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In the early morning hours of any FIS World Cup race day, messages are bouncing back and forth among a team of diligent FasterSkier writers, doing their best to craft illuminating articles on the race coverage flitting across our screens. And on mornings when race results either exceed—or fall short of—viewers expectations, the message bouncing gets even more intense. What those writers hope is that Team USA representatives will continue to communicate with us as they’ve done for many seasons now: friendly, honest, prompt, revealing comments offered in the interest of providing the best and most compelling story. That’s what we received today . . . and we figured readers would want to peek behind the curtain a bit to see what kinds of athletes, coaches, and staff members wear the USA brand. We’re proud of them this morning; we hope our readers are, too.
Something was “off” for Team USA in today’s Classic Sprint in Ruka, Finland. True, Ruka’s Sprint course is a challenging one, and the field of FIS athletes is as strong and competitive as that of any sport . . . but something was “off.” Only two American women (Jessie Diggins and Rosie Brennan) qualified to advance to Sprint heats, while no American men managed to qualify (on a team that justifiably hopes to send athletes to semifinals, finals, and podiums). FasterSkier crafted articles that alluded to what appeared to be team-wide issues. Within that process, our writers always seek quotes from Team USA members. On this day—the day of the Ruka Classic Sprint—Team USA truly responded. We thought our readers might like to see and hear it all. It’ll make you proud . . .
Jessie Diggins
Ben Ogden
Certainly surprising and extremely disappointing to not make the top 30 today. I feel as though I was just not strong enough today and will just have to keep working and hope that I can build into this season.
Julia Kern
Matt Whitcomb
Hello from Ruka, and the first World Cup sprint of the season. Needless to say, this was a disappointing day for the team. We were excited, and athletes are feeling good. We wanted more. Our staff had a long debrief after the races were completed where we took a hard look at our ski preparation process, and some potential areas where mistakes in ski speed may have been made. While it’s difficult to gauge ski speed in a qualifier, a team-wide shift toward the bottom of the page makes it clear that something was off. While this wasn’t the case for every athlete, it’s possible that our skis didn’t have the best glide, and we’ve zeroed in on some solutions for tomorrow.
It’s early in the season, and our team is still adjusting to the pace of being on the World Cup where the margins are very small. If three of our guys could’ve shaved a second from their time, we would’ve had five qualifiers, instead of two. Certainly, we’re not in mid-season form, and I want to make it clear that the skis were just a piece of the puzzle today. We operated seamlessly as a team, and still, we had an off day. It’s a hard game. We’ll bounce back tomorrow. We’ve already bounced back.
