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The International Ski Federation (FIS) recently announced its World Cup schedule for 2025-2026. The questions that announcement inpsires are these: does it really matter, and will skiers actually show up? It’s an Olympic year, after all . . . it’s hard for athletes to prioritize anything else.
Cross country skiing is an endurance sport, but even the sport’s brightest stars do not possess endurance in unlimited quantities. In order to win on the most important occasions, they need to rest. In 2026, that will create a dilemma for the FIS World Cup: can these races and point totals—and these Crystal Globes—remain important in a season when the thing that guarantees athletic immortality is Olympic gold? With most skiers prioritizing Olympic opportunities, will anyone in the field bother to care about the World Cup?
Back in 2025, different athletes played it different ways . . .

In preparation for the World Championships in Trondheim, Therese Johaug (NOR) stayed at home and just trained in the weeks before the big races. True, she raced the Tour de Ski (and event should’ve won—and did). But then she just went home, spending her days training and looking forward to what she hoped would be the crowning glory of her long and glorious career. Her strategy worked pretty well, but not nearly as well as she needed it to (lots of medals, just none of them gold). She may have entered the World Championships just a little flat, or she may have been stymied by the slow conditions of the slushy, sea level tracks in Trondheim. Or it may be that an aging Johaug is simply no longer able to dominate skiers like Ebba Andersson, Jonna Sundling, and Frida Karlsson. Whatever the reason, Johaug’s World Championships were far from the success she had hoped for. Ironically, Johaug was razor-sharp just one week later in the World Cup finale in Finland where she skied away from the field in the 50 k (albeit in the absence of Karlsson).

Frida Karlsson (SWE) won the first race of the World Cup season in commanding fashion (easily besting Johaug in the first race of her comeback), then Karlsson all but disappeared from the World Cup scene. “She’s recovering,” reports told us, suggesting that lingering injuries were preventing her from contesting World Cup events. Maybe it was true, maybe it was only partly true. Either way, she rested up for the entire season—leaving World Cup glory to other points-chasers—and showed up fresh in Trondheim where she looked perfectly unbeatable in the 50 k (spoiling another of Johaug’s comeback opportunities).
Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo (NOR) played it all a bit differently: while he got sick in the middle of the World Cup season and went home to recuperate, Klaebo returned to World cup events after regaining his health. Fortunately for Klaebo, the timing of his recovery allowed him to return to competition before the week of the World Championships. Klaebo’s results speak loudly for the success of his preparation—six races, six gold medals, skiing immortality. Even in the crowded World Championship race schedule, no one else stood a chance that week in Trondheim.

The American skiers seemed to race it all in 2025—even through injury and illness—leaving them flat when the World Championships came around. American stars seem often to enter World Cup competitions for one very simple reason: the Americans almost never go home. Americans ski more World Cup races than the Norwegians or Swedes who, when they get the sniffles, jet quickly home to Oslo or Trondheim or Stockholm. When Austrian, German, Italian, French, and Swiss skiers start feeling overtrained, they steer their cars onto highways that take them home in a few short hours. European skiers can pretty much come and go from the World Cup tour as they please. Thousands of commercial-flight miles from home (in Vermont, in Minnesota, in Alaska), the Americans are in for the long haul. Living out of duffel bags, sleeping in hotels or crowded team houses, foreign foods and supplements, unfamiliar medical personnel: when it comes to the World Cup tour, Team USA is a road show while European teams are weekend visitors. That means that American skiers are on nearly every starting line, and in position to collect points nearly every weekend. It allows American skiers to climb the rankings, but may leave them exhausted on those all-important days when singular prizes are handed out.
With the Olympics being staged in February of 2026, it’s likely that fans will see skiers picking and choosing their World Cup starts, and making competitive plans that duck and weave through the World Cup season in hopes of being speediest when Olympic races begin in Val di Fiemme.
2025/2026 FIS World Cup Cross-Country
Period 1
Ruka, Finland
28/11: 10km Interval Start Classic
29/11: Sprint Classic
30/11: 20km Mass Start Freestyle
Trondheim, Norway
05/12: 10km Interval Start Freestyle
06/12: Sprint Classic
07/12: 20km Skiathlon
Davos, Switzerland
12/12: Team Sprint Freestyle
13/12: Sprint Freestyle
14/12: 10km Interval Start Freestyle
Period 2
TOUR DE SKI, Toblach, Italy
12/28: Sprint Freestyle
12/29: 10km Interval Start Classic
12/31: 5km Mass Start Freestyle
01/01: 15km Pursuit Classic
TOUR DE SKI, Val di Fiemme, Italy
01/03: Sprint Classic
01/04: 10km Mass Start Freestyle – Final Climb
Oberhof, Germany
01/17: Sprint Freestyle
01/18: 10km Interval Start Classic
Goms, Switzerland
01/23 Team Sprint Freestyle
01/24: Sprint Classic
01/25: 20km Mass Start Classic
Olympic Winter Games, Milano-Cortina Italy
02/07: Skiathlon, Women
02/08: Skiathlon, Men
02/10: Sprint Classic, Women and Men
02/12: 10km Freestyle, Women
02/13: 10km Freestyle, Men
02/14: Relay, Women
02/15: Relay, Men
02/18: Team Sprint, Women and Men
02/21: 50km Classic, Men
02/22: 50km Classic, Women
2026 Olympic Winter Games cross country schedule can be found HERE
Period 3
Falun, Sweden
02/28: Sprint Freestyle
03/01: 20km Skiathlon
Lahti, Finland
03/07: Sprint Freestyle
03/08: 10km Interval Start Freestyle
Drammen/Oslo, Norway
03/12: Sprint Classic
03/14: 50km Mass Start Freestyle Men
03/15: 50km Mass Start Freestyle Women
Lake Placid, FIS Cross-Country World Cup Finals
03/20: 10km Interval Start Classic
03/21: Sprint Freestyle
03/22: 20km Mass Start Freestyle

John Teaford
John Teaford has been the coach of Olympians, World Champions, and World Record Holders in six sports: Nordic skiing, speedskating, road cycling, track cycling, mountain biking, triathlon. In his long career as a writer/filmmaker, he spent many seasons as Director of Warren Miller’s annual feature film, and Producer of adventure documentary films for Discovery, ESPN, Disney, National Geographic, and NBC Sports.