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Klaebo-Skistad Win Falun Sprints. Svahn Closes in on Diggins

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. It’s hard to believe, but this weekend in Falun, Sweden, marks the final weekend of competition in the FIS World Cup season. The strong showing by the American team in the first period...

World Cup Final Weekend: What Does Diggins Need to Do?

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. It’s always exciting when the season of any professional sport comes down to the last weekend of competition. But for U.S. cross-country fans, and fans of Jessie Diggins, it’s definitely excitement they could...

Brennan Third in Drammen, Cyr Takes Fourth, Schoonmaker Sixth

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. The World Cup moved to its second to last venue today as racers competed in the Drammen, Norway, City Classic Sprints. Over the years, Drammen has taken on an aura all its own...

This Week in Canmore: Biathlon World Cup Season Finale

Canmore is having a year. Just over a month after hosting the International Ski Federation (FIS) Cross Country World Cup, the Canmore Nordic Centre is pulling out all the stops and showcasing its brand-new biathlon facility as the host of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup Finals from Thursday, March 14 to Sunday, March 17. The world-class venue amid Canada’s Rocky Mountains is no stranger to World Cup nordic and mountain bike events. It...

NCAA—Magnus Boee Leads Colorado to Come-from-Behind Victory

Winning a fifth NCAA championship in a row would represent a program milestone for the University of Utah, though going into the final day of NCAA competition, Utah’s path to victory was less than a foregone conclusion. Nonetheless, Utah has shown itself to be the dominant collegiate program—both Alpine and Nordic—of the last few years, entering the final day of NCAA competition as the favorite to take the crown. All that history would be decided...

Klaebo Finally Triumphs at Holmenkollen

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. Years ago—when Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo (NOR) was still just a world Cup newbie—fans watched him trip over a klister-fed snow-snake on a Holmenkollen downhill, and go flipping ass over tea kettle. It’s the...

Karlsson Dominates Holmenkollen, Diggins Defends Overall Lead

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. As the World Cup season begins drawing to a conclusion, the two biggest questions remaining are who would win the women’s Overall Crystal Globe, and who would win the Holmenkollen 50-kilometer Classic race....

World Cup Race Day: Picking THE Ski

Julia Kern’s writing for FasterSkier is made possible through the generous support of our friends at The Memory Clinic, Bennington, Vermont.  Since, 1987, clinicians at The Memory Clinic have been providing diagnosis and treatment of memory loss.  If someone you care about is showing signs of memory loss please reach out to The Memory Clinic.   How many pairs of skis do World Cup athletes have in their fleet? You may surprised by the answers, ranging...

NCAA—Hagenbuch Finally a Champion, Palmer-Leger Continues Utah’s Dominance

When the sun shines happily and snowstorms spread a fresh coat of white on trails and trees, it’s pretty hard to beat Steamboat’s Howelsen Hill as a ski race venue. That’s exactly what greeted the country’s best collegiate skiers for Day 1 of nordic competition at the 2024 NCAA Ski Championships as racers lined up for a 7.5 k individual start skate race. Pitch-perfect Colorado spring conditions softened the corners—literally and figuratively—on an otherwise stark,...

Minneapolis World Cup: Field Trip of a Lifetime

Partly for the sake of cost effectiveness, and partly for the joyful experience of a good old road trip, my ski Coach Hilary Greene decided that driving to Minnesota with three adults and three high schoolers would be a worthwhile experience. That was how I found myself skipping school on a Thursday and loading into a rented 2022 Chrysler Pacifica for a nice 20 hour drive. Day one started a lot later than we would’ve...

2024 NCAA Preview: New Talent and Stubborn Traditions in Steamboat Springs

When the best collegiate athletes in the United States gather for the 2024 NCAA Ski Championships, they will head to the nation’s oldest ski area, Howelsen Hill, for one of the longest continuously run championship events in the country. The NCAA is the most staid competitive circuit in US Skiing history, and continues to serve as an incubator of North American ski-talent. The best young skiers in the country will be racing in Steamboat Springs...

Crystal Globe Chase: What Do Diggins and Brennan Need to Do?

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. With only three weekends of racing and five races left, the 2024 World Cup Season is entering its home-stretch run, and fans of team USA are hoping that Jessie Diggins can hang on...

Skistad and Klaebo Master Lahti Sprint Tactics

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. The World Cup season has definitely gotten long, and the edges are beginning to fray. The FIS World Cup points system favors those who race the most, but the season is just too...

Klaebo Crushes Finland’s Hopes, Defeats Niskanen at Home

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. The World Cup entered its home stretch of the season with racing continuing in Lahti, Finland. Today, the racers competed in the 20 k Classic Individual Start. For the men, the Overall and...

Parmakoski’s Redemption in Lahti

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. Krista Parmakoski (FIN) has battled the greats: Marit Bjorgen, Therese Johaug, Charlotte Kalla, Justyna Kowalczyk, Heidi Weng, Jessie Diggins. Across fifteen years of World Cups, World Championships, and Olympics, whomever was the dominant...

Sweden and Norway Win Team Sprints in Chaotic Lahti Conditions

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. As the World Cup returned to Europe in Lahti, Finland, Friday, it was those tricky conditions: temps hovering around zero degrees Celsius; mix of wet, man-made, and natural snow that leaves even the best...

Getting the Call To the Big Show

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. Most people visiting FasterSkier are probably familiar with the lives led by the American “A” team athletes. Their lifestyles and races are thoroughly documented. But, with the addition of new racers for North...

Our Greenland Moment? Adaptations and Impacts of Virtual Racing: Part III

February is here, and Nordic skiers in the Upper Midwest are at a teetering point. Many of us are remaining cautiously optimistic that all we need is “one good snow” to salvage our ski season. The Canadian Birkie, American Vasa, Finlandia, and Vasaloppet USA have already cancelled their races. Many skiers are starting to wonder how races like the Birkie will look this year. What a stark contrast from last year’s record setting snowfall throughout...

Can jet-setting ski racers be climate activists? Schumacher, Diggins lean into “imperfect advocacy.”

MINNEAPOLIS — After Gus Schumacher’s upset win at an international cross-country ski race here last week, one of his first moves was not to celebrate at a bar, but instead, to stand in front of the crowd and talk about climate change. With hundreds listening to the panel discussion from the grandstand, Schumacher, his teammate Jessie Diggins and activist and author Bill McKibben passed a microphone back and forth. The subject, for Schumacher, is immediate...

Victories by Diggins and Schumacher Highlight American Birkebeiner

It hasn’t always been the same race, but it has always been the American Birkebeiner. Courses have changed, directions have changed, ski techniques have changed, conditions have changed, field sizes have changed, reputations have changed. Thin snow conditions across the American Midwest even necessitated that his year’s race was not even contested on the Telemark trail between Cable and Hayward, but over five laps of a ten kilometer loop painstakingly preserved just for this event....