The month break from the sport is almost over for the athletes, and most are back from vacations that involved sunny beaches, ocean and hours of nothingness. While some athletes took off earlier in the month, others kept the skinny boards out and participated in many races during April including Skarverennet, Fjalltopploppet, Bysprinten, Tour de [...]
It’s a part of sport, as athletes get older they retire. It’s a fact of life, just like when people get older they die. I know, I know, a morbid analogy. This spring is no different as we have seen a handful more athletes decide to hang up the competitive skis and turn their lives [...]
366 250 – Swiss Francs Justyna Kowalczyk won in this years World Cup; excludes sponsorship money. 321 500 – Swiss Francs Petter Northug won in this years World Cup; excludes sponsorship money. 9899 – Amount of World Cup points Norway amassed to win this year’s Nation Cup 2054 - Amount of World Cup points Justyna [...]
The end of the World Cup season means many things for me. It means the snow conditions are degrading to a point where skiing becomes “spring skiing” involving shorts and sun-tan lotion. The bike comes out of the garage and the soccer/football cleats come out for another great summer of kicking a ball around. For [...]
The weather was wicked and the snow was falling extremely hard and sideways which dampened the feeling of the final race of the season. It was anything but spring time skiing. The coaches were skiing on the course to try to flatten some of the insane snowfall occurring so the athletes would have such a [...]
I swear if you looked at these results you would have thought it was a mis-print because they resembled the results from last weekends mass start races at Holmenkollen. The Norwegian perform another convincing sweep of the podium while Northug out-sprint fellow competitors for the win. Bjørgen and Northug each ski a very different tactical [...]
Today the athletes experienced one of the most painful and demanding races of the season. 2.5km and 3.3km are too long to sprint but not long enough to pace, through in a hill that is steep and seems to go on forever and you got a recipe for a course that the spectators will love [...]
The final three days of racing are upon us and the unique prologue will kick off the racing in Falun. The organizers have named the race King/Queen of Mördarbacken which is very fitting title for the race. In case you are new to the World Cup scene, “Mördarbacken” can be directly translated from Swedish to [...]
Today was the last sprint of the season and it lived up to its billing. The snow conditions were much improved from years past and had very little, if any dirt mixed in. The Swedish athletes were very impressive and were able to qualify eight women and seven men into the heats. At the end [...]
The last sprint is upon us and is the start of the World Cup Finale. This will be the seventh edition of the Royal Palace sprint and four of those races have gone to Norwegian men while Finnish women have won the last two years. There will be 51 women and 58 men in tomorrows [...]
No one could have written a better script to this weekends proceedings. Four races, four gold medals for the host nation. Today saw another great turnout with around 25,000 spectators and they were not disapointed. Bjørgen kept her perfect record and is now five for five since the Olympics. On the other side of the [...]
Today was perhaps one of the greatest days in cross-country skiing for Norway on home snow. The track was changed from the traditional 16.7km loop for the men to a 8.33km loop which was much more spectator friendly, considering the athletes went through the stadium a total of 16 times. The women did the same [...]
The Holmenkollen races are the holy grail of the World Cup. The races that everyone wants to win the most (besides World Champs or the Olympics) prestigious race for cross country skiing. You know it’s a big deal when the winner meets the King of Norway. 59 women and 70 men are on the start [...]
A very warm day at +7ºC while the snow was able to stay cool at -0.5°C. The crowds were overflowing and squished up against the security fence which made for an amazing atmosphere around the 1245 meter track. Since it is a city sprint, it is one of the few times that the men and women race [...]
The Drammen sprints are upon and and they are perhaps the most prestigious sprint race on the World Cup circuit. If not the most prestigious, the most popular. We see the street course swell with thousands of spectators which is accompanied with a great atmosphere. It also gives a platform for Norway to showcase their [...]
It was another beautiful day of racing in Lahti as we saw Norway win both races in very exciting sprint finishes. First it was the women’s race which saw a sprint finish between three teams while four teams sprinted it out in the men’s race. With the wins, it means that Norway wins this years Nations Cup. The [...]
Today was the World Cup resume for the final two weeks of the season. The women’s side saw Bjørgen win handily and continue to show why she is the top female skier in the world right now while France’s Maurice Manificat won his first ever World Cup race. The intermediate sprints enabled Bauer to close his gap on [...]
Last final portion of the season is finally upon us after another memorable Olympics. The next 16 days will see a total of 9 races for the men and women. The majority of the athletes flew from Vancouver to Finland and will battle it out for the remaining World Cup points. It’s a [...]
The Olympic are over and there’s a huge void in many of our daily routines now. To continue to live the glory I made a list of what I thought were the best and the most disappointing performances of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
Top 5
1. Marit Bjørgen and the Norwegian women: Bjørgen was the Queen [...]
Last night I had the easy dilemma, write a blog about the men’s 50km or watch what was the most important hockey game for Canadians in recent history; naturally I choose the latter. I now sit here with a splitting headache and thoughts on the final race of the cross country schedule for the 2010 Olympics. I’m not [...]