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2006 January

Junior and U-23 Worlds in Kranj, Slovenia start today. Fasterskier.com will have daily updates. Sweden’s big hope on the women’s side is Charlotte Kalla. She just won a Scandinavian Cup race (senior class) in the 10-k freestyle. Norway dominated junior Worlds last year and several defending champions are returning including Marte Elden, Betty Ann Bjerkreim and Petter Northug. Northug captured two gold at last years Junior Worlds and was recently left of the Norwegian Olympic...

Jorgen Aukland of Norway won the 70-kilometer Marcialonga 70-kilometer classic marathon World Cup race on Sunday. He was 10 seconds ahead of Rickard Andreasson of Sweden. Jerry Ahrlin (also of Sweden) was third. Italy’s own marathon specialist Christina Paluselli won the women’s race 3 seconds ahead of Ine Wigernaes of Norway. Sofia Lind of Sweden was third. http://www.marcialonga.it/mlff/#

Marquette, MI — With mild temperatures hanging in the 30’s all day under sunny skies in the morning turning overcast by afternoon, a record 1216 skiers took to the Noque trail Saturday, January 28 for the 8th annual Subaru Noquemanon Ski Marathon and Ski Hall of Fame Half Marathon. The Subaru Factory team again dominated the 51-kilometer men’s classic race placing team members in the top four positions. Chad Giese, set a record time on...

Team FSx racer Kate Whitcomb won her first SuperTour title in Sunday's 10k mass-start freestyle at the Telemark Lodge in Wisconsin, even overcoming a broken pole tip on the second lap. The terrain on the course was fairly easy, but the new wet hardpack snow conditions were not. (Sunday's article has more on the women's race: http://www.fasterskier.com/racing3015.html .) So what was your strategy going in, were you just trying to hammer the whole way and...

FIS Junior World Ski Championships and U 23 Cross-Country Skiing World Championships in Kranj-Medovde (SLO) Sprint F women and men, 31.01.2006 Dasha Gaiazova of Canada had the best North American finish of the day in the U23 Championship Sprint race today, placing 5th. Other North American results: Women: 5. Dasha Gaiazova, CAN 11. Chandra Crawford, CAN 14. Laura Valaas, Whitman College 16. Perianne Jones, CAN 27. Lindsey Williams, Northern Michigan U 35. Kasandra Rice, University...

Sprint F women and men, 31.01.2006 Morgan Smyth of Northern Michigan University had the top North American finish in the opening race of the World Junior Championships today, the sprint event. Smyth placed 7th. All three of the other American women also advanced into the elimination heats: Sadie Bjornsen (Methow Valley) was 15th, Liz Stephen (Burke Mtn Academy) was 24th and Tazlina Mannix (Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center) was 28th. Canadian results: Amanda Ammar...

In a letter to the U.S. Cross Country Committee Luke Bodensteiner outlined a new level of funding for the cross country program... This is a very positive turn of events since the XC budget started out at $400,000 this spring (which covers everything from paper clips, all salaries, all travel, every drop of wax, hotels, training camps, all development projects, etc) and has increased since then... More inside...

An excellent four minute audio interview with the USST's Carl Swenson from the radio program 'Weekend America.' The interview aired on NPR this past weekend. You can listen to it online at the link below. Thanks to interviewer Jason Paur for doing the interview (and letting us know about it). No Respect for Cross-Country With their lightning speed and flashy moves, downhill skiers and snowboarders enjoy a lot of glory on the slopes. But as...

Magne Myrmo might not be a household name among American ski circles these days. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a ski legend. Of ski legends from the 1970s, Myrmo’s name holds up well to his Norwegian teammate Oddvar Braa, the big Finn Juha Mieto and America’s own Bill Koch. Myrmo is perhaps best known for his disdain of early fiberglass skis. Racing at the 1974 World Championships in Falun, Myrmo didn’t even bother to bring...

Kaisa Varis and Jari Isometsa were not selected for the Finnish Olympic team. The Finnish Olympic team was announced on Wednesday. Two former doping convicted skiers, Kaisa Varis and Jari Isometsa were not selected to represent Finland, despite being nominated by the Finnish Ski federation. – Varis has showed good shape in only one weekend this season and that’s not enough, said Kari Niemi-Nikkola of the Finnish Olympic committee. Kaisa Varis was 9th in the...

Team FSx racer Kate Whitcomb rebounded from slightly sub-par performances earlier in the week, and also overcame a broken pole basket on her way to winning Sunday's 10k mass-start SuperTour race at the Telemark Lodge in Cable, Wisconsin. Anna McLoon Jacqui Benson A big crowd of spectators and racers lined up along the course in the stadium, which made a big loop before coming into the finish, allowing for an extended view of the action....

Cable, Wisconsin–The Telemark Lodge race venue, famous for holding the start of the American Birkebeiner each year, saw an outstandingly wide range of weather conditions during the three SuperTour events it hosted over the past several days. Wednesday's classic sprint was near-perfect hardwax skiing on powder, followed by a late-spring-like meltdown on Thursday and Friday, with an overnight freeze to give the early starters in Saturday's classic race a rock-hard ice track to pound away...

Craftsbury Common, VT (January 28): It's all about kick when you have to do a classic ski race for 46 kilometers over Vermont hills and dales. Rossignol’s Eli Enman (Huntington, VT) and Marc Gilbertson (Hyde Park, VT) didn’t leave anything to chance when it came to a shot at victory at the TD Banknorth Craftsbury Marathon. Both chose the wax-less skis and Team Rossi came in one-two in the men’s race. “These were the skis...

Here is the December issue of the FasterSkier Club newslettter. These articles are sent to our club subscribers each month via email. To sign up, see the end of this article. FASTERSKIER CLUB SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE – 2005 December, 2005 Volume 2 Issue 8 The Club! This is the eighth issue of the 2005 season Fasterskier.com’s subscription service covering in-depth, modern and interesting issues in the sport of Cross-Country skiing. The subscription service runs from May...

From January 30th-February 5th, 2006, the best young athletes in Ski Jumping, Cross-Country and Nordic Combined will gather in Slovenia for the first FIS Nordic World Championships there. In 1992, Maribor hosted the 11th FIS Alpine Junior World Championships which it repeated with great success in 2004. This time, the 17th FIS Nordic Junior Ski World Championships will also include the first official FIS U23 (under 23 years) World Championships for Cross-Country. Altogether, 60 medals...

Shayla Swanson has racked up several top-3 finishes in Midwest SuperTour races recently. Today however she finally did just enough to win the SuperTour 5k classic at Telemark, edging the strong Russian Natasha Naryshkina by 1.5 seconds. Natasha Naryshkina leading the A-Final of the sprint earlier this week at Telemark Naryshkina, always a fierce fighter when it comes to racing, held off APUNSC's Erin Hood by exactly 5 seconds on a course that featured almost...

Some parts of the course were in better shape than others… A few of the late-seed skiers pushing into the finish The next-fastest skier behind Chamberlain and Cook was Zach Violett (FSx/Auburn Ski Club), who opened hard and skied a steady second lap to finish one minute behind Chamberlain. UAF college racer Marius Korthauer was another 20 seconds back in 4th, narrowly beating out Maine Winter Sports Center teammates Colin Rodgers (FSx) and Tom Keefe...

Its no April Fools joke this time…. From NENSA newsletter: “Over the holidays, we received an anonymous contribution of $500,000 to our Endowment Fund! Yes, that’s half of a million. NENSA Executive Director Max Cobb had to sit down after opening the envelope, and when he told the Resource Development Committee, they weren’t sure whether to believe it or not. But, yes, the check has cleared and NENSA has the long-term security of a half...