Feature – Page 31 – FasterSkier

An Evening with SMS T2: Strengthen Your Mental and Physical Self with Julia Kern

FasterSkierOctober 10, 2023

The world of professional skiing is big and broad, but each professional team has a community they call “home.” For SMS T2, they are definitely the Home Team in the Nordic community of southern Vermont and western Massachusetts. It’s always fun and inspiring when the team and the community get to come together (as SMS T2 has always been devoted to doing) for events, for conversations, for competitions, and for cameraraderie. FasterSkier recently teamed up...

Feature

Why We Race

Ken RothOctober 7, 2023

A guy I knew once told me, “Everyone’s got something.” He was referring to the inevitable injury, illness, or other malady that eventually affects everyone. Push your body long and hard enough, and eventually something will break down. The point he was making was that it doesn’t really matter what the something is: eventually, you just have to deal with it. His bigger point was that it’s not a good mindset to think first of...

Feature News

Simi Hamilton Traverses New Terrain: Retirement, Part I

John TeafordOctober 4, 2023

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. Learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award—or about supporting FasterSkier coverage—by contacting info@fasterskier.com. Quintessential retirement: feet up, reclining chair reclined, beverage in one hand, remote control in the other, satisfied grin. And the more challenging and stressful the career, the sweeter the “rest” that follows it. But that’s just not the way...

Community Feature News

Keeping the Shop, Part I: Past, Present, and Future at Finn Sisu

Ben TheyerlSeptember 26, 2023

Finn Sisu may not have been the first place to sell skis in the Twin Cities, but it was the first “ski shop.” Ahvo Taipale, a Finnish immigrant and Agricultural Engineer, had spent a decade competing (and often winning) cross-country ski races across the Midwest before he looked around at the growing number of Twin Cities skiers doing new races like the American Birkebeiner and realized that someone would need to provide all those skis....

Feature News

Staying the Course at an Ontario Gem

Ken RothSeptember 23, 2023

At one time or another, many fervent cross-country skiers may have harbored the thought that it might be a great thing to own a ski center, and maybe a really big one. Walking out the front door onto your own groomed trails would unquestionably be fantastic. But that sunny image might blind you from seeing the other side of the equation: the hard work and the time-consuming, weather dependent stress that is the reality of...

Feature News World Cup

That guy rollerskiing around Utah by himself? Yeah: it’s 5x Olympic champ Johannes Klæbo

Nathaniel HerzSeptember 20, 2023

PARK CITY, UTAH — Five-time Olympic champion Johannes Høsflot Klæbo could be cross-country skiing’s answer to Michael Jordan — a bona fide sports superstar in his home nation of Norway, where photographers and fans tail him after events. But to the up-and-coming ski racers in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, and their parents? Klæbo is just another dude on the local trails. “The novelty has, sort of, worn off,” said Silvester Williams, a junior...

Feature

Sophia Laukli’s Cinderella Story Continues

Ken RothSeptember 16, 2023

When Stifel U.S. Ski team member Sophia Laukli’s foray into the world of professional trail running began, the prevailing question was when would this fairy tale string of world class domination end? The answer to that question is now clear; it will end when Sophia Laukli wants it to end. That conclusion reached a thundering crescendo when Laukli notched another victory in the Golden Trail Series competition. Laukli took first place today in the...

Community Feature News

Skiers Giving Back: Julia Kern on Physical and Mental Health

FasterSkierSeptember 11, 2023

BENNINGTON, VERMONT – FasterSkier is excited to team up with The Memory Clinic to present an evening with Olympic Athletes Julia Kern, Jessie Diggins, and Ben Ogden to discuss the Integration of Physical and Mental Health. On Monday, September 25, in Bennington, Vermont these SMS T2 team members will be on hand to discuss the importance of goal-setting and maintaining motivation for athletes and non-athletes, alike. The evening’s keynote speaker will be World Championship bronze...

Community Feature News

Jessie Diggins to Race American Birkebeiner in 2024

FasterSkierSeptember 5, 2023

In 2008 and 2009, a teenage skier from Minnesota won the 23 kilometer Korteloppet race at the Telemark Resort in Cable, WI: that’s how Jessie Diggins got her start. Way back then, she probably imagined that her future would one day include contending for the win in the full-length Birkebeiner race. That was many years, and many kilometers, and many races, and many headlines ago. Now, Jessie Diggins will finally get her chance to line...

Community Feature

Back to School

John TeafordSeptember 4, 2023

And, so, it’s back to school . . . The day after Labor Day: it’s always been the day of packing lunches and organizing pencils, of combing cowlicks and catching buses, of searching for new classrooms and picking new desks. Friends re-met after a summer off, and teachers newly met in topics as yet un-mastered. But every few years—every six, or eight, or twelve—the first day of school is a different sort of thing. Some...

Community Feature

Finding Mountains and Meaning in Crested Butte

Ben TheyerlAugust 28, 2023

Even for the US Postal Service, delivering mail to the end of the road at 9,000 feet is a challenge. Home delivery is out of the question: in Crested Butte, Colorado, you need a PO box, no matter who you are. As a consequence, a trip to pick up packages at the Post Office is something you make a day out of, and each member of the disparate factions that make up life in our...

Feature Nutrition

Eating Your Vegetables: Performance Diets

Jason KaskAugust 24, 2023

Diet is an important aspect of performance in all sports, while Nutrition is a field plagued with poor—or even false—information. The crossroads of the two is where many athletes find themselves, especially since questionable information (in the field of nutrition) is often presented as “research,” but is just as likely to be marketing-speak masquerading as facts. There’s a lot of money in the supplement industry; an industry that is is loosely regulated, at best. Sports...

Feature

Rosie Brennan Blue Collar Skier? She’s OK With That: Part III

Ken RothAugust 21, 2023

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. Learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award—or about supporting FasterSkier coverage—by contacting info@fasterskier.com. FasterSkier concludes its interview with Stifel U.S. Ski Team member, Rosie Brennan (Part I, Part II). In Part III, Brennan continues to share her candid thoughts regarding her future, the financial and personal strains of being a professional athlete, and her...

Feature

Rosie Brennan Blue Collar Skier? She’s OK With That: Part II

Ken RothAugust 18, 2023

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. Learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award—or about supporting FasterSkier coverage—by contacting info@fasterskier.com. Stifel U.S. Cross-Country Team member, Rosie Brennan, continues her one-on-one interview with FasterSkier. She picks up from last week’s interview and talks about the stress of close finishes, her relationship with the media, and her reputation as a blue collar athlete....

Feature Training

Strong Skiers—Skiing and Resistance Training

Jason KaskAugust 16, 2023

Cross country ski trails—and the grooming strategies that prepare those trails for race events—have changed dramatically in recent seasons, especially since artificial snow became commonplace at Nordic venues. Commensurately, skiing speeds have increased, and so has the reliance on upper body power for propulsion. This has been most visible in classic skiing where technique zones are put in place down to the junior level to ensure that striding remains part of the sport. These changes...

Feature News

Laukli Wins Again on Golden Trail Marathon Series

Ken RothAugust 14, 2023

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. Learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award—or about supporting FasterSkier coverage—by contacting info@fasterskier.com. Sophia Laukli’s dominance of professional trail running continued this weekend with her victory at the 50th running of the Sierre-Zinal trail race in Switzerland. The Stifel U.S. Cross-Country Team member took the victory by a surprisingly wide margin—over four...

Beginners Feature Resources

Beginner’s Guide: The Season of Roller-Skiing

Matthew VoisinAugust 10, 2023

For decades, my summers were filled with roller skiing. First as a junior, then as a collegiate racer, followed by nearly 15 years as a coach: summers meant endless hours logged on New England roads on roller-skis. In recent years, I’ve shied away from the unique click and clack of pole tips on asphalt in favor of running, cycling, swimming and paddling. But this summer—with cooler autumn days approaching—I find my body longing for some...

Feature US Ski Team World Cup

Rosie Brennan Blue Collar Skier? She’s OK With That: Part I

Ken RothAugust 10, 2023

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. Learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award—or about supporting FasterSkier coverage—by contacting info@fasterskier.com. Rosie Brennan has been a fixture on the Stifel U.S. Ski Team for several years, weathering the ups and downs of professional athletics with grace, aplomb, and stoic professionalism. Her determination and perseverance have created scores of admiring fans,...

Feature News World Cup

Ben Ogden, In His Element: Part III

John TeafordAugust 8, 2023

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. Learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award—or about supporting FasterSkier coverage—by contacting info@fasterskier.com. People are always asking Ben Ogden, “How does it feel to be on the start line with Klaebo, Jouve, Chanavat?” His response reveals much about both Ogden’s attitude as a competitor, and his character as a young man: “For...

Feature News

Sophia Laukli Returns to Lysebotn Opp Hill Climb for Second Podium Finish

Ben TheyerlAugust 6, 2023

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. Learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award—or about supporting FasterSkier coverage—by contacting info@fasterskier.com. 7.5 kilometers, 27 hairpin turns, up a fjord. For the better part of two decades, the climb up the Lysebotn Opp has marked the high point, figurative and literal, of cross-country skiing’s summer calendar. Last year, that point was...

Newer Posts

Older Posts