June 15, 2021
Kristen Bourne’s senior Nordic ski season didn’t begin with the hot start she had hoped for. Even after devoting her entire off season to training and coming in to the winter in top form, she was in a funk mentally that was proving hard to break. But with supportive teammates and coaches, she found herself relaxing more and midway through the season, approached her races from a different perspective. Success soon followed.
Bourne’s season may not have started fast, but, it ended with the finish she had hoped for. Bourne won the section 4A championship and placed third at the MSHSL state meet, her fourth such trip to state in an impressive high school career, one that also included multiple all-conference and all-state selections, honors as a junior national all-American, and team MVPs and captainships. Bourne truly made her mark on MPA Nordic skiing, becoming the most decorated skier in team history.
Bourne’s athletic success for the Panthers also ventured beyond Nordic. As a cross country runner, she recorded the third fastest time in school history and fills the all-time honors list with a plethora of all-conference awards and state meet appearances. On the track, she was also a multiple time all-conference honoree with appearances on the all-time MPA performance lists in the three events. Bourne earned 18 varsity letters, one in each season grades 7-12 and was named a captain in all three of her sports. A testament to her sportsmanship and success across multiple sports, Bourne was MPA’s 2013 Athena Award winner.
“MPA helped prepare me for college athletics by providing consistent coaching and opportunity. I’m very fortunate for the opportunities I was given because it set me up for the path I’m on now,” Bourne says. “I had encouraging coaches who were invested in my success and improvement. They helped me acquire professionalism and leadership skills needed at an elite athletic level.”
Bourne continued her Nordic skiing career at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan, where she majored in exercise science. As a Wildcat, she continued to accumulate awards and honors. She was named team captain, won the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship, made the NMU all-academic team and participated in the NCAA Nordic skiing championships in 2014-15, placing 17th overall. After redshirting in 2015-16, she qualified for the 2016-17 NCAA championships once again, finishing in 13th and 17th place in the 15K freestyle mass start and 5K classic respectively.
In the 2017-18 season, she finished 27th in the 15K freestyle race and 30th in the 5K classic race at NCAAs and was named a first team all-CCSA honoree. She has also represented the United States at the World Junior championship in Kazakhstan and the World U23 championship in Romania.
After graduating from NMU in May 2018, Bourne moved to Oslo, Norway to pursue a professional career in Nordic skiing, joining the elite team, Lyn Ski who races throughout Scandinavia. She also worked at an internship at the Oslo Sports Trauma Institute helping with sport injury research. In 2020, she returned to Minnesota to coach Nordic skiing at the College of St. Scholastica.
In true MPA fashion, Bourne’s favorite high school athletic memory is about a teammate’s success. “My favorite memory was individually winning the section 4A championship the same day as Nick Gardner (’14) in 2013. I was ecstatic about my personal victory, but it was more fulfilling witnessing a fellow training partner accomplish a feat we had both originally thought was out of reach. He exuded the true meaning of mental toughness that day.”
