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Continental Cup

Continental Cups are one step below the World Cup. Each year the top ranked male and female skiers in each Continental Cup series qualify to race on the World Cup. The use Continental Cup series is the SuperTour. The Canadian series is the Nor-Am.
A Norwegian in Hayward: Niklas Dyrhaug Wins The American Birkie (With Audio Interview)

Several inches of new snow five days out, a cold-snap that sent temperatures in Hayward plummeting to -24 degrees Fahrenheit two nights before the race, and a bluebird day with temperatures in the high teens at the start, climbing to mid-30s in the early afternoon. Firm tracks, perfect groom, and fast snow. You could not have asked for a more perfect day to showcase the trails linking Cable to Hayward, WI at the 2020 American...

MSA Trials Wrap-up: Tactics, Selections, Photos, and Videos

Mont Sainte-Anne brought great ski conditions on a weekend where the best in Canada fought to qualify for four different race trips: U20/U23 World Championships in Oberwiesenthal, Germany; Falun and the Scando Tour; the sprint tour of Québec and Minnesota; and World Cup finals in Canmore. Combine this with the usual NorAm action and COC leader competition and you have all the ingredients for a great weekend. Over 400 athletes raced in five age groups...

MSA Trials Rundown: Classic Interval Starts

Fresh snow greeted day two of the Mont Sainte-Anne Trials for the interval start classic. With athletes battling to qualify for U20/U23 World Championships in Oberwiesenthal, Germany and three separate World Cup trips (Falun/Scando Tour, Sprint Tour, Canmore), it was never going to be a simple matter of skier against the clock. Racing started with the open men’s 15km on a 5km loop that was shared by all the elite categories. Early on, it looked...

MSA Trials Rundown: Qualifying for U23, U20 and More

In Canadian domestic ski racing, it doesn’t get much bigger than this. Mont Sainte-Anne (MSA) is hosting the NorAm weekend that also serves as U23/U20 World Championships qualification and has special significance in selection for World Cup starts. Any skier who hasn’t already qualified for National Team selection for next season start with top 30 results on either the World Cup or U20 World Championships. Most of these paths start at MSA Trials. For U20...

Canadian Racing Rundown: Westerns, Pragelato, and Lausanne

Canada took a step back from the World Cup circuit this weekend and focussed attention into development series. As the country tries to build momentum in a post Alex Harvey world, the focus has moved away from World Cup podiums and towards a consistent presence in the top 30. The road to the World Cup goes through local and regional races on the way to national/continental races. One of the development challenges in Canada is...

Nakkertok NorAm Weekend Round Up

The NorAm circuit moved east to the Nakkertok trails for three days of racing jointly hosted by Nakkertok Nordic, Club Skinouk, Chelsea Nordiq, and Kanata Nordic. Friday featured classic sprints, Saturday interval start free, and Sunday interval start classic. The event was also the Candy Cane Cup for the younger categories, as well as Ontario Cup 1 and Coupe Québec 1. 374 athletes in the U16, U18, and Open categories competed on Friday with many...

Sun Valley SuperTour Results Round Up

This article has been revised to reflect the correct third-place finisher in both distance races. After a NorAm/Supertour race stint in Canmore, Canada the SuperTour split off and reconfigured in Sun Valley, Idaho over the weekend. Saturday featured a classic sprint at the Lake Creek racing venue a few miles outside of town. APU skier Tyler Kornfield qualified first, and made that mark count as he won the senior men’s sprint in 3:14.837. Luke Jager (U...

Canmore NorAm / SuperTour / Nationals Weekend Wrap-up (Updated)

Updated with more quotes. The first three race days of both the NorAm and SuperTour series are complete and the athletes and coaches are digesting the lessons. It was free sprints Friday,  classic distance Saturday, and interval start free technique distance on Sunday. The men started the Sunday with a four lap 15km followed by the women doing a 3 lap 10km. CGRP’s Ben Lustgarten nailed the pacing to win Sunday’s race in 42:56.0, just...

Canmore NorAm/SuperTour/Nationals Classic Distance

Day two of the first NorAm and SuperTour weekend was interval start classic, with 10km for the men and 5km for the women. The US SuperTour athletes took the chance to show their depth today, packing the top ten of the open categories. The 154 men raced first, with the U.S. Ski Team’s Zak Ketterson winning comfortably in 27:33.1. National team member Antoine Cyr was second at 15.0 back, followed by CGRP’s Ben Lustgarten at...

Canmore NorAm/SuperTour/Nationals Sprints

The NorAm series fully lived up to the North American Cup label in Canmore Friday with 1.3km free technique sprints to kick off a combined NorAm, SuperTour, and Mexican National Championships weekend. Full results for the weekend are on zone4, including live results every day. Friday featured sprints for the older age groups only (282 racers): Saturday is interval start classic, and Sunday’s race an interval start free. Before the races, there was chatter about...

Rebuilding Canada: Less Europe, More North America

  Canada is moving into a new era in skiing. An era with less World Cup podiums and more emphasis on developing future podium athletes. “Train at what you want to be good at. If its climbing, climb. If it is chess, play chess. Ski training has many elements of course, but in the end the best training to race fast is to race.” — Erik Bråten, National Team Head Coach In the near future,...

2019-20 SUPERTOUR SERIES ANNOUNCED (Press Release)

Press release Top U.S. cross country athletes will join their Canadian counterparts at seven stops for the 2019-20 SuperTour. The tour is a series of International Ski Federation (FIS) sanctioned cross country events across North America produced by U.S. Ski & Snowboard together with its divisions and clubs. “The SuperTour is one of U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s longest-running event series, and we’ve seen quite a number of U.S. National Champions, World and Olympic champions compete...

2018/2019 SuperTour: Over and Out

Over and out on the SuperTour. The season-long series of races running from December in West Yellowstone, Montana to SuperTour finals in Presque Isle, Maine have concluded . Eighteen competitions in total with points allocated for each race, athletes are ranked in three categories: Overall, sprint and distance. The overall winners on the SuperTour, male and female, are guaranteed Continental Cup winner starts for World Cup Period 1 beginning in Nov. 2019. Kyle Bratrud (SMS...

SuperTour Finals Distance National Championship Race Rundown

US Ski & Snowboard SuperTour Finals Presque Isles, Maine 30k/50k Mass Start Freestyle Tuesday marked the last day of SuperTour Finals and with it, the women raced a 30-kilometer mass start freestyle. Sadie Bjornsen (APU/USST) won in 1:21:29.4. Bjornsen was the pacesetter for much of the day. By the 10 k checkpoint, the potential podium challengers had been winnowed down to Bjornsen, Rosie Brennan (APU), Julia Kern (SMS T2/USST), Jessica Yeaton (APU), Katherine Stewart-Jones (NTDC...

APU 1 Takes the 4 x 5 k Mixed Relay Bragging Rights

Sunday was the day. The day of all days when SuperTour Finals in Presque Isles, Maine witnessed the fastest 4 x 5-kilometer mixed relay team in the land. Over the last four years of the mixed relay competition at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard SuperTour Finals, also known as Spring Series, Alaska Pacific University APU won the first two iterations of the event, SMS T2 the two most recent. The foursome comprising APU 1: Rosie Brennan,...

Race Rundown: SuperTour Finals 1.4 k Freestyle Sprint from Presque Isle, Maine (Updated with Sprint Bracket)

U.S. Ski and Snowboard SuperTour Finals Presque Isle, Maine 1.4  k Freestyle Sprint Men’s overall results. Qualification For the women’s qualifying results from this morning’s 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint, U.S. Ski Team (USST) member’s locked up the top-four fastest times with Sadie Bjornsen (USST/APU) leading in a time of 3:03.11. Dahria Beatty of the Canadian National Team qualified in fifth. (Click on images below to enlarge.)   Simi Hamilton of the U.S. Ski Team and SMS T2 notched...

Canadian Western Championship: Weekend Wrap-up

KELOWNA, B.C — One week after Easterns, it was time for Westerns, and the Polar Vortex made the trip for both weekends. At Easterns, the air was cold enough to keep the organizing committee on edge at the start of the weekend, and freezing rain complicated driving  plans. At Westerns, the cold weather held off to Sunday, but falling snow on dry, salted roads created a sheet ice for Friday’s commute. Both championships had less athletes...

Canadians Westerns Rundown: Skate Sprints

Canadian Western Championships started off Friday with free technique sprints on the Telemark trails near Kelowna, B.C. The sun was out for the qualification round, followed by cloud, and light snow as the day progressed with the temperature hovering at -10C. A major road closure combined with icy morning highways and a large number of accidents blocking roads caused some athletes and volunteers to miss the qualification round, resulting in only 312 athletes on the start...

Canadian Eastern Championships: Weekend Wrap-up

The NorAm series went to Duntroon, Ontario, for the Canadian Eastern Championships: three days of varied weather, new race formats, and new faces on the podium, all hosted by Highlands Trailblazers. Easterns is possibly the most storied ski race in Canada. Most years, it is the largest FIS event in North America. This year, the Polar Vortex froze out the travel ambitions for many families and lower budgets in the post-Olympic season persuaded many western...

Sunday Rundown: Canadian Easterns Pursuit

Canadian Eastern Championships wrapped up in Duntroon, Ontario, Sunday with the skate portion of the two day pursuit. Tthe men and women skied the same distance on the same course, a two lap 15km free technique pursuit. Start times were based only on Saturday’s 10km classic races, with no bonus points applied. Highlands Nordic showed a lot of different weather over the weekend, slowly warming from -18 on Thursday to Sunday’s freezing drizzle changing to...