Community – Page 7 – FasterSkier.com

Community General News Olympics Racing World Cup

Ukraine tensions could scuttle World Cup finals in Russia, but FIS says no changes yet

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 15, 2022

ZHANGJIAKOU, CHN — International Ski Federation officials say they’re exploring backup options for season-ending races in Russia amid fears of a war between that country and Ukraine, though they’re still planning on holding the event as scheduled next month unless circumstances change. The final races of the top-level World Cup are scheduled to be held in Tyumen, Russia, in an oil-rich area in Siberia — about 1,000 miles away from the border with Ukraine, where American...

Community News Olympics Opinion Racing

Opinion: “Her! I do the same sport as her!” Jessie Diggins won a Medal, Who She Is Goes Way Beyond That

Ben TheyerlFebruary 14, 2022

Diggins’ historic accomplishment was glanced over by the giants of American media, falling back into harmful tropes that are all-too-common regarding women athletes. Reflecting on it re-centered how meaningful her vulnerability in sharing her struggle to overcome an eating disorder was to the skiing community, and was a source of strength for me. The Olympic sprint race on Tuesday in Beijing was perhaps one of the most nuanced and complex races in Olympic history. We...

Community Feature Olympics Racing

In harsh Olympic glare, Gus Schumacher demonstrates how to struggle with grace

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 14, 2022

ZHANGJIAKOU, CHN — Imagine being 21 years old. You’re in a foreign country, 4,000 miles from your family, where you can’t really socialize. Thousands of people are scrutinizing your job performance. Your job performance is not meeting their expectations, nor is it meeting yours. Reporters are asking for an explanation, and you don’t really have one. Welcome to U.S. cross-country skier Gus Schumacher’s world at the Beijing Olympics. Schumacher, who’s seen as America’s Next Great Hope...

Community Feature General News

The Chinese Ski Team’s Path to Beijing (Part 2)

Pasha KahnFebruary 13, 2022

You can find the introduction to this three-part series on the development of the Chinese ski program here. Creating a Generation of Skiers China, pursuing Olympic medals on home snow, signed deals in 2018 to train Chinese skiers in Norway and Finland. The first hurdle would be filling these programs with potential skiers. To that end, a talent building program was initiated and young professional athletes in the second tier of rowing, kayaking, and running...

Community Olympics Racing

An accountant, a summer flooring salesman and an Estonian helped Diggins deliver bronze. Here’s how.

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 12, 2022

ZHANGJIAKOU — Patrick Moore is a cheerful accountant from Edmonton, Alberta. Tim Baucom spends his summers working sales for a Vermont plank flooring company. Oleg Ragilo runs a cosmetic shop in Estonia with his wife. Jessie Diggins, the American cross-country ski star, couldn’t have won her Olympic bronze without them. Moore, Baucom and Ragilo all belong to America’s nine-member ski service team here — a mix of mostly paid staff and a couple of volunteers like Moore....

Community News Olympics Racing

“Burmania”: Swedish xc skier’s snack-sampling video goes viral in China

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 12, 2022

A clip of Jens Burman tasting Chinese snacks on his vlog racked up hundreds of thousands of views on a Chinese social media platform. The sport of cross-country skiing has not, exactly, become a sensation in China during the Winter Olympic Games. In spite of the country’s massive investment in training cross-country skiers and biathletes, none has cracked the top 10 in Beijing, and Chinese journalists complain that athletes have dodged them after races. What...

Community Feature News Olympics Racing

Athletes weigh in on NY Times statement that Diggins looks like a “sprite” relative to her competition

Rachel PerkinsFebruary 11, 2022

On February 8th, cross country skiing made the New York Times headlines as Jessie Diggins collected an historic bronze medal in the 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint. No American woman had ever won an individual medal in cross country skiing, and no American cross country skier of either gender had won multiple Olympic medals. Diggins had earned gold in 2018 racing the freestyle team sprint with partner, and current NBC analyst, Kikkan Randall. Normally, attention given to...

Community News Olympics Racing

U.S. coaches face “impossibly hard” choices for women’s relay selection

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 10, 2022

ZHANGJIAKOU, CHINA — American cross-country ski coaches face a high-stakes dilemma over the next 24 hours as they choose which members of their deep, talented women’s team will race Saturday’s four-person relay at the Beijing Olympics. The U.S. women have a fair shot at a medal in the event, in which each woman skis a five-kilometer leg. But don’t envy the American coaches, who are still pondering which of six athletes will fill the last two...

$For Patterson, 11th-place Olympic finish caps “insane” recovery from late summer wrist fracture$

Community News Olympics Racing

For Patterson, 11th-place Olympic finish caps “insane” recovery from late summer wrist fracture

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 10, 2022

ZHANGJIAKOU, CHINA — Even Scott Patterson wasn’t totally certain he was the right guy for the American Olympic team in Beijing. The veteran Alaska cross-country skier broke his wrist in August, derailing his training and throwing his participation in the Games into limbo. When he finally made it to Europe to race on the top-level World Cup circuit, he placed fourth-to-last in his first event back. “I was a little bit questioning,” said Patterson. “The last...

Community Doping General News Olympics Racing

Bolshunov has never tested positive. But the shadow of Sochi still hangs over his Olympic win.

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 10, 2022

ZHANGJIAKOU, CHINA — Russia, and its flag, are officially barred from the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, a ruling that stems from continuing doping violations following a massive, state-sponsored scandal at the 2014 Games in Sochi that included cross-country skiers. But other Russian cross-country skiers are still competing here, under the flag of their country’s Olympic committee. And on Sunday, in their first race of the Games, Russian men took the top two places. Star Alexander...

Community Feature General News

The Chinese Ski Team’s Path to Beijing (Part 1)

Pasha KahnFebruary 7, 2022

Salmon for Skiing Over the last four years China has undertaken perhaps the grandest experiment in cross country skiing history: can hundreds of athletes cherry picked from other sports and given seemingly unlimited resources be turned into Olympic medalists in nordic events? Chinese athletes have never medaled in any of the nordic disciplines, and their teams head into the Olympics as the darkest of dark horses. Success, in the form of medals, is key to...

Community General News Olympics

Olympics Preview: About That Final Uphill

Gavin KentchFebruary 4, 2022

Take a moment to visualize some iconic head-to-head finishes from recent global championships: Klæbo vs. Bolshunov in the 50 k, Oberstdorf, 2021; Nilsson vs. Johaug in the relay, Seefeld, 2019; Schumacher vs. Terentev in the relay, Lahti, 2019; Diggins vs. history in, well, you know, PyeongChang, 2018. What do these races have in common, besides drama, high-level skiing, and triumph and tragedy in equal measure? All of them feature a final downhill back into the...

Community Feature General News Olympics

On the Ground Report: A Beijing Olympic Winter Games Preview

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 4, 2022

ZHANGJIAKOU, CHINA — After months of headlines about coronavirus tests, travel logistics and geopolitics, Beijing’s Olympic cross-country skiing venue, on the eve of its first competition Saturday, has emphatically changed the subject. To the winds of Zhangjiakou. Icy gusts billowed athletes’ training bibs, filled the resort town’s immaculately groomed ski tracks with dry, squeaky powder and generally consumed everyone’s attention Friday — from the team members who shielded their faces with buffs and layers of...

Community Feature News

The Enigma of Zhangjiakou and the Kuyangshu Nordic Center

Pasha KahnFebruary 3, 2022

The ski trails at the Zhangjiakou Olympic venue – completed during the pandemic – will be seen with fresh eyes for most athletes and service staff as they arrive ahead of the 2022 Games. For service teams that often prepare years in advance of an Olympics, the uncertainty surrounding Zhangjiakou, from its weather to its snow, is a new phenomena. What is certain is that climatically, there is the potential for some very interesting conditions. ...

Community General News Olympics

Two-time Olympian Noah Hoffman advises athletes to remain silent at Beijing Olympics

FasterSkierFebruary 2, 2022

Ski & Snowboard Club Vail alumnus is working for Global Athlete to increase athlete-voice By Ryan Sederquist, Vail Daily News January 28, 2022 Two-time Olympian Noah Hoffman’s life is busier now than it ever was during his 10-year U.S. Nordic ski team career. The soon-to-be Brown graduate — he’ll have an economics degree by May — has thrown himself into athlete activism since his retirement in 2018. Hoffman started in the anti-doping world before becoming...

Community News Para Nordic

Kendall Gretsch Prepares for Second Games of the Year

Ella HallFebruary 2, 2022

There are a select few athletes who compete in both the summer and winter Olympics, and fewer still is the number of athletes who have won gold medals at the two. Para-athlete, Kendall Gretsch, holds this distinction having won two gold medals at Pyeongchang in 2018 and gold in the para-triathlon at Tokyo in 2021. With two Olympics in the span of six months, Gretsch was set for a big year. In a TeamUSA interview...

Community Racing Regional / Local

2022 Tour of Meissner – Community, Friends and Fun

FasterSkierFebruary 2, 2022

By Karen Jenkins On Saturday, January 29, 2022, a field of 77 classic skiers toed the line to stride and glide 30km in the annual Tour of Meissner just outside Bend, OR. While Bend is known as host to the US Ski Team spring training camp on the Mt. Bachelor Nordic Center ski trails there are other groomed Nordic ski trails in the greater Bend area. The Meissner Nordic Community Ski Trails are located entirely...

Community Feature News

Insights From a Pre-Olympic Media Conference with Jessie Diggins

Rachel PerkinsJanuary 28, 2022

As January draws to a close, energy, excitement, and perhaps anxiety surrounding the rapidly approaching 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing is steadily building. In an effort to better manage her time and energy heading into these Games, Jessie Diggins offered a media conference facilitated by U.S. Ski & Snowboard cross country communications manager Tom Horrocks to answer questions about her preparation, outlook, and plans for the remainder of the time before the team heads to...

Community General News Other News

News Brief: COVID Outbreak in the Norway Olympic Delegation, and updated plans to get Klæbo, Johaug, and teammates to Beijing

Ben TheyerlJanuary 27, 2022

The Planica World Cup cancellations this month brought the skiing world to the perilous edge of what it feared most, but hoped wouldn’t happen – the central focus of this ski season, and the sport’s biggest moment, the Olympics – affected by the Omicron COVID-19 variant. Over the last week in the Italian Alps, the sport went over that edge. This Olympics, as with everything in the world right now, will have to deal with...

Community News Team nominations

(Press Release) 2022 Junior, U23 World Championships Cross Country Teams Announced

FasterSkierJanuary 25, 2022

By U.S. Ski & Snowboard January 25, 2022 U.S. Ski & Snowboard has announced 24 athletes to represent the United States at the FIS Junior & U23 World Cross Country Championships Feb. 22-27 in Lygna, Norway. “Following a year filled with constant changes, I am so pleased to see a team fielded with such depth among our roster,” said U.S. Ski & Snowboard Head Cross Country Development Coach Greta Anderson. “We have several spots on...

Newer Posts

Older Posts