When the Junior World Championships for cross-country skiing get underway later this month in Utah, one third of the United States men’s team will be made up of Mainers.

And it came close to being half.

Lance McKenney of Fort Fairfield and Kamran Husain of Fort Kent, both 19, qualified for two of the six spots on the U.S. men’s team by their performances at the national championships earlier in January at the Soldier Hollow Nordic Center in Park City, Utah.

Daniel Streinz, 18, of Hersey lost a tiebreaker for the sixth and final spot, just missing inclusion on the team that will compete from Jan. 30 to Feb. 5, also in Park City. Not since Lake Placid in 1986 has the United States hosted the Junior World Championships.

“It says quite a bit about our former program, Maine Winter Sports Center,” McKenney said of the operation now known as Outdoor Sports Institute. “We had really good funding and the best coaches in the country.”

McKenney spoke by phone from Wyoming, where he and Streinz are training in a gap year program designed and run by a former MWSC coach, Will Sweetser, called Yellowstone Year. Husain, who plans to enroll at Dartmouth College in the fall, is doing a gap year at the Stratton Mountain School in Vermont, where his family moved two years ago.

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“It’s funny, because when we started out, we weren’t the best,” Husain said by phone from Craftsbury, Vermont.

Husain’s father is a surgeon who grew up in Pakistan. He was living in Washington D.C., when he met Husain’s mother, from Maryland. They decided to move to Maine after attending a wedding in Bar Harbor, and landed in Fort Kent.

“My first year, we got 25 inches of snow on my (October) birthday,” Husain said. “I was 5. So I became a skier.”

As high school freshmen in 2013, McKenney won the Maine Class C classical state championship and Streinz freestyle. Husain was third in both races. For the rest of their high school careers, they competed on the Eastern Cup circuit for MWSC and also tried biathlon.

“Maine has a long, proud tradition of producing some of the fastest skiers in the country,” said Andy Shepard, the Maine Winter Sports Center brainchild who is now president and CEO of OSI. He cited Chummy Broomhall, John Bower, Jack Lufkin, Dan Simoneau, Leslie Bancroft, Dave Chamberlain, Russell Currier, Sam Tarling and Adele Espy as examples of Maine skiers who performed on the international level.

“They all share the attributes of exceptionally strong work ethic,” Shepard said, “being undaunted by rugged weather and conditions, and grit. Kamran, Lance and Daniel all exhibit those same qualities. It is a reflection of what can happen when talented kids are given the coaching and resources to compete with the best.”

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Tarling of Yarmouth and Espy of Freeport are believed to be the last Mainers to compete in the Junior World Championships in cross-country, in Germany in 2010. Currier, of Stockholm, is currently competing on the World Cup Biathlon circuit after being dropped from the U.S. team a year ago.

Earlier this month in Oberhof, Germany, Currier placed 34th in a 12.5-kilometer pursuit to score his first World Cup points in four years.

Streinz came within 16 seconds of achieving automatic qualification to the Junior Worlds team at a race earlier this season and then saw his hopes dashed by a spill in the classic sprint semifinal round at the national championships.

“He was in front, but he took out two or three other kids,” said Husain, who barely managed to avoid the pileup. “So me and another kid were able to shoot in front (and advance to the final round). I pretty much owe this whole thing to Daniel.”

There are four races at the World Championships: a classic sprint, a 10k freestyle, a relay and a skiathlon – which involves a 7.5k classic combined with a switch of skis and poles for a final 7.5k freestyle. McKenney and Husain said they are focusing on the sprint competition. In previous Junior World Championships, no American man or woman has placed higher than fourth.

“Mostly we’re looking at this as a good opportunity to keep developing skills,” Sweetser said. “I know (McKenney) has got goals of skiing internationally in the next few years. Both (McKenney and Streinz) want to do World Cups. They both tried biathlon, but it’s not their passion.”

The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, are an unlikely prospect.

“But four years from now,” he said, “that’s well within reach.”


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