Maijala skis to national championship

Cloquet graduate and Alaska Nanooks skier Anja Maijala ended her ski season on a high note, despite a nagging shoulder injury.

Maijala was the top U20 female skier in the 1.4K classic sprint at the 2019 U.S. Ski and Snowboard Cross Country Junior National Championships March 13 in Anchorage, Alaska. She won her sprint race in 3 minutes, 49 seconds.

Maijala's win came only two weeks after she separated her shoulder during the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association Championships and NCAA West Regional at the same Anchorage venue, Kincaid Park.

She said she went into the qualifying race determined to do her best, but wasn't sure how things would go. Sprinting can be difficult with a shoulder injury, she said, because sprinters rely on push from their poles.

"I wasn't sure how it would be sprinting. I had only finished one other classic race since then," Maijala said. "But there wasn't much double poling on that course, which was good."

In the qualifying race, she came out seven seconds ahead of her closest competitor, which is a lot of time for a sprint race. She finished the quarterfinal even further ahead, with no other competitors in sight at the finish. Her confidence high, Maijala said she just went for it in the final race and won.

"In the final, I could gauge how far behind me people were by the cheering," Maijala said.

"I can separate from people there because I'm a really good climber," she said, explaining that she pushed really hard and had really fast "rocket skis," which were great on the downhills. "The terrain of the course really allowed me to ski to the best of my ability given my situation."

The 2019 Juniors included four days of racing spread over the week. Maijala skied for Team Alaska. It was her last Juniors competition as she will be over the age limit next year. Maijala won the U20 women's 10K freestyle at the Juniors race in Utah last March.

This year's win came at a good time for Maijala, who said she was peaking at the end of her college season but her shoulder held her back.

"It was good to show people I don't suck at classic - I was just going through an injury," she said.

Now she gets some time to relax and heal.

"I'm very excited to be done," she said. It was the first year she had committed a full year to ski training, staying in Alaska last summer. "It's basically been nonstop training since May. But I'm glad the training paid off. I definitely improved this year and it was fun to be able to race at a higher level."

This year she had a number of top 15 finishes. She also qualified for the NCAA championships. She was one of the younger skiers there.

"It's always fun to race at Juniors. I'm one of the top skiers in the nation there," she said. "I always get crushed in our college circuit with the Europeans - a lot of them are older."

She learned a lot, she said, and finished 16th out of 40 skiers in one race.

"I was happy to be in the top half," she said, "and seventh in region, because my highest was 11th before that. Now it gives me motivation to go race next year in Bozeman."

Maijala graduated from Cloquet High School in 2017 after a stellar high school Nordic skiing career for the Lumberjacks, taking third at state her junior year and second her senior year. Her parents are Arne and Yvette Maijala.

Maijala is studying wildlife biology and outdoor leadership at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.