Cross-Country Skiing - 2025/26 Season Wrap

Australia’s cross-country skiing program delivered a historic season in 2025/26, highlighted by breakthrough World Cup results, record Olympic performances and growing depth across all levels of international competition.

At Milano Cortina, Australia was represented by a team of seven athletes, with all four women - Rosie Fordham, Maddie Hooker, Phoebe Cridland and Ellen Søhol Lie - making their Olympic debuts and combining for Australia’s first ever relay team appearance.

Fordham produced the standout individual Olympic result, finishing 29th in the women’s 50km mass start (classic), the best-ever individual Australian cross-country performance . She also led the team in the 10km freestyle, placing 33rd, while Søhol Lie recorded 50th in the sprint (free), equal to the second-best Olympic women’s sprint result by an Australian.

The women’s relay team overcame an early fall to move up through the field and finish 14th, an outstanding performance against the world’s best. Across all six events, including the Team Sprint in which Cridland and Fordham finished 18th, the four athletes gained valuable experience in their first Olympic campaigns.

In the men’s team,  the trio of Seve de Campo, Hugo Hinckfuss and Lars Young Vik brought valuable Olympic experience from Beijing 2022 into the campaign. All three men improved on their previous performances, with Hinckfuss’s 42nd place in the sprint the nation’s best ever Olympic sprint result, and De Campo’s 41st in the 50km mass start (classic)the best men’s distance since 1992.

The highlight performance in Italy was Hinckfuss and Young Vik combining to deliver a historic breakthrough in the team sprint. The duo qualified ninth overall to become the first Australian cross-country skiers to reach an Olympic final in the event, and then fought in the lead pack until the final lap to claim 14th overall.

Beyond the Olympic Games, Fordham emerged as the headline performer of the season. Building on her silver medal at the 2025 U23 World Championships, she delivered a historic breakthrough at World Cup level, finishing 13th in the 10km freestyle in Davos, the first time an Australian cross-country skier has placed inside the top 20 at a World Cup.

She backed that up later in the season with 16th in the 20km freestyle in Lake Placid, confirming her arrival as a consistent performer at the highest level. Outside of World Cup Fordham collected four FIS international victories, including taking the Swiss 10km Championship title and winning both events at the NCAA finals in the USA.

Across the broader World Cup season, Australian athletes competed at nine different stops on the tour which ran from November through to March.

Young Vik delivered one of the closest near-breakthroughs of the season, finishing 32nd in the World Cup sprint (free) in Lahti, just 0.34 seconds outside qualification for the quarter-finals, while De Campo continued to anchor the men’s program, bringing his career tally to 82 World Cup starts at just 27 years of age.

Cridland produced her best-ever World Cup season, scoring points (top 50) on four occasions, while Hooker made her World Cup debut including ten individual starts in her first year out of the junior ranks.

In addition to athletes who were selected to the Olympics, Tuva Bygrave, Fedele de Campo, Bentley Walker-Broose and Phil Bellingham competed at the highest level of the sport. Bellingham balanced his cross-country campaign with ski mountaineering, where he made history as the first Australian male Winter Olympian to compete in two sports.

At the next level, Australia’s U23 and Junior World Championships team delivered a number of encouraging performances in Lillehammer, with eight team members preparing through the Scandinavian Cup circuit before joining Maddie Hooker and Hugo Hinckfuss, who arrived fresh from the Olympic Games.

Hooker produced the strongest Australian result at the championships, finishing 36th in the 20km mass start, alongside 43rd in the sprint (free).

Hinckfuss, competing at his fourth U23 and Junior World Championships, came within 0.3 seconds of progressing to the sprint quarter-finals, finishing 32nd in qualifying, while also achieving a top-50 result in the 10km interval start.

Junior competitors Satara Moon, Clancy Harvey, Samuel Johnson and Harri Silvester competed alongside U23 representatives Isabella Moon, Jayden Spring, Noah Bradford and Vincent de Souza, gaining valuable experience against the world’s leading junior nations.

With a historic World Cup breakthrough, record Olympic performances and increasing depth across both senior and pathway levels, the 2025/26 season represents a significant step forward for cross-country skiing in Australia as the program continues to build toward future Olympic cycles.