This week the Worldloppet released its official race calendar for the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 race seasons. On the upside, for the time being, there are opportunities for in-person Worldloppet events. All this, of course, depends on the status of the pandemic in specific countries and associated travel restrictions. As many skiers know, the loppet series is global, spanning from Southern Hemisphere races in Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina, to Northern Hemisphere races in North America,...
This morning the International Ski Federation (FIS) announced the postponement of the Lillehammer, Norway World Cup events. President of the Norwegian Ski Federation, Erik Røste, told FIS, “Based on the difficult time we are in, the uncertainty and the consequences associated with Covid-19, the Norwegian Ski Association believes that it is not right to arrange the World Cup in Lillehammer now. We would rather work on finding new dates in consultation with FIS and...
On June 17th, an update was posted on the Worldloppet International Ski Federation website following the annual general meeting in Isafjordur, Iceland to announce the end of the FIS Worldloppet Cup series. While skiers will still be able to earn FIS points in each of the individual marathon races across the globe, the series will no longer be sanctioned by FIS, meaning cumulative points earned by the winners will no longer be totaled and there...
Katie Bradish is an investigative athlete and will be contributing writer for Faster Skier from Sandpoint, Idaho. Bradish decided to learn to Nordic ski with some hard deadlines. With the support of Fischer Nordic, SWIX USA and Coach Rebecca Dussualt, Bradish will race in three Worldloppet races by the end of 2020. Uff-dah! FasterSkier’s American Birkebeiner coverage is made possible through the generous support of New Moon Ski & Bike in Hayward, Wisconsin. While you...
Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Simi Hamilton of the U.S. Ski Team (USST) and Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2 Team, and Kevin Bolger of the USST and Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. *** It’s that time of year again where several members of the U.S. Ski Team, along with top-level skiers from the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) and Stratton Mountain School (SMS) T2 Team are training at the Snow...
(Press release) Skiers Encouraged to Register by Thursday at 11:59pm! HAYWARD, Wis. (January 3, 2018) – With flurries in the air and Birkie week festivities a mere 49 days away, skiers are more excited than ever to get some training time in on their skis. The Birkie Tour, hosted by the American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation (ABSF), is slated for January 14, 2018. The Birkie Tour is an untimed, non-competitive, “open-track” event where skiers choose their...
Visibility was thin and temperatures were below freezing last Saturday at the Snow Farm. Opaque white clouds of fog swept over the landscape near Wanaka, New Zealand, showcasing a skyline that seemed to play on the country’s largest historical farm industry: sheep. If bluebird skies and sun had greeted competitors in previous years, racers in the 2017 Merino Muster experienced temperatures around -5 degree Celsius (23 Fahrenheit) and a four-meter radius of visible track, then...
Wrapping up their Australian camp, three Sun Valley skiers reached the podium at the 42 k Kangaroo Hoppet, part of the Worldloppet marathon series. Deedra Irwin edged teammate Mary Rose, and Matt Gelso won the men's race ahead of Australian national-team skiers. One weekend later, the U.S. Ski Team swept first and second New Zealand's Merino Muster.
FasterSkier contributor JoJo Baldus takes us through his whirlwind of Wordloppet experiences this past winter, sharing insider details only someone who actually raced each marathon event could understand.
A group of Americans, including USSA president and CEO Tiger Shaw, explains why Switzerland's 42-kilometer Engadin freestyle marathon should be on your bucket list, and why you should do it sooner than later.
Caitlin Gregg had her mind set on winning Saturday's American Birkebeiner and led much of the last 14 kilometers to the finish to secure her record-breaking fourth Birkie win. A newcomer to North America's largest ski race, Alaska's David Norris beat three Frenchmen by seconds to win the men's title.
Ivan Babikov's a World Cup racer, not a marathon specialist, but on Saturday, Feb. 20, he'll be one of the favorites at the 2016 American Birkebeiner in northern Wisconsin. He decided to do the race a week ago. “I remembered how crazy the Birkie is and how much people there care," he said. "This is their local Olympic Games, so I’m pretty pretty psyched to be going."
An APU skier and University of Alaska-Anchorage professor shares the story of his experience at last month's Marcialonga. "The Italians are famous for their snowmaking, but it's still impressive to see a 70 k long white stripe of manmade snow that runs along an otherwise brown valley," the author recalls.
The American Birkebeiner will not be part of the FIS Marathon Cup, now re-named the FIS Worldloppet Cup, in 2016. But organizers are trying other plans to draw more international racers, and will be back on the Cup schedule in 2017.
It's final. Holly Brooks is tackling the FIS Marathon Cup/Worldloppet series this season, with seven of nine races on her schedule and a goal of an overall top three. "I’m ready for new challenges,” she says. “I’m a competitor and I want to be in races where I’m in contention for a podium." As the Birkie's first elite-athlete representative, she's hoping that will simplify some of the international logistics.
Colorado-based writer Matt Muir, who has spent the better part of the last decade summering in Argentina, studying the life and befriending local skiers, takes an inside look at the future of nordic in the Argentina and its quest for Worldloppet recognition.
For the first time in 15 years, the Worldloppet Annual General Meeting returned to where it was essentially born in northern Wisconsin. There, an estimated 45 delegates from 16 nations met to invite four more countries to the party, with Argentina, China, Iceland and New Zealand being granted associate status and their own Worldloppet marathons.
You might think that Norway's 54k Birkebeiner, one of the most famous and tradition-laden marathons in the world, has always been popular. But despite being situated in a ski-crazy country, the 17,000-entrant cap was only reached in the last decade, and demand is growing more every year. Here's how the race got so popular, and how it's continuing to grow as an event despite the cap.
The Engadin Ski Marathon is a 42 kilometer skate race which is run between Maloja and S-chanf near the southern border of Switzerland. Winding around castles and across frozen lakes, the course runs through St Moritz, then down to Pontresina, before heading back uphill toward the finish in S-Chanf. The Engadin had its first race on March 16th, 1969, and is always run on the second Sunday of March. The Engadin is the next-to-last Worldloppet...
This year’s Swedish Vasaloppet saw a record number of racers. There were 15,702 finishers in the 90 kilometer classic race, which saw it’s first running in 1922 with 100 participants. The race’s history comes from the beginning of Sweden’s independence from Denmark, led by nobleman Gustav Vasa. After his first failed attempt at recruiting his countrymen to join in his revolt, Vasa fled toward Norway. Two Swedish skiers were sent to bring Vasa back and...