Ten XC Athletes Selected to 2026 World Junior / U23 Championship Team

Snow Australia is pleased to announce the selection of ten Cross Country Skiing athletes to the Australian Team for the 2026 Junior and U23 World Championships.

The 2026 FIS Nordic Junior-U23 Championships takes place from March 2-8 in Lillehammer, Norway, starting with the Junior Sprint events on Monday and concluding with Mixed Relay events the following Sunday.

U23 athletes Maddie Hooker and Hugo Hinckfuss have travelled to Norway straight from Italy after representing Australia at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina. They join U23 team members Isabella Moon, Noah Bradford and Vincent de Souza, who recently competed in Norway at the Scandinavian Cup in Aasen, and Jayden Spring, who has been training in Sweden.

For Spring and Hooker this will be their first U23 Worlds appearance, having previously competed at the World Juniors. Spring made the World Junior sprint finals the past two years and will be aspiring to do so again in the older class. The rest of the U23 athletes all competed at the 2025 championships in Italy and are now in their final year in the category.

The Junior Team includes Satara Moon, Clancy Harvey and Samuel Johnson, each competing for the second time at the World Juniors, and Harri Silvester making his championship debut. The juniors have been training and racing together in Sweden and Norway since mid-January, together with coaches Tom Hoogenraad and Charlie Hiam.

“This young team already has plenty of international competition experience, we are expecting them to build on their past performances,” said Hoogenraad, who led the Australian Team at the Junior-U23 in 2025 when Rosie Fordham won Australia's first ever U23 medal.

"The athletes are pumped to race against the rest of the world again, and we coaches are just as stoked to assist them in striving to achieve their goals."

All events from Lillehammer 2026 are set to be live-streamed via Snow TV and FISTV, with live timing and full results available via the FIS website.

2026 FIS U23/Junior Cross Country World Championships
2-8 March | Lillehammer NOR

U23 Women: Isabella Moon, Maddie Hooker
U23 Men: Hugo Hinckfuss, Noah Bradford, Vincent de Souza, Jayden Spring

Junior Women: Satara Moon
Junior Men: Clancy Harvey, Samuel Johnson, Harri Silvester

Support Team: Tom Hoogenraad (championship lead coach), Charlie Hiam (assistant coach), Alexei Sotskov (Australian Team head coach), Esko Sirparanta (wax tech) 

Event Schedule:
Mon 2 Mar - Junior Sprint Freestyle
Tue 3 Mar - U23 Sprint Freestyle
Wed 4 Mar - Junior 20km Freestyle (Mass Start)
Thu 5 Mar - U23 20km Freestyle (Mass Start)
Fri 6 Mar - Junior 10km Classic (Interval Start)
Sat 7 Mar - U23 10km Classic (Interval Start)
Sun 8 Mar - Junior & U23 4x5km Mixed Relay