Father-son Kerrigan coaching duo leads U.S. skyrunners to world competition in Italy
July 24, 2021 | By Lisa Scagliotti 
Naia Tower-Pierce of East Burke, Vermont, descends a skyrunning course. Courtesy photo
When the elite sport of skyrunning holds its Fifth Annual World Junior Skyrunning Championships in Italy later this week, two familiar figures from the Vermont running community will be leading Team USA.
Green Mountain Valley School alumnus Ryan Kerrigan, of Ripton, and his father John Kerrigan from Duxbury have taken on this new endeavor and are traveling with a team of eight young runners – three from Vermont, the rest from western U.S. states – for the competition July 30-Aug. 1 in Fonte Cerreto, L’Aquila, Italy.
Skyrunning is a somewhat new sport to the U.S. that combines climbing and trail-running in some of the most technically challenging mountain locations around the world.
The International Skyrunning Federation is the organization that oversees and hosts skyrunning competitions. Last year’s junior competition and many others were called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the federation’s website, the sport has unique appeal rooted in its premise to pit athletes against nature in spectacular and rugged mountain environments: “It’s a sport borne in the wild, where the logic was to reach the highest peak in the shortest time from a town or village. Today it represents the peak of outdoor running defined by altitude and technicality and counts for 200 races worldwide with over 50,000 participants from 65 countries.”
The modern sport of skyrunning evolved from Italian mountaineer Marino Giacometti and a handful of fellow climbers who pioneered races on Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa in the early 1990s. Soon afterward with a corporate sponsor, Fila sportswear, organized races were established on courses across mountain ranges including the Alps and Himalayas, Mount Kenya, Scotland’s Highlands and Mexican volcanoes.
Coach Ryan Kerrigan says the courses and conditions athletes face for the competitions are unique with vertical climbs referred to as “VK” races that involve steep descents and often dramatic meteorological shifts.
Mountains meet sky as Wendell Lorenzen of Sequim, Washington, competes in a junior skyrunning race. Courtesy photo
“I have seen 30-degree Celsius temps, blinding sun, pelting rain, and ferocious ice storms all occurring during one VK race,” he said.
Hillary Gerardi refers to skyrunning as “skycrawling” where “you are often on your hands and knees gulping for air.” The native Vermonter now lives in France and is one of the top-ranked female skyrunners in the world.
John Kerrigan said the name of the sport is fitting once you see the athletes in action: “In Andorra, I learned how skyrunning got its name. While observing the race summit from a distance, it looks as if runners were literally dropped out of the sky.”
The elder Kerrigan suggests that evidence of travel akin to skyrunning dates back 6,000 years demonstrated by the 1991 discovery of the body of Ötzi, nicknamed “the Ice Man,” found buried in glacial ice in the Austrian Alps near the border with present-day Italy. “Ötzi may have been the first skyrunner. On his corpse were seeds of flowers taken from fields located in valleys hundreds of kilometers away. Also found on Ötzi were shells of sea creatures from the warm seas of the Mediterranean,” Kerrigan said. “It is believed that Ötzi was a trader. Pedaling his wares from the Mediterranean through the high sheep pastures up and over what is now the Italian and Austrian Alps.”
Team USA Assistant Coach John Kerrigan (left), Christiano Carpente of the Italian and International Skyrunning Federation (center), and U.S. Coach Ryan Kerrigan. Courtesy photo
On the edge of an emerging sport
This is the fourth trip to the World Junior Skyrunning Championships for U.S. athletes. The Kerrigans landed in their roles heading the team after an initial decision several years ago to sign up a Vermont team for their first race in Europe.
“Ryan and I arrived in Andorra in 2017 with nine local Vermont athletes. We were not expecting much from our ragamuffin group of local runners,” John Kerrigan recalled. “We were just hoping that our kids would have a wonderful experience. They had a great time but also made an impression on the world skyrunning stage.”
The elder Kerrigan serves as assistant coach to the skyrunning program. An inductee of the Run Vermont Hall of Fame, he is the head coach of the Harwood cross country team.
At that first competition, Sam Hodges of Cornwall, placed third overall in the 18-and-under age group. Moretown’s Erin Magill came in second in the VK. Having two runners on the podium and a fourth-place team finish earned the U.S. team an automatic invite to the 2018 World Junior Championships in Italy where runner Sophia Sanchez of Lake Tahoe, California, took the gold medal in the VK. In 2019, Sanchez won the Sky Race; team member Mikey Connolly of Chugiak, Alaska, made it to the podium in the 18-and-under VK. Several other U.S. runners finished within the top five in their races and the team finished 5th out of 30 overall.
After a 2020 break due to the pandemic, the junior event returns to L’Aquila, Italy, near Rome for the 2021 championships next week. According to the international federation, 187 athletes from 26 countries aged 15-23 are signed up to compete for 54 medals. The registrations are comparable to the 2019 youth championships where nearly 200 young athletes from 28 countries took part. The annual youth event is billed as a way to develop and promote the growing sport.
Team USA’s 2021 runners are: Vermonter and siblings Naia Tower-Pierce, age 19, and her brother, Finn Tower-Pierce, 16, of East Burke, and William Haig, 22, of Middlebury; Noel Spencer, 19, of Anchorage, Alaska; Jakob Eggert, 21, of Salt Lake City, Utah; Wendell Lorenzen, 23, of Sequim, Washington; Parke Chapin, 17, of Bend, Oregon.
On Friday, July 30, runners will compete in the Gran Sasso Vertical Run, a 3.8 km race with a 1,000-meter climb that tops out at 2,130-meter altitude. A rest day follows before the Gran Sasso SkyRace across 23 km with a 2,369-meter vertical climb. The 15-17-year-old athletes will run a shorter course.
As coaches for the U.S. Skyrunning Team, the Kerrigans also coach skyrunning athletes who participate in the adult skyrunning competitions in addition to the youth athletes. The team sent four competitors to the World Skyrunning Championships in Vall de Boí, Spain, July 9-11, Ryan Kerrigan said.
Overall the experience suits the father-son coaching duo. The Kerrigans say they enjoy this new adventure and complement each other in their roles. "We blend well together. Ryan does all the work and I just show up at the start with an espresso and words of encouragement for the runners," John Kerrigan quipped.
"Yes, I cover the nuts and bolts but having my Dad's 40-plus years’ experience as a cross country, Nordic and track and field coach has been very valuable. He can anticipate issues before they happen and has many years of working with parents, race officials and other coaches," added Ryan Kerrigan who himself was a standout Nordic skier at the University of Vermont. He also was recently elected to the International Skyrunning Federation Council.
"He gets to help shape the future of the sport,” John Kerrigan said of his son’s role in the skyrunning world. “He is the first American elected to the international staff."
For more information, see websites for the International Skyrunning Federation and USSkyrunning.