The season will kick off here in Ostersund, with the Men’s 20km Individual Race, tomorrow at 5:15pm CET. For all ya’ll back home, that is 11:15am Eastern Standard Time. If anyone is interested in watching, here is a link to the live vid...
After a brief leave from northern Finland, I came back to race the Ruka Triple. The Ruka Triple is a three day mini-tour of World Cup racing in Ruka, Finland, a resort town near Kuusamo. Ruka is famous for steep and long uphills, fast downhills, darkness, and bitter cold weather. Since winter is late in [...]
The World Cup has officially begun again and we have just finished our second weekend of racing with the second annual Ruka Triple, otherwise known as the Kuusamo mini tour. It is a stage race, three races in three days, all accumulative on...
Though the World Cup season is only two weekends old, I'm intrigued by two trends - Therese Johaug's development as a sprinter and Vibeke Skofterud's success so far. I might get to the first topic in another post, but I'd like to dig into the second to...
I thought it would be worthwhile to compile a list of upcoming events for the Pacific Northwest.Dec 31 - Mazama Ski Rodeo - Skate 10KJan 1 - Methow Valley Biathlon - Pursuit FormatJan 7/8 - Bend OR JOQ - Jr Qual and PNSA Masters Cham...
Well, we are supposed to leave here tomorrow morning at 10AM. Skis are packed, clothes are not (but they will be soon), and we’re ready to head to Bozeman. Except--- there isn’t snow in Bozeman. This puts a small hitch in our plans. There might...
I have been in Ostersund, Sweden preparing for the start of the World Cup for a little over two weeks now. Despite the unseasonably warm temperatures, the skiing has been good enough to log some quality training. The Swedes are … Continue r...
As part of the promotion for their new complete line of nordic equipment, OneWay pulled into the cross-country World Cup this weekend in Kuusamo, Finland with their new service and promotional truck – complete with an are for skiers to see and touch their new products as well as a large area for their service team to work.
Finally a little bit of natural snow is falling here in Ostersund. This is the first snow falling out of the sky that I've seen this year! Just in time for the US crew racing the IBU cup here this morning!
Saturday SuperTour Classic Race At 7am, it was -17f. Yes, the remnants of the tropical storm were gone! Today was a delight. West Yellowstone was back to its wonderful normal self. For glide, we went with LF Moly/Blue mix (mix the LF Blue in to harden the Moly up), HF Blue, and covered by JS Blue. We verified the glide wax tip in the morning and it was great. For kick, we ended up on...
The final West Yellowstone SuperTour race has come and gone. The industry vendors are packed up and ready to head out, and there is a blue grass band playing at the Holiday Inn—it is time to bring the 2011 Yellowstone Ski Festival to a close. Today’s classic race was just about perfect—rock solid track, great kick, and blue skies. One of the high points had to be Nordic Combined skier Brett Denney, who borrowed demo...
It's been a long time since I've considered myself a distance skier. I've put my focus on the sprints and that has continued to be the emphasis of the training Scott has prescribed. But this dryland season we spent most of our training efforts on aerob...
After a short break in the Methow and some skiing at Klipchuck (thanks, Scott!), Alison, Mom, Dad and I jumped into a few trucks and headed east for West Yellowstone, MT and the opening Super Tour races. It's been two years since I was last in West and...
Turkey and stuffing in the past, Friday brought another fine morning of racing in West Yellowstone, Montana. A total of 174 skiers finished the 10/15km freestyle event, won by Leif Zimmermann (BSF/Madshus) and Morgan Arritola (SVSEF). You can read full race reports here – men | women. And view photos here – men | women As is often the case there are details of the day that don’t make it into the main articles. Here...
While the weather was a bit blustery for the women’s 10km freestyle SuperTour in West Yellowstone, there was a mix of sun and clouds—decent weather for photos. Here are some shots from the race. Women’s complete race report
A mid-race snow squall made for blizzard-like conditions and not the best photography weather. But such is skiing. Here is a selection of photos from the men’s 15km skate in West Yellowstone.
Today was the 10k and 15k skate races in West Yellowstone. The temperature was about 28ºF, and it was alternately sunny, cloudy, or puking graupel. Luckily for the girls, the graupel held off until the dude’s race. We had firm and fairly fast trac...
I know the World Cup season is only two individual races old, but I'm jazzed about Kikkan Randall's chances this year. Her one "weakness" - relative to the most elite racers - has been her classic skiing, in both distance events and, more importantly, sprints, but so far this season she's showing some real chops along both axes.In the 10k skate at Sjusjøen last Saturday, she turned in a distance
Know your products to be able to predict what is going to run – then figure out what the weather is going to do! The forecast for last night was predictably off. They had called for the temperatures to sink dramatically and for a bunch of snow to fall. It has been my experience that when the weather is warm and a front is supposed to come and kick it out, it generally takes longer...
Sunny skies and a brutal finish provided plenty of photo ops on course. Here are selections from the men’s event at the West Yellowstone SuperTour Sprint Showdown. Classic |