Joanne Reid was at the proverbial fork in the road: pursue academics after graduating with an Applied Mathematics degree from the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU) or compete as an elite-level nordic skier? Reid was coming off a collegiate season where she won the 15-kilometer freestyle and helped the CU Buffs win outright at NCAA Skiing Championships. It turns out, Reid, who turns 25 on Wednesday, is near completion for a master’s in engineering. And as it turns out, she...
originally posted his audio interview: “Few athletes remain at the top end of endurance for five years, let alone a single decade. New Hampshire native Kris Freeman, at 36, has been chasing fast times and fast skiers around cross-country ski loops for 16 years as a professional. For much of that time, Freeman was a staple on the men’s US Ski Team (USST). He posted the best results for a US skier in over two...
She bested the field to win the 10-kilometer skate at 2015 World Championships at home in Falun, Sweden and came from behind as the anchor leg at the 2014 Sochi Games train separate from the Swedish national team, and recovering from an nordicnation@fasterskier.com.
And this past winter on one day in mid-February, Bailey was perfect. On Feb. 16, he won the 20-kilometer individual race at the 2017 International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships Hochfilzen, Austria. Ten days ago, FasterSkier sat down with Bailey in Bend. The US Biathlon team was in town for an on-snow camp up at Mt. Bachelor. Bailey, of Lake Placid, N.Y., is a biathlon lifer, a husband and a dad. He plans on racing one more season through...
80/20 Rule — the easy to hard intensity ratio when it comes to training sessions, has been well publicized. Seiler believes easy days should be truly easy, meaning walking the hills may be mandatory. If the easy days are easy, then the hard days are hard. He espouses a fidelity to training models with little, if any, in-between efforts; that means no middle-of-the-road intensity. And his observations come straight from Norway. “… They know what gets you...
Tom Hall as a guest. If you’re into elite canoe and kayak, Hall may be a familiar name: he’s a 2008 bronze medalist from the Beijing Olympics in sprint canoeing and represented Canada internationally for twenty years — he retired from competitive sports in 2012. Today, Hall is a journalist and editor as well as the interim executive director for for a Canadian athlete advocacy organization called Own The Podium (OTP), (nordicnation@fasterskier.com. Podcast: Play in new window |...
FIS Medical Guide (To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.) Have a podcast idea? Please email
Evel Knievel devotee — note Schafer’s race suit. (To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.) Have a podcast idea? Please email Is this for real?)
Through the four legs of the women's Junior World's 4 x 3.3 k relay the U.S. team was in it. Nordic Nation has the coach, Bryan Fish, and the four skiers (Hailey Swirbul, Julia Kern, Hannah Halvorsen, and Katherine Ogden) in this relay focused episode.
Two words that ring like a couplet when Musgrave graces the tracks: British nordie. Nordic Nation got British National Team member Andrew Musgrave on the line to discuss where he's been and what he's been up to.
Diggins placed fourth in that race. The FIS Competition Analysis is a tool coaches and skiers can use to see exactly where they skied effectively, and where they may have lost time. In Davos, pretty much Diggins skied fast. FIS Competition Analysis from the Tour de Ski’s stage 4 women’s 10 k freestyle pursuit in Oberstdorf, Germany; Diggins placed fifth and her U.S. teammates had an impressive day as well. Other references:
In this episode of Nordic Nation we talk with Norwegian journalist John Rasmussen to discuss Norway's skiing culture in light of the Johaug and Sundby doping cases. What better way to start your holiday than with Nordic Nation and Rasmussen.
Cross Country Canada, the nation's governing body for cross country skiing will have a new leader in Shane Pearsall starting January 1st. He comes to the role new to skiing, but with a background helping lead Bobsleigh Canada and Skeleton as well as ties to oil and gas, an industry tied to the nordic skiing funding pipeline in Canada. As an athlete, Pearsall was an elite hockey player and was a member of the 1980 men's national team. Pearsall answers Nordic Nation's questions in this episode.
Get out your earbuds and a pen and paper. Good info is coming your way if you're playing the Noah Hoffman Cross Country Fantasy League. Even if you're not invested in choosing a team, you'll smile a bit when you listen to this episode. You'll hear some of the sport's greatest minds pontificate on who's in and who's out.
Most of us can imagine stumbling across a finish line, lungs burning. It’s a whole other realm of precision like suffering to pound out the kilometers while intermittently trying to hit a small target. In this episode of Nordic Nation, 28-year-old Clare Egan describes what it’s like coming to the sport as a novice shooter with Olympic aspirations.
"Imagine sprinting up twenty flights of stairs and then trying to thread a needle.” That's how Biathlon Canada veteran Rosanna Crawford describes the art of skiing, then shooting, repeatedly. Here, we learn about biathlon: how athletes prep on race day, and how Crawford approached her shooting on a personal-best day at 2016 World Championships.
Go, go, go. That's the type of energy Liz Stephen brings to skiing. From a high-tempo skate technique to steeper is better, Stephen has been a force on the Distance World Cup since her push into the top 30 in 2012. Last year was a setback for the Park City resident and she feels like this offseason she's done the work to make a rebound.
In this FS podcast, it's time to learn about jumping, the other half of nordic combined many might lack an understanding of. To help guide us through the sport, we spoke with U.S. Nordic Combined Team leader Bryan Fletcher and jumping coach Clint Jones. Get ready to fly.
The FasterSkier team breaks down last weekend's historic World Cup results, which included the first-ever podium for the American women in a relay.