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Annika Hicks

Cockney on Growing Up with Skiing, Retiring and What’s Next

Strength. Balance. Agility. Jesse Cockney had all of those qualities as a child growing up in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories — just like most Inuit kids — according to his father, Angus. But what he could do with that talent was what Angus hoped to nurture. Since he had put his son on skis at age 3, Angus reflected in an email that he “knew then that [Jess] had incredible potential to succeed.” And so the...

2018 Canadian Nationals: 30/50 k Classic Recap

(Note: This article has been corrected to reflect that Evan Palmer-Charrette won his second national title last weekend.) 2018 Canadian Ski Nationals (Thunder Bay, Ontario): 30/50 k classic mass starts On the final day of racing at Canadian Ski Nationals in Thunder Bay, two National Team Development Centre (NTDC) Thunder Bay athletes topped the podium on their local trails at the Lappe Nordic Centre on Saturday. Katherine Stewart-Jones and Evan Palmer-Charrette won national titles in...

2018 Canadian Nationals: Skate Pursuits and Sprints

Canadian Ski Nationals (Thunder Bay, Ontario): Freestyle pursuits and sprints Ski Nationals continued Tuesday and Wednesday at Lappe Nordic in Thunder Bay, with 10- and 15-kilometer freestyle pursuits (based on second-straight title as the first Canadian in the pursuit, placing second overall, 1:03.4 behind Gregg. Annika Hicks (AWCA) was the second Canadian in third overall (+1:16.3), up from fifth in the classic race. Katherine Stewart-Jones (NTDC Thunder Bay/National U25 Team) placed fourth in the pursuit...

2018 Canadian Nationals Weekend Recap: Days 1 and 2

Canadian Ski Nationals (Thunder Bay, Ontario): Team sprints + 5/10 k classic  Canada’s 2018 Ski Nationals opened this past weekend at Lappe Nordic in Thunder Bay, Ontario, with classic team sprints on Saturday followed by 5- and 10-kilometer classic interval starts on Sunday. Nakkertok topped the podium in both the open men’s and women’s team sprints. In the men’s final, Nakkertok’s Dominique Moncion-Groulx and Patrick Stewart-Jones won by 1.95 seconds over Barrie Cross Country (BXC)...

Sunday Rundown: Gatineau, Hakuba & Planica

NorAm Eastern Canadian Championships (Gatineau, Quebec): 10/15 k classic pursuits Rosie Frankowski defended her lead and tallied her won Saturday’s large hill/10 k competition, took the final spot on the podium after a photo finish with the Czech Republic’s Tomas Portyk. They finished 11.1 and 11.2 seconds behind Schmid in third and fourth, respectively. American Adam Loomis achieved his best individual result in three years, placing 24th (+3:03.4), after jumping to 30th and starting 3:20...

Sunday Rundown: Planica, Chaux-Neuve, Rena, Red Deer

FIS Cross Country World Cup (Planica, Slovenia): 10/15 k classic Men’s report Just when it looked like one of those Charlotte-Kalla days, Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski swooped in and topped the Swede’s time by 3.6 seconds in the women’s 10-kilometer classic individual start on Sunday for her first-career outright World Cup win. Outright meaning non-stage; Pärmäkoski has two World Cup wins to her name for setting the fastest time of day in 2016 pursuit races. But...

Saturday Rundown: Planica and Red Deer

Western Canadian Championships (Red Deer, Alberta): 10/15 k classic mass starts On Day 2 of the NorAm Western Canadian Championships in Red Deer, Andy Shields of Lappe Nordic won the men’s 15-kilometer classic mass start and Annika Hicks of the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) topped the women’s 10 k classic mass start. Shields won the open men’s race by 9.4 seconds in 40:14.4, while Russell Kennedy (Team R.A.D.) placed second for the second-straight day....

Friday Rundown: Antholz IBU World Cup; Western Canadian Championships

IBU World Cup (Antholz, Italy): Men’s 10 k sprint One prone penalty wasn’t enough to keep Johannes Thingnes Bø from his third-straight victory (and ninth this season, including relays) as the 24-year-old Norwegian won the men’s 10-kilometer sprint on Friday at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Antholz, Italy. Bø started 42nd of 109 men and had to navigate tricky wind conditions, along with the rest of the field. After missing one target...

Friday Rundown: Oberhof, Mont Sainte-Anne Trials, and U.S. Nationals

U.S. Cross Country Championships (Anchorage, Alaska): Freestyle sprints Women’s report Caitlin Patterson racked up her second-straight national title at this year’s 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships and Reese Hanneman topped the men’s freestyle sprint final on Friday at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. In the first of two sprints at 2018 U.S. nationals, Patterson, the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) skier who won the Complete results *** NorAm Trials (Mont Sainte-Anne, Quebec): Classic sprints Canada’s...

Canadian Olympic Trials: How Selection Works and Who to Watch as They Brave the Cold

Cross Country Canada’s Olympic selection trials begin on Friday (a number of cross-country skiers already qualified for the 2018 Games in PyeongChang, South Korea: Alex Harvey, Len Valjas, Devon Kershaw, Knute Johnsgaard, Jesse Cockney, Graeme Killick, Emily Nishikawa, and Dahria Beatty. But in fact, that might be too many. Cross Country Canada (CCC) learned that they currently stand to receive a quota of nine team members (men and women combined) for PyeongChang, based on Canada’s...

Rossland NorAm Rewind: Notes & Quotes

It’s been a week or two since the last NorAm of Canada’s Continental Cup series (10 days to be precise), but without further ado, here are the quotes from the winners and top finishers. To recap, the American husband-and-wife combo Brian and Caitlin Gregg came to Rossland, British Columbia, and dominated the three-day mini tour, with Caitlin winning all three races (a freestyle sprint and 10 k classic and men’s sprint on his home trails...

Sunday Rundown: Ramsau, Toblach, Annecy, St. Ulrich, Rossland (Updated)

NorAm mini tour (Rossland, B.C.): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits Team Gregg ended the Rossland NorAm mini tour with another double win, with American Caitlin Gregg and her husband Brian Gregg winning the 10- and 15-kilometer freestyle pursuits, respectively, at the Black Jack Ski Club trails. Caitlin capped the long weekend with her third-straight win, a 48.28-second victory over former Canadian biathlete Zina Kocher (Foothills Nordic). Caitlin started first and was first across the finish in 29:02.86,...

Friday Rundown: Annecy, St. Ulrich, Rossland (Updated)

IBU World Cup (Annecy, France): Men’s 10 k sprint (Note: This rundown has been updated to include quotes from US Biathlon’s Tim Burke and Sean Doherty.) Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø racked up his third-straight individual win of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup season on Friday (and fourth non-relay win of 2017/2018), topping the men’s 10-kilometer sprint in Annecy, France. And he did so in head-turning fashion, beating French superstar Martin Fourcade, the race’s...

Frozen Thunder Day 2: Euro-Bound Holmes, Valjas Top Distance Races

Frozen Thunder lived up to its name on Friday, with temperatures hovering below the legal race limit prior to the start of the second competition series of the week: the women’s 7.5- and men’s 10-kilometer freestyle individual starts. An hour delay was enough time to see temperatures rise to -10 degrees Celsius (14 Fahrenheit), and many skiers bundled in Buffs in prep for the five to six laps of racing. Overcast skies were a celestial...

Navigating Depth-of-Field at the PyeongChang World Cup for Canadian Olympic Qualification

As Cross Country Canada (CCC) looks at which athletes have made progress on CCC’s criteria, these results won’t count towards nomination to the Olympic team. “In order to maintain equity and fairness in this selection process, the HPC reserves the right to exclude, or to count only partially, the results of any World Cup event with a weak depth of field,” the criteria state. “The CCC Selection Committee will be charged with evaluating the depth...

Bjørgen Completes Undefeated Streak in World Cup Finals 10 k Classic

When it comes to distance classic events, at least this season, Norway’s Marit Bjørgen is calling the shots. She completed her undefeated streak in 10-kilometer classic competitions (in both individual or mass starts), winning her fourth in a row on Saturday at World Cup Finals in Québec City. Starting in bib No. 7, Saturday’s eventual mass-start winner was skiing just outside of the top 10 for the first kilometer, following two U.S. skiers, Sadie Bjornsen in eighth...

For the second-straight year, the World Cup’s season-ending races will be held in Canada, with Québec City hosting 2017 World Cup Finals, this Friday through Sunday. Canada initially announced a according to a press release. On Thursday, FasterSkier confirmed that the list included the Women | U.S. selection criteria, and

FIS Nordic Junior World Championships (Midway, Utah): Junior relays Hailey Swirbul, Julia Kern, Hannah Halvorsen, and Katharine Ogden on the podium. That’s right. Two days after Ogden became the first American to earn an individual medal at Junior World Championships, those four U.S. junior women listed above did the same, placing third in the 4 x 3.3-kilometer relay on the last day of 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. The team...