FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Toblach, Italy): Freestyle sprints Men | Race report Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen posts a 22-second win for her first victory of the season and first time shooting without a miss in an individual race since the Ruhpolding sprint almost exactly a year ago. Dunklee leads North Americans in 33rd and qualifies for the pursuit, along with Canada’s Rosanna Crawford (55th), Megan Tandy (56th) and Julia Ransom (60th). Ski Classics press release. “It...
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Men’s sprint Results
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Soldier Hollow): Freestyle-sprint prologue [UPDATED] One and done. That was the case Thursday for the U.S. Cross Country Championship’s freestyle sprint at Soldier Hollow (SoHo) where only a qualifier was held to determine the final standings — no heats were contested. With just-under-freezing temps and a light snow falling, the men set off at 15-second intervals. The men’s podium was an all-Canadian affair as they swept the top-three positions. Jess Cockney of the Canadian...
View this post on Instagram Your podium for the #RUH17 men's relay! Norway, Russia and Germany! A post shared by IBU Biathlonworld (@ibu_biathlonworld) on Jan 11, 2017 at 7:10am PST IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): 4 x 7.5 k men’s relay Norway earned a come-from-behind victory in the first relay of 2017, with Emil Hegle Svendsen anchoring the team and shooting past Russia’s Anton Babikov in the final kilometer. Norway won by 5.1 seconds. Norway had been in just...
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Soldier Hollow): 20/30 k classic mass starts After a day of rest, racers returned to the Soldier Hollow (SoHo) trails on Tuesday for the men’s 30-kilometer and women’s 20 k classic mass start competitions. Two laps into the the men’s eight-lap event, a front group began to form, with Kris Freeman of Team Freebird, Ben Lustgarten of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP), Scott Patterson of Alaska Pacific University (APU) and his...
Biathlon Canada announced its roster for 2017 Youth and Junior World Championships, to be held in Osrblie, Slovakia. The team naming came at the end of a weekend of NorAm racing in Valcartier, Quebec, where the last day of racing was canceled due to extreme cold. The announcement was made through a Facebook post on the Biathlon Ontario page. NorAm/Trials results: Saturday – Sunday Junior Men Pearce Hanna (Pre-selected) Trevor Kiers Zachari Bolduc Jules Burnotte...
That’s a wrap, folks! With the 11th Tour de Ski coming to an end on Sunday with the infamous Alpe Cermis final climb in Val di Fiemme, we wanted to share some of the athlete and coach comments that didn’t make it into the race reports. Below are quotes from the last three stages of the Tour, all in Italy. *** Stage 5 (Toblach, Italy): 5/10 k freestyle Men’s report On pre-race feelings: “I think nerves were...
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Soldier Hollow): Classic sprints Jennie Bender of Bridger Ski Foundation and Kevin Bolger of the University of Utah won national titles in the classic sprints at 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships at Soldier Hollow earlier Sunday afternoon. They each took narrow – but, for sprinting, relatively uncontested – victories, as each was in the lead coming into the stadium and led through the final 180-degree turn into the finishing straight. In the women’s race, Bender took the...
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Soldier Hollow): 10 k skate [UPDATED] Don’t bet against Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) in a distance skate event. The 36-year-old took another national title in the 10-kilometer freestyle individual start at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, earlier today in the first event of the 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships. Gregg’s winning time was 27:00.6 on a cold, slow-snow morning at SoHo. Chelsea Holmes (Alaska Pacific University) was second, 2.2 seconds back,...
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 5 (Toblach): 5/10 k freestyle Men’s report Two U.S. women on the podium. Remember when that happened with Kikkan Randall and Sophie Caldwell back in 2015 World Championships, with Jessie Diggins and Caitlin Gregg in the 10 k freestyle? Well, it just happened again, this time with Diggins placing first and Sadie Bjornsen third in the women’s 5-kilometer freestyle individual start on Friday at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski...
Canada’s Alex Harvey is still on the podium. Then there’s the U.S. women’s team, with athletes in fifth, 10th and 12th in the Tour de Ski standings after big-time performances in Oberstdorf, Germany. Harvey kept himself in third overall and ahead of Switzerland’s Dario Cologna with a strong pursuit finish on Wednesday, and Jessie Diggins led her U.S. teammates on consecutive days, notching second on Tuesday for a career-best skiathlon result and holding onto fifth...
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 4 (Oberstdorf): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits [UPDATED] Another win for Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (that’s four in four stage races at the 2016/2017 Tour de Ski), another second place for Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby, and another third place for Canada’s Alex Harvey. That was how the podium shook out on Wednesday in the Stage 4 men’s 15-kilometer freestyle pursuit, with Ustiugov winning by 37.2 seconds after starting 4 seconds back and...
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 3 (Oberstdorf): 10/20 k skiathlons Positioned in third heading into the third stage of the Tour de Ski on Tuesday, the women’s 10-kilometer skiathlon, Sweden’s Stina Nilsson made the case that she’s more of an all-around threat than some might anticipate. She contended with early leaders like Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg and Finland’s Krista Parmakoski throughout the 5 k classic leg, entering the ski exchange in eighth and 2.5 seconds...
With the opening stages of the Tour de Ski in Val Müstair, Switzerland, behind us, we wanted to share some athlete and coach comments that didn’t make it into the race reports: *** On training over the holidays leading up to the Tour: “We were in three different main locations over Christmas: France, Austria, and Switzerland, depending on which athlete you were. You kind of come back and see where everybody is. I think we all know each...
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 2 (Val Müstair): 5/10 k classic mass starts Women’s report There was a lot of jostling between Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov and Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby, with the latter leading early and the Russian not letting him get too complacent up front, but ultimately, Ustiugov was the first across the line in the men’s 10-kilometer classic mass start, the second stage of the Tour de Ski in Val Müstair, Switzerland. Ustiugov...
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 1 in Val Müstair: Freestyle sprint Men’s report [UPDATED] After qualifying in fifth, eighth and ninth, respectively, Sophie Caldwell, Sadie Bjornsen and Jessie Diggins proceeded to represent the U.S. in the quarterfinals of the 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint in Val Müstair, Switzerland, on Saturday, along with a fourth U.S. woman, Kikkan Randall. Randall turned 34 on Saturday and reached the heats for the first time this season, where she placed third...
It’s time for the International Ski Federation’s (FIS) 11th Tour de Ski. The 2017 edition takes place in three countries and four different venues. Racers will compete in seven stages over the course of nine days. The grueling Alpe Cermis — a 9-kilometer freestyle hill climb in Val di Fiemme, Italy — will be featured again as the final race to determine the overall Tour de Ski (TdS) results. Directly leading up to the multi-stage event, currently out...
If you follow U.S. skiing closely, you’ve probably heard of Paul Everett. After three years on US Biathlon’s development team, Everett, 20, is currently a Montana State University sophomore and member of the Bridger Ski Foundation in Bozeman, Mont. He is studying exercise science and psychology, and wrote the following letter for an assignment. It’s about depression and anxiety in athletes, “more specifically ski racing about what it is like for those competing with these disorders and...
“I know that my athletes did not take anything,” and blamed former Moscow lab director Grigory Rodchenkov for sabotaging her skiers with “dirty tricks.” The admission of guilt is likely a move to try to try to stanch the bleeding of Russia’s reputation in the sports world. Several major events, including World Cup and World Junior Championships biathlon events, had been relocated from Russia already. Before that, biathletes had threatened to boycott events in Russia. Six...
The United States Biathlon Association (USBA) has announced its World Cup and IBU Cup rosters for the second period of racing. World Cup The women’s World Cup team will remain the same, with Susan Dunklee leading the way. Dunklee earned her first podium of the season on Friday in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. After several top finishes she is ranked 11th overall on the World Cup. She is joined by Clare Egan, who had a top finish of 30th...