this race for granted by the end of the week.”

Valaas said Randall, a regular training partner, provides extra motivation as someone to chase who has been successful on the World Cup.

“She’s strong, she’s in shape and she knows how to ski, so it’s a deadly combination,” Valaas said. “But I’m trying. I’m getting a little better every day.”

Which brings us to Flaharty, who despite major improvements this season didn’t make the 18-member male team that was announced Thursday night for the upcoming World Cups in Whistler, British Columbia.

Flaharty seemed a shoo-in after taking 19th in Monday’s freestyle and eighth in the sprint. The eighth place, however, was erased after a member of the race jury deemed he illegally skated over the classic tracks early during the men’s B final, in which he placed second, and disqualified him.

“I took one step too many in the wrong place and didn’t have my feet pointed in the right direction,” a visibly emotional Flaharty said shortly after the World Cup squad was announced. “There’s a lot of effort that went into it, so I should be on the team and I’m not because of something so small. It’s kind of a bummer.”

Flaharty said he was in fifth or sixth place at the time of the infraction and didn’t pass several skiers until the final 300 meters.

Flaharty placed fifth in the qualifying round, then was second in his quarterfinal, thereby advancing to the semifinals with 11 other skiers.

Because he was disqualified on a technique violation, Flaharty wasn’t merely dropped to 12th place but earned no result at all, said John Estle of Fairbanks, a member of the jury but not the one who flagged Flaharty.

Flaharty’s FAST teammates, David Norris and Reese Hanneman, also learned Wednesday they didn’t make the U.S. team that will attend the World Junior Championships next month in France.

Hanneman and Norris struggled in Monday’s freestyle, which due to the cancellations weighed almost exclusively in the naming of the team.

“It would have been different if there was a classic race that counted,” Hanneman said. “What are the odds that the one day you do your worst is the day that really counts? … That’s how it goes. It if was all easy it wouldn’t really be worth doing.”

A day after the WJC team was announced, Hanneman and Norris performed much better, as they were among the few juniors who reached the 30-skiers heats before finishing 27th and 28th, respectively.

At least Fairbanksans Kate (Pearson) Arduser (16th) and Becca Rorabaugh (21st) of APU received good news. Arduser was named to the women’s Whistler World Cup squad, while Rorabaugh made the WJC team for the first time.