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 weekend, the World Cup travels to Toblach, Italy for three days of racing. First up are the freestyle sprints. This is the last full weekend of racing before the tour...
Day four of the Junior Worlds at Whistler Olympic Park brought new weather and more excitement in mass start racing. The day dawned with a light snowfall at -8C. The wax techs were as secretive as ever, but it was clear at the finish that most athletes were on hard wax. While Norway, Germany, and France owned the podiums, it was also a good day for North American skiers. Women’s 20 k Classic The women’s...
The World Juniors rolled on in Whistler with sunshine, easy classic waxing, and a new distance. Most skiers had done a 20km event before today, some had done two, but it was a new pacing experience for many. Add in a 5km loop that an athlete from Holmenkollen described as ‘hilly’ and you have a recipe for good racing and a pretty good day for North American skiers. Team USA’s Samantha Smith led the way...
Do you believe in miracles? Lake Placid is where they’ve happened before: speedskater Eric Heiden’s single-winter games medal record, Wassberg’s Olympic Gold by one hundredth over Mieto, and no less than the “Miracle on Ice.” If miracles were going to happen again, this was likely to be the place. With the State of New York having spent $500 million (through the Olympic Regional Development Authority) to dramatically overhaul facilities originally constructed for the Olympic Winter...
Day two at Whistler Olympic Park was similar to the first: sunny, fast, and exciting. The excitement started early, with pre-race favourite JC Schoonmaker crashing spectacularly on the sweeping right-hand drop into the stadium during the qualifier. Seeded second, he was quick to be back up and skiing, but 150m of double poling with one pole cost him more time on top of the loss of time and speed from the fall. Schoonmaker would fail...
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. Ski racers know steep hills: the stomp up the first climb in the Swedish Vasaloppet, Wave 8 of the American Birkebeiner on “B**** Hill,” the race-changing “Russian Hill” on Lake...
Today, the women competed in the final day of World Cup racing in Les Rousses, France with the 20 kilometer mass start. The course consisted of six laps on a 3.3-kilometer loop. The course featured an extremely difficult early climb up the side of the venue’s ski jump which Jessie Diggins (USA) had said was about as steep as Alpe di Cermis in the Tour de Ski. The repeated ascents would test skiers’ ability both...
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 women’s classic sprint was contested today in Les Rousses, France. It was an anniversary of sorts as it marked the 100th time a sprint classic race has been held on the...
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. “Incroyable!” . . . Most Americans know, understand, or recognize at least a little bit of French. All those partly-understood French phrases and terms were on display today on the...
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. If there is a common theme to the cross country skiing World Cup, it is change. Tweaks, adjustments, selections, illness, and injury all factor into who even makes it to...
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. Fans have become accustomed to Norwegian men occupying the World Cup podium, but it’s getting pretty crowded there on the top step. Team Norway has delivered World Cup wins this...
The message from the event organizer was devastating . . . we’d been waiting years to cheer on World Cup skiers in person. Jessie Diggins had worked her magic to get the Sprint Finals onto American soil—and here in Minneapolis no less! But COVID was spreading misery across the globe and our race was cancelled: the Sprint World Cup Finals would not occur. $300 in tickets gone in an email. No swag or alternative compensation...
All in the family People often lament the demise of small artisanal crafted goods. The dominance of huge retailers and manufacturers is often viewed as something between a sign of the approaching apocalypse, and proof of various conspiracy theories. In many industries, when you think of the absolute pinnacle of quality and performance, smaller companies often come to mind: Ferrari for cars, Shinola for personal goods, and, (showing my personal bias) Jenny’s for ice cream....
The high alpine valley containing Livigno, Italy is as beautiful and sublime as any place on Earth, seemingly heaven-sent to feature the high drama of the FIS Cross Country World Cup; for the first time, Livigno was hosting World Cup races this weekend. That idyllic scene made Sunday’s Team Sprint all the stranger, since so many of the usual players and storylines were absent from the World Cup. As FasterSkier reported on yesterday’s Sprint, many...
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 taking a weekend off to recover from the grueling Tour de Ski, the World Cup returned to its traditional format this weekend. Today, in Livigno, Italy, the freestyle sprints were contested....
Canada is in the rebuilding part of the success rollercoaster, with many changes to the High Performance team and the development programs. Since May 1st, Chris Jeffries has joined Nordiq Canada (NC) full time as the High Performance Director, Robin McKeever has transitioned from the extremely successful Para program to become the Olympic Stream Head Coach. NextGen coach Eric de Nys and Dev coach Matt Smider are in their first full year in those roles...
Following a record-setting number of athletes competing in the U.S. Nationals in Houghton last week— over 400 skiers from across the US made the trip to the Copper Country—US Ski and Snowboard has announced the selections for the US World Junior and U23 Championships, to be held in Whistler, British Columbia from January 28th-February 4th. Athlete selections have also been announced for the U18 Nordic Nation’s Cup Trip, to be held in Jyvaskyla, Finland February...
This article is about my experience with heart arrhythmia. I wanted to reach out and share my experience because, surprisingly, heart rhythm issues are quite common in endurance athletes. I am sure some of you who are reading this have your own stories to tell. Studies suggest that endurance athletes are up to 5 times more likely to develop a heart arrhythmia. The longer you train and the older you get, the greater the risk...
The Alpe Cermis When the Grand Tour of skiing—the Tour de Ski—was dreamed up by Vegard Ulvang and Jurg Capol in 2006, one of the first definitive decisions was that it would need a Queen Stage: a stage that sought to distill the essence of ski racing—the brutal beauty of the slog—to its purest state. The Tour de France had its Alp d’Huez, and the Tour de Ski would have the Alpe di Cermis. Through...
HOUGHTON, MICHIGAN: Welcome to FasterSkier’s on-location coverage of the United States National Cross-Country Ski Championships from Houghton, Michigan. This week, Houghton hosts the U.S. National Cross-Country Championships on the Michigan Technological University’s trails system. Today’s event was the freestyle sprint. Even though the race was held under the organizing umbrella of the national championships, today’s event was not a national championship race; as it is part of the US. SuperTour. U.S. Ski and Snowboard has...