The annual general meeting (AGM) of the Worldloppet organizers was held in Gatineau, Ottawa (CAN) on June 14th 2009. The representatives of the 15 cross-country ski marathons from Europe, America, Asia and Australia that are united under the umbrella of the Worldloppet Ski Federation were pleased to hear the annual report of the Secretary General Angelo Corradini and short reports by each event. The highlight of the meeting was that, for the first time, the...
Last weekend I floated the Chulitna River with a large group of guys. It was a bachelor party, which means “what happens on the river, stays on the river.” Sorry, no stories here. The only reason I’m posting this is because I use this website as my outdoor journal. When I can’t remember [...]
Well, after over a month of trying to diagnose and mend my knee issues, I am finally on my way back to running again. This afternoon I had arthroscopic surgery on my left knee. The surgery was a success. Dr. Pearson was able to repair my lateral meniscus. ”Repair” being the key word because this [...]
Congratulations to Matt and Marybeth Liebsch for having a beautiful, healthy daughter on Tuesday night! It was very exciting to have this going on during our camp.
img src="http://18.media.tumblr.com/COiZNt422ov2x7yj9vNNHW3Fo1_400.jpg"/br/br/
img src="http://22.media.tumblr.com/COiZNt422ov2wyka4cY7IFPDo1_400.jpg"/br/br/
img src="http://17.media.tumblr.com/COiZNt422ov2srrjngdSGCIEo1_400.jpg"/br/br/Topher Sabot
img src="http://5.media.tumblr.com/COiZNt422ov2s55hqSEReuKEo1_400.jpg"/br/br/Matt Voisin
More than any other single person, it was the collective power of web nerds that ruled the nominations for the Johnny5. In truth, a href="http://twitter.com/fakefasterskier"FakeFasterskier/a led the charge with it’s smarmy reach and ominipresent eye. The anonymous site is likely four or five people given the proclivity of posts- or at least the frequency of posts before Spring hit. (FakeFasterSkier clearly doesn’t rollerski.) In a community that is too small to withstand real satire from a single person, FakeFasterSkier says what we all think and acts as a cathartic release when the tension of being on ski island with our peers grows too stifling. Yet for it’s flawless reach, FFS was hardly the only web presence put forward: a href="http://blogs.fasterskier.com/natherz/"Nat Herz/a was described as the most entertaining not fast skier ever to type. a href="http://blogs.fasterskier.com/duncandouglas/"Duncan Douglas/a has clearly captured the imagination of the obsessed master skier set looking for an alpha (Type A+) leader and a href="http://blogs.fasterskier.com/patrickstinson/"Patrick Stinson/a does the best job at presenting personality in a blog without editorial scrubbing or self concerned withdraw. (The dude says what he thinks.) This is the community that the semi failed a href="http://teamtoday.ning.com/"Team Today ning site/a was looking to house. Of course, all of these folks owe a debt of gratitude to FasterSkier.com.br/ Fasterskier is not new, by any stretch. Most of us remember when it was fledgling and playing second fiddle to a href="http://www.xcskiworld.com/"xcskiworld.com /aas an American ski world resource. In its earliest incarnation, the site acted as a link dump for a variety of Norwegian translated pieces plucked from the Scandinavian sites not committed to gossip and conjecture. When it wasn’t a giant Solda ad, the site could best be described as small and boring. Co-founder, Cory Smith had a far more interesting site, a href="http://www.xcskiracer.com/"xcskiracer.com,/a which has, in fact, acted as a precursor to the growing blogs and personality-driven articles that have improved Fasterskier. Xcskiracer gave inside news and coverage to aspirant ski racers (though primarily Cory) and was accompanied by the most crucial web tool: photographs. br/ Fast forward to 2008 and the sale of Fasterskier to Topher Sabot and Matt Voisin marked an important cross road. By 2008, Fasterskier was leading the charge in all things web and skiing. Unbound by what Fasterskier had been, Topher + Matt were free to make it the hub for things xc in the US. Here’s where they’ve (mostly) shined.br/br/1. An open identity. The greatest success of the new Fasterskier is that it remains relatively unattached to its owners. This isn’t Topher or Matt’s site, it’s ours as a ski community, for better or worse. A greater focus on American skiing in smaller scale (snow reports in the fall from the most obscure programs) and a tightening of the presentation with a new look and well-divided segments. It strives to act as a collective. (In that way this site has imitated Fasterskier, pulling in information from a wide group of people. Johnny Klister isn’t a person, rather more of a collective. –albeit a self-important, elitist, and dickish collective.) While we may not like what is being served at a given time, it cannot be debated that Fasterskier.com is setting the table.br/2. The blogs. Jesus Christ- for a time, when you signed up for your USSA license, you were given a username and password on blog central at Fasterskier. Fortunately, the fellows at Fasterskier got a hold of this and tightened the reigns. At last check, there were just under 30 blogs split between “featured” and “other.” The blogs have granted access to the best athletes in skiing: a href="http://blogs.fasterskier.com/andynewell/"Newell/a, a href="http://blogs.fasterskier.com/krisfreeman/"Freeman/a, a href="http://blogs.fasterskier.com/kikkanrandall/"Kikkan/a, a pair of a href="http://blogs.fasterskier.com/morganarritola/"Morgans/a and a collection of programs from around the country. The echo chamber got smaller with the blogs and there’s a chance to hear what’s happening from a href="http://blogs.fasterskier.com/uvm/"UVM/a toa href="http://blogs.fasterskier.com/svsef/" Sun Valley/a. The informal presentation is key in that it allows the “news” section of Faskerskier to give off better editorial content.br/3. Better editorial content. One nomination for Fasterskier wrote about the improved content, “a a href="http://fasterskier.com/2009/06/ski-skett-roller-ski-reviews/"rollerski review/a … (I’m) not being sarcastic, that’s cool!” The quality of the writing is also improved as there’s greater oversight in what’s being written. The “from the editors” is a hidden collection of strong thoughts on skiing.br/4. Cleaner graphics. It ain’t a href="http://www.jdk.com/live/home.html"JDK/a but the visual dept. at Fasterskier is stepping up, important since the likely largest public conception of skiing is a touch a href="http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/FIP/WS-11-C.jpg"dated/a. br/br/ It’s easy to pick on Fasterskier as the only game in town- but as a resource, we don’t have anything close. The greatest strength of the site and its editors is that it acts as a mirror to skiing in this country and fortunately for us, Fasterskier stood taller and got a bit more confident this year.
At long last, the votes have been tallied from the Swix/FasterSkier Photo Contest III. We assembled a panel of judges, including a professional photographer, a designer, several ski coaches, and the FasterSkier staff, to vote on the the submissions. We have included comments from some of the judges. A-Final Podium First Place “This picture is stunning- It caught my eye right away. At first I didn’t think it showed spring other then the sun...
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Urban legend has it that Bill Koch roller-skied up Mt. Greylock pulling his school-age daughter on a mountain bike. A rope around his waist, Koch supposedly double-poled eight miles straight uphill with a seventy-pound child behind him. Was this an extreme new strength-training concept, a fulfillment of childcare duties, or both? Even if the story isn’t true, it illustrates the lengths some parents will go to get a workout. TIME The number one limiting factor...
WASHINGTON – Yesterday, President Barack Obama announced the formation of the White House Office of Olympic, Paralympic and Youth Sport. This permanent White House office will promote the values of the Olympic Movement and encourage increased youth participation in athletics. The primary function of the Office will be to enhance awareness of the Olympic Movement through promotion of its fundamental principles at the federal level. President Obama said, “It is an important goal of my...
Caribou, Maine Nintendo Wii, the world’s leading video game system, has come out with a biathlon game which features 13 World Cup venues and Maine biathlon fans will be excited to know that Fort Kent is one of them. The game is an interactive system that requires you to simulate the skiing motion with a game wand in each hand while standing on a game-board shifting your weight from side to side. While the motion...
Sorry for the lack of posts lately. We are currently unable to post pictures on our website so the blogs are not as exciting and have unfortunately become less frequent. As the 2009/2010 ski season gets underway, we will begin to write posts again, but they may lack photos for a little while. May was a [...]
img src="http://2.media.tumblr.com/COiZNt422osh5l4dF2utOTiGo1_400.jpg"/br/br/
img src="http://20.media.tumblr.com/COiZNt422osh55m0zWjoozujo1_r1_400.jpg"/br/br/AP photo.