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. America’s first man to win an Olympic medal in cross-country skiing, Ben Ogden, joins the show for a cheese-tasting and a description of his past 72 hours. He covers everything from the doping test to the phone deluged with texts to Ogden dream sponsors — he only wants old...
PREDAZZO, ITALY — Ben Ogden, the U.S. cross-country skier, was ready to celebrate his historic Olympic silver Tuesday with his signature backflip off the podium. But there was a problem: He had to pee. After Ogden won the first men’s medal in cross-country skiing in a half-century, doping testers needed a urine sample. So, he did the obvious thing and “drank, like, three bottles of water, immediately,” he said. The need to relieve himself, he...
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. Two days ago, at the finish line of the Men’s Classic Sprint, Norway’s Oskar Opstad Vike celebrated like a lottery player who had just scratched the winning ticket. Fist-pumping, chest-thumping, wild gesticulating toward fan-filled grandstands and visceral...
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. — — — As Jessie Diggins crossed the finish line, she collapsed to the ground—and stayed there. “I thought I was going to maybe pass out,” she said later. “It would have been nicer if I could...
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. The one Jessie Diggins was waiting for: Nat and Devon were both on hand for the Olympic 10-kilometer freestyle and have this recap. It gets pretty heated! But in a good way. We’ll be back tomorrow after the showdown between Johannes Klaebo and Einar Hedegart in the men’s race....
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. PREDAZZO, ITALY — Johannes Høsflot Klæbo is, almost without question, the greatest cross-country skier who’s ever lived. The Norwegian athlete has won gold in eight consecutive championship races spread across two seasons — including the first two events...
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. Tim Baucom mountain biking with his parents on the Bangtail Divide Trail in Bozeman, Montana. (Photo: Courtesy Photo) After a historic day like yesterday, there are so many possible stories, some big, some smaller, but all...
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. PREDAZZO, ITALY — On Denali in Alaska, there’s a famed climbing route called Slovak Direct — a nod to a group of skilled alpinists from Slovakia who established it in 1984. Now, as this year’s Winter Olympics...
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. PREDAZZO, ITALY — Particularly among the citizens of the Scandinavian nations where cross-country skiing is religion, bringing up the United States right now does not exactly elicit warm fuzzies in Europe. U.S. President Donald Trump, after all,...
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. PREDAZZO, ITALY — Ben Ogden finished his semifinal standing upright, his skis still on, lungs burning in the familiar way that meant the work had been done, but the verdict was not. He crossed the line...
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 watched, you already know what happened. If you didn’t, we won’t spoil it for you, other than to say: You should watch. Ben Ogden won a medal today. A bunch of Scandinavians did too. We break it down. Reach us at devon[at]fasterskier.com and nat[at]fasterskier.com. It’s really expensive...
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. PREDAZZO, ITALY — Checking today’s ESPN home page makes it clear that the Olympics don’t seem to occupy the American imagination like they once did. I remember the Olympics as being a bigger deal—a set of...
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. When Hailey Swirbul logged onto a Zoom call from Italy last Monday, she was already living inside uncertainty. “I’m in Livigno right now,” she said. “Yeah — the higher one.” The U.S. team held two pre-Olympic altitude...
Two years ago, U.S. cross-country skiing star Jessie Diggins was battling a relapse of an eating disorder — an episode that she publicly acknowledged at the time. What she didn’t share until now, though, was how close it came to derailing a year in which she won cross-country skiing’s season title and celebrated the return of the top-level World Cup circuit to the U.S., in her home city of Minneapolis. In the middle of that winter,...
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. PREDAZZO, ITALY — The snow in Val di Fiemme had finally settled. After a colder night and a full day’s distance from the most recent snowfall, the surface beneath the men’s skis on Sunday morning felt...
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. Men’s racing is underway at the Olympics, and there were some surprised on Sunday. Norwegian legend Pål Goldberg joins us to break down a day that included some strong and some less-than-strong performances from his country’s squad. Devon is still out of commission, but you can reach us at...
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 race was ON from the gun: We recap the women’s 20-kilometer pursuit, which was a rough go for Jessie Diggins and a tight fight between the Scandinavian heavyweights. Alaskan Holly Brooks, the retired Olympic World Cup racer, joins us after watching the race in person. We hope...
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. PREDAZZO, ITALY — The snow in the Tesero Cross-Country Ski Stadium sat in that uneasy middle ground—soft, glazed, and ready to decide races in small, brutal ways. It sat like the snow of March more than...
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 — There’s having your Olympic debut. Then there’s having your Olympic debut in an event that you’ve literally never raced in before. That was the story Saturday for Maddie Hooker, a 21-year-old Australian for whom Saturday’s...
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. PREDAZZO, ITALY — By day, Andrew Kastning’s life sounds conventional: He’s a father of three, with a desk job in Alaska doing permitting work for a federal agency. During the winter? It’s another story. On periodic Friday and Saturday mornings, you’ll find Kastning awake at 1 a.m., 2 a.m. or 3...