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SVSEF Gold Team

Q and A: Sun Valley’s Rick Kapala on coaching, sport development, and constructing a “complete ecosystem” in the skiing community

“I’m sorry, but once I start talking cross-country skiing, I can’t stop,” admits Rick Kapala. Remove the “talking” from that statement, and it’s still a succinct summary of long-time Sun Valley coach Rick Kapala’s career. This season will mark the first time in thirty-five years that Kapala won’t be manning the wax bench on race day for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. This summer, he turned to a new role at the Sun Valley...

Ketterson and Ogden Take Classic Sprint Win on New Tracks at Mt Van Hoevenberg

By Rachel Bachman Perkins and Ben Theyerl After a brief break, the SuperTour picked up in Lake Placid this weekend, with a fluoro-free Period III kicking off with a 1.5-kilometer classic sprint. The frigid forecast called for overnight lows of -5 Fahrenheit, with a wind chill as low as -23F. Highs during the day were only predicted to climb into the low single digits. Qualifiers were scheduled for 10/10:45 am, with quarterfinals for the open...

Nordic Nation: Inside the Athlete-Guide Dynamic with Jake Adicoff and Sam Wood

In this episode, we have Jake Adicoff and Sam Wood, calling in from Lillehammer as the duo races as athlete and guide at the Para World Championships. Jake is a visually impaired athlete from Sun Valley who grew up racing with the SVSEF cross country program and now trains with the Gold Team. He has raced at both the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi, and the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, where he won a silver medal...

In-Depth Race Coverage: Slow Heats with Tight Finishes in the SoHo SuperTour Classic Sprint

By Rachel Bachman Perkins and Ben Theyerl  Precipitation was no longer a threat for the final day of racing in Soldier Hollow on Friday, a 1.5-kilometer classic sprint offered alongside the 2022 U.S. Cross Country Championships, yet classified as SuperTour only. However, athletes still faced unseasonably warm weather as blazing sun brought temperatures into the low 50’s on course during the midday heats.  Howling wind and rippling bibs could be heard as background noise as...

Elite Team Preview: Sun Valley XC Gold Team

Team name and location: Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation XC Gold Team (Sun Valley or SVSEF); Ketchum, Idaho Coach: Chris Mallory Current roster: Kevin Bolger, Katie Feldman, Sarah Goble, Sam Wood, Karl Schulz, Johnny Hagenbuch, Peter Holmes, Peter Wolter, Jake Adicoff Who’s new: Peter Wolter and Jake Adicoff Who’s missing: n/a Who’s still on this team, or otherwise involved in American skiing, from when we did this in 2012: No one; Simi Hamilton recently retired, and Patrick...

Although the training cycle has officially begun, it decidedly has a different vibe and look. Adding some complexity to our short-term new normal are a crosshatch of state, county, and city regulations as it relates to mitigating the community spread of Covid-19. The core question elite cross-country ski programs are asking is this: How can we most responsibly promote safe and effective training for their athletes?  (The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) has...

Quick Hit Athlete Check-Ins from Under 23 Worlds: Peter Holmes

The U23 World Championships in Lahti, Finland got rolling on Jan. 21 with a classic sprint. In our quest to check in with some of the North American athletes in Finland, with emailed a list of quick-hit questions to touch base. Peter Holmes is twenty two years old and skied at the 2015 World Junior Ski Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Holmes placed 27th in the classic sprint earlier this week in Lahti. On Wednesday, he...

In an effort to showcase the North Americans competing at this week’s International Ski Federation (FIS) 2017 USANA Nordic Junior World Championships and U23 Cross Country World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. Here we have 22-year-old Jack Hegman, of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team, who’s representing the U.S. at his first U23 Worlds....

Two weeks after being Cole Morgan still felt like he had something to prove, goals to chase, races to qualify for. That’s where U23 World Championships came in. For Morgan, a former University of Vermont skier who graduated last spring and began a professional racing career with the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) in Sun Valley, Idaho, his goal for the one race he was competing in at his first U23 Worlds was to finish in the top...

Under 23 Questions with Cole Morgan

In an effort to showcase the North Americans competing at this week’s International Ski Federation (FIS) 2017 USANA Nordic Junior World Championships and U23 Cross Country World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. Here we have 22-year-old Cole Morgan, of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team, who’s representing the U.S. at his first U23 World...

Under 23 Questions with Kelsey Phinney

In an effort to showcase the North Americans competing at this week’s International Ski Federation (FIS) 2017 USANA Nordic Junior World Championships and U23 Cross Country World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. Here we have 22-year-old Kelsey Phinney, of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team, who’s representing the U.S. at her second U23 Worlds. On...