Feature – Page 5 – FasterSkier

“Happiest bronze medalist in history”: How Jessie Diggins pushed through pain to Olympic glory

Matthew VoisinFebruary 12, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics The Devon Kershaw Show

The Devon Kershaw Show: Diggins vs. the Scandinavians in the Olympic 10 k

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 12, 2026

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....

Feature Olympics

Einar Hedegart has only been a ‘cross-country skier’ since November. On Friday, he could dethrone the sport’s Olympic king.

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 12, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics US Ski Team

Tim Baucom and the Art of Making Hand-Structured Skis

Matthew VoisinFebruary 11, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics

Slovak Indirect: How an Alaska-raised skier ended up representing Slovakia at the Olympics

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 11, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics US Ski Team

American Skier Wins Hearts Amid Political Tension

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 10, 2026

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,...

Feature Olympics

A 50-Year Wait Ends: Ben Ogden Takes Olympic Silver for U.S. Men

Matthew VoisinFebruary 10, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics The Devon Kershaw Show

The Devon Kershaw Show: The Ben Ogden hardware episode

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 10, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics

Gold at the End of Linn Svahn’s Long Path

John TeafordFebruary 10, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics

Hailey Swirbul and the Experiment of Returning

Matthew VoisinFebruary 9, 2026

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...

Feature News Olympics US Ski Team World Cup

The new Diggins documentary is a crucible of elite sport and mental health

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 9, 2026

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,...

Feature Olympics

A Familiar King: Klaebo Opens Milano Cortina with Skiathlon Gold

Matthew VoisinFebruary 8, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics The Devon Kershaw Show

The Devon Kershaw Show, Tesero Day 2: A skiathlon showdown in the sun 44 minutes

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 8, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics The Devon Kershaw Show

The Devon Kershaw Show: Milan is on, and Holly Brooks guest hosts to recap Day 1

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 7, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics

Karlsson Wins Gold as Diggins’ Freestyle Signals What’s Still Possible

Matthew VoisinFebruary 7, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics

This Australian skier had never raced a skiathlon event. Until the Olympics.

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 7, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics

Outside Olympic glamour, cross-country skiing’s broadcasters face late nights and solo calls

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 7, 2026

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...

Feature Olympics The Devon Kershaw Show

The Devon Kershaw Show: A Swedish rivalry and Olympic preview with Expressen

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 6, 2026

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 bad news? Devon is indisposed and isn’t here for the Olympic preview podcast. As a consolation: We have a great guest in Philip Gadd, a sports reporter with the Swedish tabloid Expressen. Philip takes us through his new podcast about Frida Karlsson and Ebba Andersson’s rivalry, the...

Feature Olympics

Olympics face new blowback from skiers, activists over oil sponsorship

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 6, 2026

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 — Two months before the Winter Olympics were set to kick off in Italy, the torch relay, carried by runners from Greece to the Olympic venue, made an unusual stop: the headquarters of Italian oil giant ENI, where an executive from one of the company’s lower-carbon subsidiaries acted as...

Feature Olympics

The Long Way In: Zak Ketterson and the Patience It Took to Reach the Olympics

Matthew VoisinFebruary 5, 2026

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. On Monday, a clear winter morning in northern Italy, Zak Ketterson skied intervals while his teammates enjoyed a point-to-point on an idyllic pre-Olympic winter day. The sun was out. The snow was good. He was working. “I did some hard intervals,” he said later. “So it was still nice...

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