There are many kinds of virtual events, and many ways to run them. Look here for context and alternatives. This is a simple and free solution to running a temporally distanced event on a fixed course. Summary: Create an invitation-only club on Strava. Create a segment. When the event concludes, select the club from the segment leaderboard options to view results. Advantages: Free. Low effort for OC. Strava provides tools to detect groups skiing together...
This is part of the Virtual Event Hosting series. With all the ideas and potential solutions out there, here are some things that might help you narrow down your choice. Safety Issues And Compliance There are many things to consider when hosting an event and health restriction rules related to COVID differ for every community. These rules also tend to change weekly, which may be awkward for a series of events. Some of the safety topics...
COVID19 has brought many changes to the nordic world. In many places, we can still ski. Some people can travel, some cannot. Some people live near snow, some don’t. There is no one size fits all solution to having fun while the pandemic rages, but there are a lot of potential solutions to specific needs. The race organizers among us know how to host traditional large group races. If that is allowed, you just need...
Nordiq Canada’s first major change announcement on November 16th was the decision to cancel the Period I trip to Lillehammer, Dresden, and Davos. (The Lillehammer races have been postponed, and have not been officially rescheduled.) “For us, it was chatting with our medical experts, assessing the situations here at home and what we were seeing happening overseas,” said Nordiq Canada’s High Performance Director Kate Boyd. “We had never planned to go to Ruka. And then...
Nordiq Canada had a changed-filled month of May, culminating with Stéphane Barrette taking over the CEO role for the next five or six months, with the possibility of permanence if both parties are happy. The former CEO Shane Pearsall was an administrator with experience in both business and sports federation leadership. Barrette is a skier: “Cross country skiing is an intense passion of mine, and has always been.” Barrette is well known to the Canadian...
The ski world has been rattled by COVID19 and Canada is no different. One thing hasn’t changed, the new year starts on May 1st and brings changes. Nordiq Canada’s CEO Shane Pearsall resigned effective May 22nd. In the press release below, Nordiq Canada (NC) describes ‘mixed emotions’ about Pearsall’s decision to focus on family time in the pandemic era. Stéphane Barrette, NC’s Directeur du développement des athlètes et entraineurs, will be acting CEO. Barrette’s work...
Road Trip Day 1 (Tuesday) It all started at home, grinding out quality training hours in spectacularly good ski conditions. The plan was simple: A skiing road trip with three World Cup events, followed by Nationals/SuperTour finals at home, culminating in a 50km against the best skiers in North America. Start Wednesday March 11th, arrive home on the 24th, and closing out the racing season on April 2nd. With restricted training opportunities during the trip,...
FasterSkier dropped in at Canmore on the way to Québec City and got an update from Norbert Meier on the challenges of hosting in North America, all the activities that aren’t ski races, and the challenges of dealing with daily updates on managing the Coronavirus pandemic. While the World Health Organization upgraded Coronavirus to a pandemic a few hours before this interview, the status change is not a surprise as it was simply a matter...
Stuart Kremzner has published a new book with a bold title — High Performance Nordic Training: A Guide to Taking Your Athletic Ability to the Next Level. Kremzner is an exercise physiologist and nordic coach and also the author of the Bill Koch League leader manual, last updated in 2008. Training, even restricted to a single sport, is a complex topic with unending opportunities to dive into bewildering detail and unexplored research topics. Anyone who...
A middle of the pack master would have to be an idiot to sign up to race 50km against the best skiers in North America on a FIS-approved World Cup course. The top skiers will be fresh from World Cup Finals in Canmore and competing for important titles, national team selection, and future World Cup starts. With 2020 Nationals combined with US SuperTour Finals, the field will be deep. So why is my name on...
Mont Sainte-Anne brought great ski conditions on a weekend where the best in Canada fought to qualify for four different race trips: U20/U23 World Championships in Oberwiesenthal, Germany; Falun and the Scando Tour; the sprint tour of Québec and Minnesota; and World Cup finals in Canmore. Combine this with the usual NorAm action and COC leader competition and you have all the ingredients for a great weekend. Over 400 athletes raced in five age groups...
Fresh snow greeted day two of the Mont Sainte-Anne Trials for the interval start classic. With athletes battling to qualify for U20/U23 World Championships in Oberwiesenthal, Germany and three separate World Cup trips (Falun/Scando Tour, Sprint Tour, Canmore), it was never going to be a simple matter of skier against the clock. Racing started with the open men’s 15km on a 5km loop that was shared by all the elite categories. Early on, it looked...
In Canadian domestic ski racing, it doesn’t get much bigger than this. Mont Sainte-Anne (MSA) is hosting the NorAm weekend that also serves as U23/U20 World Championships qualification and has special significance in selection for World Cup starts. Any skier who hasn’t already qualified for National Team selection for next season start with top 30 results on either the World Cup or U20 World Championships. Most of these paths start at MSA Trials. For U20...
Canada took a step back from the World Cup circuit this weekend and focussed attention into development series. As the country tries to build momentum in a post Alex Harvey world, the focus has moved away from World Cup podiums and towards a consistent presence in the top 30. The road to the World Cup goes through local and regional races on the way to national/continental races. One of the development challenges in Canada is...
The NorAm circuit moved east to the Nakkertok trails for three days of racing jointly hosted by Nakkertok Nordic, Club Skinouk, Chelsea Nordiq, and Kanata Nordic. Friday featured classic sprints, Saturday interval start free, and Sunday interval start classic. The event was also the Candy Cane Cup for the younger categories, as well as Ontario Cup 1 and Coupe Québec 1. 374 athletes in the U16, U18, and Open categories competed on Friday with many...
Updated with more quotes. The first three race days of both the NorAm and SuperTour series are complete and the athletes and coaches are digesting the lessons. It was free sprints Friday, classic distance Saturday, and interval start free technique distance on Sunday. The men started the Sunday with a four lap 15km followed by the women doing a 3 lap 10km. CGRP’s Ben Lustgarten nailed the pacing to win Sunday’s race in 42:56.0, just...
Day two of the first NorAm and SuperTour weekend was interval start classic, with 10km for the men and 5km for the women. The US SuperTour athletes took the chance to show their depth today, packing the top ten of the open categories. The 154 men raced first, with the U.S. Ski Team’s Zak Ketterson winning comfortably in 27:33.1. National team member Antoine Cyr was second at 15.0 back, followed by CGRP’s Ben Lustgarten at...
The NorAm series fully lived up to the North American Cup label in Canmore Friday with 1.3km free technique sprints to kick off a combined NorAm, SuperTour, and Mexican National Championships weekend. Full results for the weekend are on zone4, including live results every day. Friday featured sprints for the older age groups only (282 racers): Saturday is interval start classic, and Sunday’s race an interval start free. Before the races, there was chatter about...
Canada is moving into a new era in skiing. An era with less World Cup podiums and more emphasis on developing future podium athletes. “Train at what you want to be good at. If its climbing, climb. If it is chess, play chess. Ski training has many elements of course, but in the end the best training to race fast is to race.” — Erik Bråten, National Team Head Coach In the near future,...
(If the video doesn’t play in your browser, click here) XC Ski Nation and