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Schumacher Wins in Toblach as New Four-Heat 5K Format Turns the Race into a Clock-Chasing Puzzle

This 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 Tour de Ski has always asked skiers to live with imperfect information. You race hard when you’re tired. You make decisions based on feelings and instincts, while coaches are screaming ‘splits.’...

The Devon Kershaw Show: recapping stages 1&2 of the TDS, aka Tour di Northern Italy, aka an Olympic selection nightmare

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.   Devon and Nat bring you more podcast content from stages one and two of the Tour de Ski, which is proving to be a further headache for those responsible for selecting Norway’s Olympic team. We’ll be back after the next two stages. Thanks for your support. Keep the questions...

Slind Crushes TDS 10 k Classic, Diggins’ Podium Earns Overall Lead

This 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 Tour de Ski seems originally to have been designed to reward the efforts and abilities of the best all-around skiers. If that’s truly the case, then it comes as no surprise...

Stenshagen Sets the Pace in Toblach as the Men’s Tour Takes Shape

This 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 the time the final seeded skier pushed through the finishing straight in Toblach, the race had already revealed what interval starts always do best: not who looks fastest, but who stays...

Skistad Takes the Win; Diggins Finds Momentum as her Final Tour de Ski Begins

This 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 are a few places on the World Cup where the season feels less like a sequence of starts and finishes and more like a ritual you can set your watch to: the...

Status Quo Restored—Klaebo Dominates TDS Sprint

This 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. Federico Pellegrino (ITA) has been a longtime rival, but always in silver medal position. Erik Valnes (NOR) has been a consistent challenger, but only found his way to the front once. Alexander Bolshunov...

The Devon Kershaw Show: The Italian Walkabout de Ski preview, 2025 edition

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.   It’s time for the Tour de Ski, which really is just a northern Italy promenade this year — no races in Switzerland or Germany. Nonetheless, we’re excited for some fun storylines and to follow along with you this year. Here’s a quick preview. Questions? Comments? Hit us up at...

The Devon Kershaw Show: Three continents, a 135-mile ski session, and a World Cup 13th. Meet Rosie Fordham.

Rosie Fordham grew up in Sydney and has taken perhaps one of the most unconventional routes to a professional cross-country skiing career. She takes us on a tour of her epic Alaska training sessions and her sans-plumbing Fairbanks cabin. Devon is still off for Christmas, but he’ll back back soon for a Tour de Ski preview. Reach us with feedback, ideas and hate mail at devon[at]fasterskier.com and nat[at]fasterskier.com. Thanks for listening, and for your support.

Kris Freeman—Performance, and the Cost of Standing Still

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers.  If you would like to see more articles like this one, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription.   A few weeks ago, I sat down with Kris Freeman expecting a fairly general conversation about his skiing career. What I got instead was a clear-eyed, detailed account of two decades inside U.S. men’s distance skiing, performances, missed opportunities, technical evolution, and the political forces that...

The Devon Kershaw Show: Zak Ketterson moved to Norway. Now he’s having a breakout season.

After growing up in the Twin Cities, Zak Ketterson embarked on an experiment this past year, moving to Oslo and training with a Norwegian team. The decision paid off with a top-10 on the World Cup. With Devon focused on family during the Christmas season, Nat caught up with Zak to hear about training, racing and how he covers his financial obligations as a non-U.S. Ski Team athlete. Speaking of financial obligations: We’re really trying...

New Information Emerges in Death of Norwegian Biathlete Sivert Bakken

New details have emerged in the investigation into the death of Norwegian biathlete Sivert Guttorm Bakken, who was found dead in his hotel room in Lavazè, Italy, on December 24. Bakken was 27 years old and had previously been regarded as one of Norway’s most promising biathletes. According to Langrenn.com, Italian authorities discovered Bakken wearing an altitude-training mask when they arrived at the scene. The information has been confirmed by Italian police and communicated to...

Old Scandals, New Suspicions—Russian Athletes Back in the Olympics

Russian and Belarusian cross-country skiers are back in the mix to qualify for the Olympic Winter Games in 2026. Does anyone else sense an elephant in the room? And are we all talking about the same elephant? The recently overturned FIS ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes was about Russia’s war on Ukraine. Not every sport in the athletic world banned the involvement of those athletes, but the International Ski Federation (FIS) was quick and...

“You Can’t Live Nervous”

Finals week has a way of compressing time. Days shrink into problem sets and exams; nights stretch just long enough to make sleep negotiable. When Jack Lange logged onto Zoom from Hanover in late November, he was finishing his senior fall at Dartmouth, a mechanical engineering major balancing equations while packing for a training block at Silver Star. The snow out west wasn’t cooperating. Races were being reformatted. Nothing felt settled. That uncertainty didn’t seem...

Agony and Ecstasy—Norway’s Olympic Team Selections

It’s like a Norwegian Hunger Games, like a Scandinavian Lord of the Flies, like Nordic skiing’s version of Survival of the Fittest. Norway just announced eight members (5 men, 3 women) of its Olympic Team for Milano-Cortina. Those eight are in, while the committee has the opportunity to choose eight more skiers (3 men, 5 women) in weeks to come. Those already chosen can relax a bit, get back to training, stop worrying about what...

The Devon Kershaw Show: Slugging it out in Davos with guest Bill McKibben

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.   Climate activist and author Bill McKibben joins the show this week to recap some surprising results in Davos, including standout performances from a pair of Vermonters. We’re hoping to land some interviews before the Tour de Ski kicks off, and we’ll be back with more recaps once racing resumes....

Understudies Steal Spotlight in 10 k Olympic Dress Rehearsal

This 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. Many world-class athletes spend season after season diligently training, preparing, imagining, rehearsing for opportunities that never come. Advancing in World Cup standings is extraordinarily difficult: training is not enough, technical refinement is not...

In Davos, the Second Lap Always Tells the Truth

This 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. Davos doesn’t reward urgency. It tolerates it, sometimes — lets it flirt with the clock through the opening kilometers — but it never forgets. Like a mysterious, wispy cloud, the altitude sits quietly...

Fire, Ice, and Belief: Two Vermonters Deliver Under the Lights in Davos

This 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 lights come on early in Davos, not because they are needed, but because Davos wants them on. By mid-afternoon, the valley is already sliding toward dusk, the alpine light thinning and flattening,...

Under the Lights in Davos, Sundling Delivers—and the Margins Show

This 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 night sprint in Davos has a way of making the sport feel louder than it usually allows itself to be. The course is short, the laps repeat, the crowd sees the same...

Davos Team Sprint: Norway and Sweden Dominate

This 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. “I’ll tell you; I never get no respect.” That was the lament of the immensely popular comedian Rodney Dangerfield, the loveable schlub who became an American icon by continually reminding everyone how unloved...