Alaska Star staff

Chugiak High junior Kinsey Loan continues to shine in cross-country skiing. While her teammates skied locally, she spent the last weekend in January skiing in the Nordic Junior World Championships in Kuopio, Finland, helping the American team to some impressive finishes.

In the girls 3-3-3 relay, in which teams skied one leg each of classical-, skate- and skate-skiing techniques on Sunday, Loan was the second leg in the relay, which came in after the first leg at seventh place. Loan helped bump the team up to fourth-place, but then the third-leg skier dropped them back to an overall sixth-place finish, still a strong finish making hers the top U.S. team in the event.

In the cross-country sprint event, held Friday, Loan was the second U.S. finisher, finishing 20th in a field of 38 skiers.

And in the 5-kilometer classic-ski race, held Saturday, she came in at 25th place, again the second-fastest U.S. skier and just about 14 seconds behind her U.S. teammate Annie Liotta, from Anchorage.

This article published in The Alaska Star on Thursday, February 4, 2010.