RUMFORD, ME (Jan. 9) – The U.S. Cross Country Ski Team selected 13 athletes Saturday in Rumford, ME at the 2011 U.S. Cross Country Championsips to represent the U.S. in the 2011 World U-23 Cross Country Ski Championships. The World U-23 Ski Championships will be held in Otepea, Estonia Jan. 27-31. Athletes from different clubs and colleges, from east to west, will gather in Estonia with hopes of winning a World U-23 title. The U.S....
Jan. 8, 2011 – Two members of the Visa Women’s Ski Jumping Team finished in the top five Saturday in a Continental Cup event that was overshadowed by the tragic and unexpected death of a young Italian jumper. The Italian Winter Sports Federation confirmed that Simona Senoner, just 17, died suddenly Friday in Schonach, Germany after feeling ill in her hotel room. The Associated Press reported that Senoner was airlifted to a local hospital after...
US Nationals Skate Sprint Race Report Waxing was interesting today and showed why I am happy to be a Toko man. I was expecting a lot of styrofoam-like manmade snow mixed in with the bit of old snow that remained. Somehow the snow changed and today skied more like “normal” snow. The wax recommendation would have rocked for sure in what we were expecting so I was relieved to see that the HF Blue/XCold mix...
One last national title is up for grabs on Saturday in Rumford, ME, as a skate sprint wraps up the 2011 U.S. championships. Rock-hard, borderline icy conditions should make for a lightning-fast, hectic day of racing around the 1.4-kilometer course. The men’s field is headlined by Torin Koos (Methow ODT), but he’ll have his hands full with Simi Hamilton, the U.S. Ski Team’s 23-year-old sprint stud. Koos won last Sunday’s classic sprint in convincing fashion,...
Rossignol Nordic team member and U.S. Ski Team athlete Liz Stephen dominated the competition during the women’s 20K skate race at U.S. Nationals in Rumford, ME. Just 24 hours after a disappointing finish in the classic race, Liz was back to her usual strong form, leading the race early on. Liz races on the Rossignol X-ium Skate package. The X-ium Skate package includes the X-ium NIS Skating WCS Ski, XCelerator Skate NIS Binding, X-ium WC...
As I mentioned in my earlier post from Roxbury, we’ve been hoping for a good sunset. Tonight, on our last night at Nationals, we got lucky. Here are the results of my very amateur attempts at photographing the beautiful colors. After a good ski this morning that included many laps of the sprint course, I’m [...]
Women Club Men Club Annie Liotta AWS Forrest Mahlen APUNSC Marion Woods AWS Logan Hanneman FAST Cambria McDermott STRATTON Patrick Caldwell STRATTON Stella Holt Glacier Nordic Dylan McGarthwaite MSC Sharmila Ahmed GO Training Peter Namrol AWS Hannah Boyer FXC-NCSF John Hegman MANSFIELD Heather Mooney -will race JWC instead STRATTON This “Scando Cup” trip is one of the premier steps of the elite junior athlete and coach development pipeline in the U.S. The Scando Cup is...
Yesterday’s distance races here in Rumford were an 11-lap 30k for the guys, and a 7-lap 20k for us. I have to admit, after watching and cheering for the end of the boys race (you know, just the last 4 laps), I wasn’t feeling too pumped for my own 7 laps. But in the [...]
The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association announced qualifiers for this year’s Junior World Championships (JWC) and the J1-Scando Trip (J1S) on Twitter this morning. This year’s JWC takes place in Otepaa, Estonia, while the J1S trip – an annual competition for younger juniors – is in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden. Athletes could prequalify for the JWC with outstanding finishes at SuperTour events throughout the last year; the rest of the two teams were selected, primarily, based on...
The US National Championships in Rumford, Maine moved into the freestyle skiing on Thursday, with the Distance Skate events taking place for the male and female competitors. Due to low snow conditions, both events were switched from the scheduled mass start format to an interval start format. However, the distances, 30km for men and 20km for women were kept the same and the 2.7km course held up very well for all the racers. With 3...
The waxing for today’s skate races was predictable and straightforward. The organizers did add a bunch of freshly shot new snow overnight which made it necessary to add XCold to the HF Blue. So the wax was LF Blue, HF Blue/XCold mix, followed by a top coat of JetStream Blue. The Blue structure was excellent. Most people do not understand Nordlite XCold even still. XCold is an additive that increases durability and hardens the base,...
With six laps, the women’s 20km freestyle at the US National Championships had no shortage of action. Here is a look at the effort of the podium finishers from Kris Dobie.
The men’s 30km freestyle at the US National Championship was as exciting as it gets in cross-country ski racing. Here is a glimpse at road to the men’s podium through the lenses of Kris Dobie.
The CCSA got its competitive season off to an impressive start at the Chisholm Ski Club on Wednesday, as the association’s skiers landed a podium spot, four top-10, and six top-20 finishes in the classic races at U.S. Nationals in Rumford, Maine. In both the men’s 15K and women’s 10K events, the story of the day belong to Alaska. The Nanooks placed four skiers in the top 10 and five in the top 20, landing five of the...
It took a week, but winter has finally returned to Rumford, ME. In the last two days at the 2011 U.S. National Championships, the tropical climate that dogged organizers has departed, replaced by temperatures far below freezing. With distance skate races on tap for Thursday, the 2.7-kilometer loop at Black Mountain has been widened in spots, augmented by snowmaking and shoveling. The men and women will be doing 11 and seven laps, respectively, for a total...
Check out the FIS video from the Rossignol wax hut at the Tour de Ski.Noteworthy is the presentation of wedges for NIS plates, used with skate skis. Interesting stuff.Of course, as long as someone is making adapters for NIS plates, why no...
Check out the FIS video from the Rossignol wax hut at the Tour de Ski.Noteworthy is the presentation of wedges for NIS plates, used with skate skis. Interesting stuff.Of course, as long as someone is making adapters for NIS plates, why no...
Check out the FIS video from the Rossignol wax hut at the Tour de Ski.Noteworthy is the presentation of wedges for NIS plates, used with skate skis. Interesting stuff.Of course, as long as someone is making adapters for NIS plates, why no...
My time at US Nationals has come to a rather unexpected close. It was a tough call, but after today’s debacle of a 15k I decided that further racing would just set me back. The smarter choice was to head back to Craftsbury for some rest and recovery. Sometimes things just don’t go as planned. [...]
Conditions matched what we expected when doing the wax tip. The only thing was that light snowfall fell sometimes, but didn’t affect conditions really and it didn’t accumulate at all. Being that there was so much sitting in a tuck on this course, ski speed played an even more central role. You had to have fast skis. Our glide wax tip was straight forward and held up well. For kick, it was more complicated as...