LANDGROVE-Competing at the Olympics is the culmination of years of hard work by the athletes fortunate enough to make it, and all the time spent training and working toward the hopes of one day reaching the podium can come down to a matter of a few minutes that can define a career.
That was the case for cross-country skier Ben Ogden of Landgrove at the 2026 Milan Cortina games in Italy. Ogden ended a long U.S. drought for America in men’s cross-country skiing, winning a silver medal in the individual sprint Feb. 10 with a time of 3 minutes, 41.61 seconds, just 0.8 seconds behind Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo, who also made history by sweeping all cross-country events and winning six gold medals.
Ogden’s podium finish marked the first time a U.S. man had won a medal in the event since fellow Vermonter Bill Koch won silver in the 1976 games in Innsbruck, Austria.
Eight days later, Ogden and teammate Gus Schumacher paired up to win a silver in the team sprint freestyle, finishing with a time of 18:30.3. The medal was the second silver of the games for Ogden, making him the most decorated American male cross-country skier in Olympic history.
Ogden played a crucial role near the end of the race, making a big move to keep the U.S. in second place heading into the final exchange. Schumacher did equally well, staying close to Klaebo, who led the pack, and putting distance between himself and the other competitors to secure the silver medal.
Speaking from his parent’s home in Landgrove on March 16, Ogden said there had been a lot of talk prior to the Olympics about the group of men on the U.S. Ski Team, which included himself and Schumacher, as being the ones that were likely to find success on the international stage. After the race had ended, Ogden said it began to sink in that he and Schumacher, who had been teammates since 2018, had really done it.
“We just sort of connected over how incredibly lucky we’ve been to race against each other and push each other for so many years; how lucky we are to have such a fantastic team and so many people that believe in us,” said Ogden. “We accomplish the best things as a team and we were a two-person team that got the medal, but really we were a 100-person team with all the wax techs, the coaches, everyone from the Junior Worlds, everybody who donates to support the team, and all the people from back home who just believe in us.”
Deep roots in the sport
Ogden’s journey began at young age as a kid growing up in Landgrove. The Ogden family has a longstanding connection to skiing. Sam Ogden, Ben’s great-grandfather, was a strong supporter of the ski industry. Among Sam’s long list of accomplishments in Vermont was aiding in the installation of the first rope tow at Bromley in 1938 and the first chair lift at what is now Stowe Mountain Resort in 1940, according to an article by VTDigger.
Ogden’s father, John, was also a ski racer at Middlebury College. He coached a Bill Koch Youth Ski League team while Ben and his sisters Katharine and Charlotte, who also raced, were still young. Ben grew up training with the West River Nordic Club at the Wild Wings XC Center and at Viking Nordic Center in Londonderry.
When it came time to go to high school, Ogden chose to attend Stratton Mountain School (SMS), going there as a day student. There he trained under Sverre Caldwell, who served as the school’s Nordic coach from 1980 until 2019, and also Matt Boobar, the school’s current Nordic Director.
As a kid, Ogden said he did have dreams of being a professional cross-country skier and making it to the Olympics. Growing up in Landgrove, there were several high level and Olympic athletes that served as examples. When he was a young age, Sophie Caldwell, Sverre’s daughter, and Andy Newell were racing.
Then, of course, there was Koch. Ogden trained and raced with Koch’s son and would often go over to his house and ski on the trails in the woods on his property.
While he had Olympic caliber role models and thought about being in the Olympics, it still wasn’t at the forefront of his mind.
“When you’re young as an athlete, you kind of just shoot for the next thing. So, when I was in elementary school I was hoping to go to Junior Nationals when I made it to high school, and then after the Junior Nationals I was like ‘Oh, Junior Worlds’ and you kind of work your way up that way,” said Ogden. “It’s not like from a young age I was fixating on the Olympics too much, but it was always on my mind because there were athletes already from this area that had pulled it off.”
That began to change in his senior year at SMS when he attended the FIS Nordic Junior and U23 World Ski Championships in Switzerland, where he won silver in the Men’s junior 4x5 kilometer relay. After that, he began to realize that making it to Olympics might be possible. In the years that followed, Ogden went to more junior world ski championships and became increasingly serious when it came to racing.
The next level
Ogden made his Olympic debut at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, finishing 12th in the freestyle sprint race. At the time, it was the best men’s individual sprint result for the U.S.
Having the experience in Beijing played a large role in his success at this year’s games in Italy. Going into the 2022 games, Ogden said his main goal was to be there and to qualify. He didn’t really have any expectations as far as the race itself. During that time, he also saw how other athletes, such as teammate Jessie Diggins, prepared for the races.
“I definitely saw in Beijing that when it comes time for the championship, those guys are going all in for the races for which they think they have the best shot. There’s not a lot of ‘I’m going to race every race and just try and do decently in all.’ It’s more like ‘I’m going all in and try to do the best I can on this one day,’” Ogden said.
The experience helped him in other ways as well. Ogden found his first Olympics to be overwhelming, from living in the Olympic Village with all the other athletes to all the press coverage and social media. Even the preparation and the transportation seemed unusual. All of it together, he said, made it difficult to focus on the small details and become comfortable and it never felt like a ski race until he was out there competing.
The experience in Beijing and this year’s setting in Italy, where he has raced a lot, helped him feel more comfortable and just focus on training and skiing.
The rest is history.
With his Olympic success, Ogden joins a small list of American cross-country skiers to win medals at the games. Diggins, who also trains at SMS, is the most accomplished American cross-country skier, adding another bronze to her collection during the 2026 games to go with Olympic gold in 2018, and silver and bronze medals in 2022.
Diggins teamed with Kikkan Randall to win the first gold medal in cross-country skiing for the United States in Olympic history in the women’s team sprint. Koch is the only other person on the list, taking silver in the 30K in 1976.
John Ogden got to witness a lot of his son’s successes in ski racing, including his debut in the Olympics in 2022. In 2023 though, John died after a decade of fighting cancer. When this year’s Olympics began and Ogden won his first silver medal in the men’s individual sprint, Ogden’s mother, Andrea, was there to watch her son make history, something that Ogden said made the experience even more special.
“It was awesome. I got to look up and see her so excited and it was really, really incredible. My mom has been through a lot the last few years, as have all of my family, but I think that ski racing has been this point of positivity for my family,” said Ogden.
One of the biggest things that Ogden said he will take away from these Olympic games is the relationships he built during the games, particularly with Schumacher, and the conversations with Koch and Caldwell he had after he won the silver medals.
“I won’t soon forget those personal connections that were forged at the Olympics as a result of some of the success,” Ogden said. “Honestly, I’ll forget what the races were like in time, but I’ll never forget the conversations afterward and the conversations before and during.”
This Sports item by Brandon Canevari was written for The Commons.