U23 World’s closed out today in Oberwiesenthal, Germany with the 4 x 5 k mixed relay. Norway, which had struggled in both the junior women’s and junior men’s relay won in 54:40.5 minutes. Russia followed in second (+26.7), and Italy third (+40.2). The U.S. placed fifth (+54.6) of the 15 teams finishing the event. Canada’s foursome of U23 skiers finished in 14th (+4:00.6). Results
Friday was a much anticipated day across the Atlantic from the Oberwiesenthal, Germany: Junior World’s relay day. Junior Women’s 4 x 3.3 k Relay For the U.S. junior 4 x 3.3 k relay, oh-so-close was last year’s World’s just off the podium fourth place performance. Twelve months later and a loaded team featuring (in this order) Sydney Palmer-Leger, Kendall Kramer, Sophia Laukli, and Novie McCabe, the group skied themselves into second overall, 4.9 seconds off...
U23 Women’s 15 k Mass Start Sweden-Sweden-Sweden: Ebba Andersson, Moa Lundgren, and Emma Ribom went 1-2-3 for the all Sweden podium. If one thing is certain from our race coverage this season, we know Sweden is ready for World Cup podiums now. The U23 sweep in Oberwiesenthal, Germany at these U23 World Championships likely means more to come. Andersson crossed the finish line alone in 35:44.4. Lundgren came across 37.1 seconds back, Ribom 45.2 seconds...
Wednesday in Oberwiesenthal, Germany World Juniors continued with a 15 k mass start skate for the women. Junior Women’s 15 k Mass Start Skate Norway’s Helene Marie Fossesholm (18) won her second race of these championships by taking the mass start skate in 35:55.6 minutes. Fossesholm also won the 5 k interval start classic race on Monday. Poland’s Izabela Marcisz placed second 1:09.3 back. Marcisz also won a bronze in the 5 k classic. Switzerland’s...
Doubling up in this U23 World’s 10 kilometer and 15 k interval start classic rundown. U23 Women’s 10 k Classic Yes, Sweden’s Ebba Andersson remains a U23 despite her clutch fourth overall in the SkiTour 2020. The force that is Andersson took her talents to Oberwiesenthal, Germany where she tapped out the 10 k classic win in 28:28.7 minutes. This was a race, beyond the likes of Andersson, where some shifting occurred after the race’s...
Monday’s World Junior’s 5 k classic in Oberwiesenthal, Germany was won by Norway’s Helene Marie Fossesholm in 13:49.1 minutes. Germany’s Lisa Lohmann placed second (+15.7), and Izabela Marcisz of Poland was third (+28.1). Fossesholm was the top qualifier in Saturday’s skate sprint. She finished fifth overall in the sprint. Sophia Laukli (Middlebury) was the top North American in 13th (+51.6). She was followed by teammates Kendall Kramer (Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks) in 22nd (+58.4),...
The weight is heavy. Pressure from expectations that can cripple or tap into even more primal motivation. Gus Schumacher (U.S./AWS), after qualifying first, and bowing out on Saturday’s World Junior’s skate sprint in the semifinals, placed seventh overall. That is stout. But so is the person behind the results who possesses a killer instinct on the race course but by all accounts projects humility in the rest of his life. The impression is that this...
Sunday, for the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay in Lahti, Finland the scene was decidedly more fitting for winter sport: The race began amidst falling snow despite bare firs and hardwoods lining the course. It’s been a sparse winter in Lahti. Eleven teams contested the relay, with ten nations represented; Russia fielded two teams. The U.S. was not represented. For the first 7.5 k leg, Russia I’s Ilia Semikov and Russia II’s Andrey Sobakarev...
The monochromatic backdrop during the junior women’s sprint was the persistent theme in Oberwiesenthal, Germany — it bled right into the World Junior men’s 1.3 k freestyle sprint. For U.S. fans, in particular, this first event of four for the junior men possessed an element of tension. The tension, for those that follow, was seeded last year with an unequivocal success story that was the U.S. junior men’s run at the 2019 Junior Worlds in...
Calling it like it was: fir trees draped in fog and the colorful hues of Junior Worlds Lycra a deep contrast to the pervasive monochromatic snow and forest. This was the backdrop for World Junior’s freestyle sprint day in Oberwiesenthal, Germany. Keeping things real for several North Americans, expectations were high as the core, for example, of the U.S. team is riddled with potential podiums. For the North American women, three skiers qualified for the heats...
Some patterns in Lahti, Finland remained the same as it ever was: the top-11 positions in the men’s 15-kilometer classic were populated by Norway and Russia except for a lone Finn. On manmade tracks laid down through the snow-free woods of Lahti’s famed stadium, Iivo Niskanen stuck to his roots. When the World Cup comes to Finland, Niskanen remains the king of the 15 k interval start classic. Prior to Saturday’s race, the twenty-eight-year-old Niskanen...
Engadin Canceled: Amidst the whirlwind of February racing, news happens beyond the ski tracks. Here are some notable news threads. It was announced yesterday that the famed Engadin Ski Marathon, to be held on March 8, has been canceled due to concerns related to the coronavirus (also referred to as COVID-19). “The spread of the coronavirus in Europe – with two cases in our vicinity – has left the authorities with no choice but to...
Running a small liberal arts college is big business. Stress over enrollment. Stress over capital improvements. Stress over staying relevant. Paul Smith’s College in Paul Smiths, New York is a relative newcomer on the East Coast college scene; founded in 1946 and currently enrolling 745 students. One particular aspect Paul Smith’s makes it stand out – a massive 14,200 acre campus in the foothills of the Adirondack high peaks region. This is perhaps the school’s...
Yellow bibbed as the overall leader of the World Cup, out first on Sunday’s 30 k classic pursuit in Trondheim, and Norway’s Pål Golberg starting 34 seconds back: this was the situation Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov found himself in as he pulsed from the start. Thrown into this mix of tension was a helter-skelter mish-mash of weather. On and off again snow, blustery winds, and temps hovering right near that wax tech’s no man’s land of...
We’ll start with the weather: think all over the place. A moving target for meteorologist with moisture spitting from the skies, and air masses swirling this way and that making the trees sway like a mamba line along the course. A wax tech’s nightmare scenario? Yes. It certainly trended in that direction. By all measures, this was Therese Johaug’s, Norway’s latest version of a cross-country skiing record-breaker, stage and tour. Of six stages total, she...
The day began in Trondheim with a centimeter of snow, which then transitioned to big blue skies for the thousands of fans attending the fifth stage of the Ski Tour 2020, a 1.5 k classic sprint. The Norwegians can throw a cross-country race party. The scene, despite the different setting, was reminiscent of the festive cowbell and camp-out sideshow of Holmenkollen’s Frognerseteren. It’s not quite the Yankee stadium of cross-country skiing, but a sign that in...
The race ended where it began: Stage 4 of the Ski Tour 2020. In between, it was 34 k mass start skate bliss through the Norwegian countryside for those watching from home. For those racing on course, it was not such a comfortable vibe. Pain cave anybody? We discuss the unstoppable Johaug and an Alexander Bolshunov who sent it … and stuck it, as he made a one-skier-show of the front of the race. We...
With the course re-routed from the original 38-kilometer mass start skate to essentially an out and back into Meråker, Norway’s ski stadium, the day belonged to Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov who appears, at this point in the season, to be unstoppable in the distance events. In a post-race interview, Devon Kershaw noted that men paced it World-Cup comfortable for much of the first portion of the race. In other words, the effort up-front, although speedy for...
Nature has a lovely way of being, well, natural. In other words; marginally unpredictable, sometimes downright uncomfortable, and finicky. Prior to the Ski Tour 2020’s Stage 4 weather forecast and on-the-ground big-wind gust reality, the stage had been scheduled to pulse 38-kilometers from Storlein, Sweden to Meråker, Norway in a point to point event. Cool, right? An international border crossing during a race, with a single sanctioned coaching/feed zone for athletes around the 25 k...
Åre, Sweden — the site of the national (alpine) ski area in Sweden. Also the site of Stage 3 of the Ski Tour 2020’s skate sprint. Short at 0.66 k, but oh so steep with a finishing climb with slopes at 28 percent. Yah! 28 percent. Maybe part sideshow, maybe not. Either way, athletes had to get themselves to the top. In what was a leg-burning affair, for a one-off event, it was sporting entertainment....