If Vegard Ulvang gets run out of Europe, it appears that he still could safely make his home in North America. Ulvang is the chair of the International Ski Federation’s cross-country committee, which is considering the introduction of a new race format that includes five kilometers of climbing followed by five kilometers of technical downhill. Scandinavians have reacted to the idea with derision: Norwegian Eldar Roenning told the newspaper Nettavisen that the idea was “the...
The New England Nordic Ski Association (NENSA) will launch a new adaptive skiing program this winter, centered in the greater Boston area. Leveraging a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Olympic Committee, the initiative, which targets disabled veterans, will partner with area hospitals and operate out of the Weston Ski Track for its first season, then likely expand to other ski areas in New England over the next three years. A search for the program’s director...
The days of the world championships of interval training may be numbered. That’s the moniker that some Europeans use for the team sprint, which appears on the schedule for every Olympics and World Championships—but rarely on the World Cup. According to U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) Nordic Director John Farra, the International Ski Federation (FIS) has convened a working group that will investigate the potential for doing away with the team sprint and replacing...
It took him four tries, but the U.S. Ski Team’s Kris Freeman can add a victory at the Whiteface Climb to the Castle to his list of accomplishments. “I finally won the Climb to the Castle!” Freeman said. Stymied in three previous attempts by inferior competition with superior rollerskis, Freeman left his teammate Noah Hoffman behind at halfway mark of this year’s edition of the five-mile race, skiing unchallenged to a 39-second victory. Ben Sim, the...
Chalk one up for the biathletes. Just over halfway through Friday’s Climb to the Castle race on Whiteface Mountain, U.S. National Biathlon Team member Laura Spector went to the front of a five-strong women’s pack and left behind four of the country’s best cross-country skiers. Churning her way through fierce gusts of wind—which staff at the summit estimated at 60 miles per hour—the diminutive Spector crossed the line with a big gap on U.S. Ski...
Ivan Babikov is going to Wipeout in Argentina. No, he’s not competing in an early-season World Cup—the 30-year-old Canadian departed yesterday for a week-long stint in South America to compete on the TV show of that name, in which participants navigate a series of obstacles in the hopes of winning the $50,000 winner’s prize. Hazards in the American version of the show include a wall that punches athletes as they climb along it, and spinning...
There are workouts where you finish battered and beaten, muscles packed with lactate. And then, there are days when you just go out and ride your bike. Tad Elliott does 70 percent of his training on two wheels, but there’s one workout that he especially relishes: a 68-mile loop near his home town of Durango, Colorado, that he rides with his friend Troy Wells. Unlike some of the more painful sessions one might do on...
So much for Justyna Kowalczyk’s home-field advantage. For the first time in her career, the International Ski Federation (FIS) has scheduled World Cup races in Kowalczyk’s native Poland, in February of 2012. But if officials at FIS have their way, Kowalczyk, a notoriously poor descender, will have to successfully navigate five kilometers of technical downhill before she can step onto the podium there. According to FIS Cross-Country Race Director Jürg Capol, a federation committee discussed...
Every region in the U.S. seems to have its own iconic dryland hill climb. In Alaska, there’s Mount Marathon. Out west, it’s Agony. In the Midwest—well, uh… forget about the Midwest. But in the northeast, there’s one of the most brutal: the Whiteface Climb to the Castle. Okay, okay, we know. Mount Marathon’s got more history. Agony’s steeper. This year’s Climb to the Castle is only the fourth-ever edition of the event. But there’s no...
Bananas an hour prior to every race. Granola bars afterwards. Pasta the night before. As much as for any other aspect of the sport of cross-country skiing, there are dozens of beliefs, strategies, and misconceptions when it comes to food and nutrition. To clear a few of them up–but by no means all of them–we spoke with recently-appointed U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) Sports Dietician Adam Korzun. A native of Alabama, Korzun has worked...
If you’re planning on racing in Europe this winter on any of the trips supported by the National Cross-Country Ski Education Foundation (NCCSEF), you can thank Jerry Gilbert. Gilbert, a retired electrical engineer and avid master skier, died of lymphoma in 2008, and in his will, he left some $80,000 for NCCSEF. The money took nearly two years to find its way to the organization, but now that it has, that donation should be supporting...
Yet another collegiate ski program is on the chopping block. Due to budget shortfalls in Minnesota, the St. Cloud State University cross-country ski program could be shuttered by the 2011-2012 season. The closure of that program is included in one of three cost-cutting measures being considered by university administrators, who will make a decision by December 6th. “After the last couple of years, when a bunch of schools out west have gone down, it’s not...
On the weekend of September 17-19, the New England Nordic Ski Association (NENSA) hosted a Nordic Symposium with an impressive lineup of presenters, including Zach Caldwell, former Canadian National Team Leader Dave Wood, former US Ski Team coach Pat Casey, Stratton Mountain School Program Director Sverre Caldwell,and NENSA Executive Director Pat Cote, among others. The event, held in Waltham, Massachusetts, outside of Boston, was attended by over 40 coaches, athletes, and presenters, and it covered...
It’s official: Kikkan Randall, Andy Newell, and Kris Freeman will all compete in the 2011 Tour de Ski. U.S. Ski Team (USST) coaches have confirmed that the Americans will send three athletes to this winter’s race, which features eight stages at four different European venues. That triples the American presence over last year, when Newell completed four stages before dropping out. In an interview, Randall said that she was excited to get a start in...
The Canadian National Ski Team’s tour of North American continues this weekend, as the squad arrives in Utah for a three-week altitude camp. The Canadians are invading Park City, home base of the U.S. Ski Team, and they’ll have ample opportunity for cross-pollination. Kikkan Randall will be living and training with the Canadians for the entirety of their stateside stint, and Morgan Smyth, Katie Ronsse, Liz Stephen, Morgan Arritola, James Southam and Noah Hoffman will...
Nikolai Pankratov’s reported detainment at the Swiss border made waves in the cross-country skiing community when the news broke last week. But since then, there’s been barely a ripple of information to emerge from the International Ski Federation (FIS)—which, according to the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, is in charge of handling the case. What is known about Pankratov is this: according to multiple reports, the Russian cross-country skier was stopped at the Swiss border with intravenous...
Unlike some of her peers, like Americans Simi Hamilton and Ida Sargent, Brittany Webster’s rise has not been meteoric. She’s never been on the podium at a major international race, and she has only contested four World Cups—all of which were in her home country of Canada. She doesn’t even have her own website like many of her compatriots—just a plain, infrequently updated blog on WordPress. But of all the North American athletes competing in...
Nikolai Pankratov’s fate will be decided by the International Ski Federation (FIS), FasterSkier learned Thursday. FIS officials have refused to acknowledge the existence of a case against the Russian cross-country skier, who reportedly was caught at the Swiss border last week with intravenous equipment and 22 vials of Actovegin, a suspicious—but not banned—drug. But in an e-mail to FasterSkier on Thursday, Russia Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) Deputy Director Igor Zagorskiy confirmed that Pankratov’s alleged violations fell...
Kevin Sweeney was at the helm the last time that the University of Utah won an NCAA skiing championship, in 2003. So it’s only logical that the Utes would turn to Sweeney to help them win their next one. Sweeney’s appointment as Utah’s new director of skiing was announced yesterday by Associate Athletic Director Mary Bowman. Sweeney makes his return to the University after five years as the nordic race director for Swix Sport USA....
Actovegin, the drug that Russian cross-country skier Nikolai Pankratov was allegedly caught with last week, is old news, according to experts in the field of anti-doping. But it was unlikely that Actovegin was the only substance Pankratov was using, says one admitted cheater. Few details emerged over the weekend about the case of Pankratov, who according to Russian news agency RIA Novosti was stopped at the Swiss border with intravenous equipment and 22 vials of...