Feature – Page 39 – FasterSkier

Ruka Sprint Redemption for Johannes Høsflot Klæbo

John TeafordNovember 25, 2022

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. Ruka, Finland sits at a northern latitude similar to Fairbanks Alaska, similar to the northern end of Canada’s Hudson Bay. By early winter, the sun is a weakened...

Feature News US Ski Team World Cup

New Season, Same Swedes: Ribom Notches First Career World Cup Win, Kern Strong into Semis

Ben TheyerlNovember 25, 2022

This World Cup coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and the 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 temperature was a balmy -11℃ (12℉). A glow hung in the sky and new snow decorated the trees; a welcoming winter scene in Ruka, Finland. With the FIS Cross-Country...

Feature News US Biathlon

U.S. Biathlon Season Preview with Lowell Bailey: Part I

Ken RothNovember 22, 2022

This article is Part One of an interview with Lowell Bailey who represented the United States in biathlon in four Olympic games, 11 World Championships, and 15 World Cup seasons. He is currently Director of High Performance for U.S. Biathlon. His World Championship gold medal race remains one of the most thrilling races ever. The race is available on YouTube, ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yguD6SEAAmw) and is a great watch. His enthusiasm for biathlon continues, and is contagious....

Feature News US Ski Team World Cup

Season Preview with Chris Grover, United States’ Cross Country Program Director, Part II

Ken RothNovember 22, 2022

Chris Grover is the U.S. Cross-Country Program Director. He has held that position for three years. He corresponded with FasterSkier’s Ken Roth in discussing the upcoming World Cup season, and an overview of the U.S. program. This is the second in a series of interviews with Mr. Grover. FIS (International Ski and Snowboard Federation) has reaffirmed the Russian ban. How do participating athletes feel about it? Do they feel deprived not being able to compete...

Feature News US Ski Team World Cup

Jessie Diggins Looks Ahead

FasterSkierNovember 21, 2022

American cross country skiers continue to climb the international ladder, and any number of them are likely to find their names in the headlines this winter, but it’s Jessie Diggins who continues to be the skier, the competitor, and the leader through which this team is recognized. It’s a distinction she’s earned time and time again. On the morning of November 21, Jessie (who is in Ruka, Finland in preparation for the season’s first World...

Community Feature News

Q and A: Sun Valley’s Rick Kapala on coaching, sport development, and constructing a “complete ecosystem” in the skiing community

Ben TheyerlNovember 20, 2022

“I’m sorry, but once I start talking cross-country skiing, I can’t stop,” admits Rick Kapala. Remove the “talking” from that statement, and it’s still a succinct summary of long-time Sun Valley coach Rick Kapala’s career. This season will mark the first time in thirty-five years that Kapala won’t be manning the wax bench on race day for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. This summer, he turned to a new role at the Sun Valley...

Feature News US Ski Team World Cup

Season Preview with Chris Grover, United States’ Cross Country Program Director, Part I

Ken RothNovember 20, 2022

Chris Grover is the U.S. Cross-Country Program Director, a position he’s held for three years. He sat down with FasterSkier’s Ken Roth to discuss the upcoming World Cup season, and an overview of the U.S. program. What exactly is the job of Program Director? I oversee all aspects of the program for team development, coaches’ education, events, budgets, selection criteria, and all other staff. This includes technicians, volunteer physical therapist, volunteer doctors, sports psychologist, and...

Community Feature News US Biathlon World Cup

Viewing Cross-Country and Biathlon in the United States

Ken RothNovember 15, 2022

This season’s cross-country and biathlon World Cup races promise to be some of the most exciting in recent years; however, this season also presents dramatic changes in how American fans will be able to—or unable to—watch races. The new season will be quite different from what we’ve come to expect in seasons past. NBC’s coverage is gone; it will be replaced by a combination of paid streaming services and accessing European coverage. Cross-Country There will...

Community Feature

Signs of the Season: Ski Sale/Ski Swap traditions fuel local clubs

John TeafordNovember 12, 2022

The Elk’s Lodge, the hotel conference room, the middle school gymnasium: those are the places where skiers gather in the fall of the year. Those are the sorts of places reserved by clubs, teams, retailers, and those whose garages and basements are chock-full of skis, poles, boots, suits, and miscellaneous ski-related gear. It’s time for the annual Ski Swap and Sale. Cross country skiing is not a sport that’s rich with sponsorship, or that...

Feature

From the PT: a look at Chronic Exertional Compartment Syndrome

Ned DowlingNovember 10, 2022

US Ski & Snowboard recently hosted a course titled “Medical Emergencies in Skiing and Snowboarding”, which is required training for all physical therapists and athletic trainers working with the team during competitions. As the name would imply, we learned about emergency management of acute injuries: application of cervical collars, tourniquets, back boards, distraction splints, and plenty of other nasty scenarios we hope to never see. Thankfully, cross country skiing tends to be lower risk when...

Feature News

Snow Day

John TeafordNovember 7, 2022

Winter is up there in the sky above us, patiently circling, waiting to come in for a landing. Eager skiers are beginning to hear reports of snow in the mountains, snow in the high country, snow on the upper slopes. Snow is falling in downtown Bozeman, along the trails of Livigno, on the plateau at West Yellowstone, among the Olympic trails at Canmore, in the open loop between Sovereign Lakes and Silverstar. Mt. Washington wears...

Community Feature News US Ski Team

US Ski and Snowboard Coaches Symposium returns in Virtual Format

Ben TheyerlNovember 2, 2022

Convened for the first time since the pandemic, USSS’s biennial coaches National Coaches’ Symposium brings focus to US Skiing’s progress, and highlights the ever-evolving nature of the sport. Last held in 2019, the US Ski and Snowboard’s National Coaches’ Symposium has traditionally provided insight into program priorities and training philosophies of those coaches working directly with the US Ski Team. With in-person conventions having been interrupted by the Covid pandemic, this season’s re-convening of the...

Community Feature News

Building Biathletes: John Farra and the USBA

John TeafordOctober 25, 2022

As the new Director of Sport Development for the US Biathlon Association (USBA), John Farra’s career is coming full circle (maybe even for a second or third lap). As he enters this newly established position within USBA, Farra reflects on decades of involvement—as athlete, as coach, as administrator—within the multi-faceted world of nordic skiing and Olympic/Paralympic sport. An alumnus (and former coach) of the University of Utah, a member of the 1992 Winter Olympic Team...

Community Feature News

President Biden Designates National Monument at Camp Hale, Preserving American Ski History

Ben TheyerlOctober 20, 2022

In a ceremony held last week in Colorado’s high country, President Biden proclaimed The Camp Hale – Continental Divide National Monument, the first National Monument designated during his presidency. The ceremony was conducted on the former grounds of Camp Hale deep in the Pando Valley between Leadville and Vail. Camp Hale was the training site of the famous 10th Mountain Division—the “skiing soldiers”—who played a critical role in the Italian theater of World War II....

Feature News Results US Biathlon US Ski Team

Schutzenski: Biathlon and Nordic Blaze the Trails

John TeafordOctober 17, 2022

Clear, crisp autumn mornings in the Heber Valley are a delight to the senses: scrub oak and sumac color the high slopes, willow and cottonwood fill the dry washes, and the scents of cedar and sage waft up from nearby flats. On just such a morning—dry, windless, and cool—this section of “Utah’s Alps” rang with the sounds of cheering along the trails and the pops of rifles on the range. Schutzenski Festival 2022 had arrived...

Community Feature

Changing Seasons 2022

John TeafordOctober 12, 2022

We just can’t wait . . . for winter in the air, for the cold in our breath, for fluffy flakes falling from the sky, for snow on the ground. Seasons turn, leaves surrender, days shorten, and our imaginations turn to tracks on the hills and corduroy on the trails. Winter is coming . . . and we just can’t wait. Youth Sport autumn leagues are winding down—soccer, mountain biking, cross country running, all the...

Feature Results

Climb to the Castle Weekend—Climb, Sprint, and Biathlon

Peter MindeSeptember 27, 2022

On an overcast Sunday, Ricardo Izquierdo-Bernier and Emma Page were the men’s and women’s winners of the Climb to the Castle roller ski race. Both were first-time victors. Izquierdo-Bernier, of the club Fondeurs-Laurentides north of Montreal, won in 39:06.5. Aidan Ripp, of Paul Smith’s College, finished second for the men in 41:17.0. Behind him, Parke Chapin of Green Mountain Valley School (GMVS) took third in his first Climb to the Castle, in 42:41.7. In the women’s...

Community Feature News World Cup

Klæbo Comes to Soldier Hollow

Ben TheyerlSeptember 18, 2022

Practice had ended for the Soldier Hollow Comp and Devo teams, but no one went to take their roller skis off. They were waiting for something that didn’t happen everyday; shortly, their patience was rewarded. The winningest male World Cup skier of all time—Olympic Champion, World Champion—glided around a gentle left-hand bend, dragged his wheels to a perfect stop in front of the crowd, picked up a microphone, and smiled a familiar smile: Johannes Høsflot...

Community Feature IPC News

FIS is taking over governance of Para Nordic skiing, what does it mean for the sport’s development in the United States?

Ben TheyerlSeptember 4, 2022

The International Ski Federation’s (FIS) annual Congress held at the end of May this year was an unusually dramatic affair. Fights over media rights – whether to look at serializing the sport of Nordic skiing into something like Formula 1’s Drive to Survive – sent skiing’s international governing body into a metaphorically different part of the Netflix catalog, less Dive to Survive and more House of Cards, West Wing, or Newsroom. If only Aaron Sorkin...

Feature News Travel US Ski Team

Three weeks down under: Diggins and Kern find snow in Australia

Ella HallAugust 28, 2022

You might imagine traveling from the U.S. to Australia as being an arduous marathon of flights- and it is- but as Jessie Diggins points out, it turns out to be about the same length of journey time as the U.S. Ski Team makes annually when heading to Ruka, Finland for the first World Cup of the season. “So in my head, I was ready for it to be like this crazy long, super hard travel,”...

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