HomeCategory

Feature

Hedegart Emerges From the Fog to Win Holmenkollen 50 k as Klæbo’s Absence Reshuffles the Distance Globe

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. For nearly two hours on Saturday, 77 men disappeared into a stubborn curtain of fog that clung to the hillsides above Oslo, their figures swallowed by the mist somewhere between the stadium...

Karlsson Leads Swedish Sweep Through Holmenkollen Fog

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 prize for winning Oslo’s Holmenkollen 50 k is lifelong bragging rights. Such is the nature of the prestige afforded this event within the Nordic ski community. Norwegian fans, especially, remember certain...

The Devon Kershaw Show: The post-Olympic hangover is over — with head injuries

This episode was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers.  If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription.   We had to take a break after our three-week Olympic sprint, but we’re back to catch up on a couple of weeks of World Cup racing. Devon and Nat take a quick run-through of events in Sweden, Finland and Norway. We’ll be back after the marathons at Holmenkollen. Reach...

Evensen Stuns Drammen as Klaebo and Ogden Crash Out of Semifinals

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 greatest cross-country skier in history was lying on the snow, his arms wrapped over his face, his hands holding the back of his head, and the city of Drammen — where...

Sundling Seizes Drammen, Denying Skistad on Home Snow

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 snow was trucked in, the rock band was playing near the finish, and Norwegian children cheered from second-story windows along the course. On a rare midweek World Cup race day in...

Colin Rodgers and the Culture of SMS T2

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. The first time I saw Colin Rodgers, he was climbing onto a podium in the basement of a hotel in Biwabik, Minnesota. I honestly can’t remember the name of the hotel, but I can remember the rooms, the enormous lobby complete with an indoor minigolf course, and the basement...

Diggins Podiums in Lahti as Karlsson Wins 10 k Classic

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 Jessie Diggins climbed the final hills in Lahti on Sunday, she could hear something unusual rising above the crowd noise. Scattered along the course were hand-made signs held by Finnish fans...

He Just Wins—Klaebo Again in Lahti 10 k

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. Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo may be tired, but far more daunting than any mere fatigue is what Klaebo’s rivals find themselves facing: futility. Weekend after weekend, race after race, kilometer after kilometer, finish...

Sundling Returns to Win Lahti Sprint as Crystal Globe Battle Tightens

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 returned to Finland this weekend, closing a circle that began more than three months ago in Ruka. In the time since Olympic teams were selected, dreams realized or...

Lahti Sprint—Klaebo Remains Unbeatable

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 Johannes Klaebo’s ski world,” said skiandsnowboardlive.com’s on-air commentator, Andrew Kastening. “And we’re all just living in it.” Truer words were never spoken . . . “I didn’t have a plan,” said...

Ben Ogden’s Olympic Silver, 50 Years After Bill Koch — A Trailside Reflection

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. This essay by Jim Galanes was written on the evening of the Olympic Men’s Classic Sprint in Val di Fiemme, when Ben Ogden won silver to become the first American man in 50 years to medal in an Olympic cross-country skiing event. It was drafted from the race course...

The Life That Grew Our Sport: John Caldwell, 1928–2026

John Caldwell, born November 28, 1928, passed away February 27 at 97 years old. John’s contribution to cross-country skiing in the United States is unquestioned. He was a 1952 Olympian in Nordic Combined. He wrote several books on cross-country skiing that became our training guidance, our bibles, in the early and mid-1970s. He was a long-time teacher and coach at The Putney School, an early U.S. Ski Team coach, and a member of the coaching...

A Different Skiathlon—Weng Bests Diggins by .1

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. Cross-country ski racing fans know how the Women’s field races—flat out, wire to wire, merciless. That’s what made Falun’s 2 x 10 k Skiathlon look like an indicator of just how challenging...

Klaebo Extends Historic Run with Falun Skiathlon Victory

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence 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 fresh snow overnight and temperatures hovering just above freezing, it was the kind of conditions that keep ski technicians guessing and athletes second-guessing. A week removed...

Klaebo Edges Closer to a Season for the Ages in Falun

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence 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. Six days after the Olympic flame dimmed in Italy, the World Cup caravan reassembled in Falun, Sweden, at the Lugnet cross-country ski center. The Mördarbacken — the...

More Than One Tactic—Svahn Masters Falun Sprint

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. Falun’s Sprint course rewards experience . . . but not every skier who possesses that experience pays very close attention. Skiers can get distracted by how they feel, by how their heat...

Chris Hecker and the Moment the Sun Came Out

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers.  If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. If you are a parent or coach and have been responsible for waxing skis for an important race — a state championship, a Junior National Qualifier — you know how stressful that can be. Now imagine it’s the morning of the Team Sprint at the Olympics, and you are...

An Olympic reporter’s wrap-up: An epic U.S. Ski Team road trip, a cheese factory tour and Klæbo’s wings

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers.  If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. Ciao a tutti! Greetings from Torino, where this fatigued Olympics correspondent has retreated to recover through bike rides and repeated doses of pizza with family. I had the chance to attend the closing ceremonies — mostly as a spectator — in Verona on my trip down from the mountains. After more...

The Devon Kershaw Show: Glory, grit and agony in the women’s Olympic 50 k

This episode was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers.  If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription.   We’re done and dusted at the Olympics after a rockin’ women’s 50 k — the first-ever at the Games. Devon and Nat smash out a recap of the epic breakaway and the knock-down-drag-out battle for bronze. We’ll be back next week. Reach us in the mean time at devon[at]fasterskier.com...

Ebba Andersson’s Golden Redemption—Olympic 50 k

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers who have helped put our Nat Herz on the ground at the Olympics. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. TESERO, ITALY — Two weeks of Olympic cross-country ski racing all comes down to this . . . fifty grueling kilometers of this, to be precise; a distance that women have raced only a few times...