The last races of the season are already past. In that last month of ski racing, World Cup finals happened for Para Nordic at Soldier Hollow, the Holmenkollen 50k made history for offering the first women’s 50km race and Spring Series capped off the elite domestic racing here in the states. But those high-profile events were not the only ones being staged: this year, my friend Phil sent out a notice for a race on...
After each of her races on the World Cup this season, Hailey Swirbul would write in her journal. “I tried to answer a couple of questions,” she explained. “What was good today? What was hard? And what do I want to carry forward?” That last question, “What do I want to carry forward?” typically kept an eye on next week’s racing. But after she crossed the final finish line in Lahti, Finland, those questions would...
The International Ski Federation (FIS) recently announced that next season will be the first where the use of fluorinated ski waxes—fluoros—will be banned at the World Cup. Or rather, the FIS are planning on enforcing a ban that initially was announced in 2019, and has been delayed year-to-year ever since. In its rationale behind the latest delay last August, the FIS responded to reports by the Swedish Newspaper Expressen that the chosen field test for...
All ski boots come with insoles. None of them are any good. Some might be fair—maybe even usable for those with strong feet, neutral biomechanics, and impeccable technique—but, for most of us, they’re garbage. Literally. Throw them away and get some good insoles. Why Do I Need a Good Insole? Balance Quite simplified, balance is a product of the nervous system. Our eyes, inner ears, muscles, tendons, joints, and skin are constantly sending information through...
Illness can deal a fatal blow to an athlete’s season at any level. The new points system in the 2023 World Cup showed how missing a race can impact the points standings and seems to promote participation, the pros and cons of which are debated elsewhere. Points and other pressures create immense pressure on athletes to race: for some, their career is on the line, for others prestige, years of hard work, or real or...
Ski season is rapidly coming to an end in much of North America. For those who find going cold turkey into non-ski season difficult to manage, a Nordic cinematic experience might be just the salve to heal the wounds of snow’s departure. The film up for review in this episode of FasterSkier at the Movies is The Last King. It’s a 2016 Norwegian film based on of the tale of the Birkebeiner rescue of Prince...
In 2024, Minneapolis, Minnesota will host an FIS World Cup. That fact has been the source of pure excitement across US Skiing, and also of déjà vu. For many skiers and ski fans, the cancellation of the planned World Cup races at Theodore Wirth Park in March 2020 will forever be associated with those uncertain first days of the COVID-19 pandemic. American World Cup athletes had come home, the banners and bleachers were up, when...
This World Cup 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 most dominant World Cup season ever by a male skier; a tally of wins that ties Theresa Johaug (NOR) for the greatest number of victories in a single season (20) by...
This World Cup 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. Today marked the end: at the completion of today’s women’s 20 kilometer Classic mass start in Lahti, Finland, all unanswered questions would be resolved. There would not be any waiting until next...
This World Cup 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. After Maja Dahlqvist (SWE) qualified third in Saturday’s classic sprint, the tension rose to a fever pitch. With ten bonus points earned, Dahlqvist had cut the Sprint Crystal Globe gap between herself...
This World Cup 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. By this time in his storied and much-decorated career, Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo (NOR) definitely knows his way around a bottle of champagne. Given enough time on World Cup podiums (as Klaebo has...
This World Cup 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. World Cup Finals began under overcast Finnish skies Friday, as the circuit looks to settle the questions of a long season over the next three days. Who was—and who wasn’t—racing in Friday’s...
This World Cup 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 the last week of World Cup sprinting, two pairs of skis have followed each other back and forth, every stride marked in tandem with the other. Twenty meters from the finish...
This World Cup 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. All things being equal—including the wax—it appears that the fastest skier is still the fastest skier. Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo’s (NOR) performance in today’s FIS World Cup Freestyle Sprint certainly proved that any...
This World Cup 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. There had been glimpses of Swedish firepower all day. Into the first exchange, Calle Halfvarsson (SWE) had shot through the field. When Federico Pellegrino (ITA) broke away on leg three, Edvin...
This World Cup 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 clock is winding down on the World Cup season. After this weekend, there will be only three individual races remaining—two of those are Sprints. With time running out, increased urgency has...
This World Cup 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. This guy is simply incredible . . . can we just admit that? Thirty skiers qualify for every sprint quarterfinal—all having demonstrated their sprint prowess, all with a burning desire to win—Johannes...
This World Cup 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. She’s just so fun to watch . . . and He just keeps getting faster; together, Kerttu Niskanen (FIN) and Joahannes Hoesflot Klaebo (NOR) demonstrated levels of dominance on Falun’s classic tracks,...
There are few movies which feature significant cross-country ski scenes, let alone an entire feature film that has cross-country skiing as its theme. But when such a movie does arrive, you can count on FasterSkier to put on our critic’s hat and give it a review. Off Track won’t make you forget Citizen Kane, but it’s a fun 95 minutes for ski enthusiast. For non-skiers, don’t put in the effort. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) The movie...
This World Cup 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 International Ski Federation (FIS) is not in the business of making things easy: this season’s World Cup scoring system rewards those skiers who ski every event, those who excel consistently. Gone...