Anastasiya Kuzmina couldn't have been more surprised to find herself in the lead at the end of the 12.5 k mass start, but she made the most of it and finished the season happy. Meanwhile, Kaisa Makarainen took home the World Cup trophy after both she and rival Tora Berger had subpar races - but a slightly less subpar one for Makarainen than for the retiring Norwegian superstar.
Noah Hoffman knew he had to shake UVM senior Scott Patterson with every ounce of energy he had in Saturday's three-lap 15 k skate at SuperTour Finals. By the end of the second lap, Hoffman had built a nearly 5-second lead and extended it to 11 seconds through the finish.
Kikkan Randall was the woman to beat on Saturday, and she lived up to the billing by winning the 10 k freestyle individual start -- the first race of SuperTour Finals -- by 2.2 seconds over Liz Stephen. An early leader, Caitlin Gregg notched third, 20.9 seconds back.
On a sunny afternoon in Kincaid Park, several World Cup skiers, including three Olympians and three Alaska Pacific University members, took the time to chat on camera between training and testing on Friday.
Rosanna Crawford was in 13th place in the World Cup pursuit when Russian head coach Vladimir Korolkevich, cheering for an athlete on another trail, stepped between her skis and sent her flying. Despite a time adjustment by the jury, she lost several places - as well as her hat and sunglasses.
A crash on the first loop broke the podium tension for Susan Dunklee, who climbed her way back up to sixth place over the course of the 10 k pursuit. American teammate Lowell Bailey used three penalties to move from 19th up to 14th in the men's 12.5 k pursuit.
Anastasiya Kuzmina shot better than any of the other favorites and skated off to a win while they were stuck in the penalty loop. But the biggest drama might have been that when Tora Berger finished second and Kaisa Makarainen fourth, Makarainen's lead in the World Cup overall shrank to ten points. The title will be decided in a mass start tomorrow.
FasterSkier is on-site at the SuperTour Finals and U.S. Distance Nationals in Anchorage, Alaska, and teaming up with the Anchorage Daily News to bring you images and reports from the events, which start Saturday with the freestyle individual starts at Kincaid Park. Here's the ADN preview.
Dasha Gaiazova beat out fellow Canadian World Cup teammate Perianne Jones to the line to win Thursday's freestyle sprint A-final for her first victory of the week at Canadian Nationals. Paralympic guide Graham Nishikawa overcame jet lag for his first senior-national title.
Besides Susan Dunklee's podium, Rosanna Crawford finished a career-best 11th in the Oslo World Cup sprint and biathletes Lowell Bailey and Zina Kocher also made the top 20. Here's what the U.S. and Canadian teams had to say about their performances - and the horrible ski conditions in Oslo.
All the news that's fit to print from the last World Cup sprints of the season, where Darya Domracheva of Belarus and Jakov Fak of Slovenia took home wins.
Despite a fall, Susan Dunklee gutted out her first World Cup podium in a biathlon sprint in Oslo today, pushing hard in the finishing stretch to unseat Olga Vilukhina by one second and take third place. "I’m not afraid of being on the podium or even winning one of these days," Dunklee said after notching only the third-ever World Cup podium by a U.S. woman.
Still craving more of the World Cup? Here are some comments from a few of the U.S. skiers who closed their international-racing seasons at World Cup Finals last Sunday in Falun, Sweden. (And don't fear, Spring Series is almost here!)
The U.S. Ski Orienteering National Championships were held this past weekend at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vt. Approximately 100 skiers, ranging in age from 10 to nearly 80 attended the three-day competition, featuring a Sprint and Middle Distance race (with individual starts) and a Long Distance race with a mass start.
At Canadian Nationals on Tuesday, Ivan Babikov pulled out an 18.4-second victory of Paralympic gold medalist Graham Nishikawa, both of which were fresh off the plane from Europe and Russia, respectively. Heidi Widmer notched another national title as well.
Almost all of the participants in the Birkebeiner, one of the largest ski marathons in the world, had reached the start in Rena on Saturday when race organizers were forced to cancel the race due to wind gusts that reached 50 miles per hour in the mountains. Since then, the decision has caused nothing but grief as many in Norway are fiercely critical of the cancellation.
Alex Harvey started Sunday’s 15-kilometer freestyle pursuit in Falun, Sweden, with one thing on his mind: a first- or second-place finish would put him on the overall World Cup podium. “I’m super stoked,” said Harvey of his podium. “That was a super-nice way to end the season."
Johannes Thingnes Bø came into this season with a rifle painted solid gold. That might seem pretty cocky for a 20-year-old Norwegian in his first year on the senior national team, but this weekend Bø swept all the World Cup races, brought his win total to five for the season, and jumped into second place in the World Cup Total Score. Maybe gold is right after all.
Therese Johaug took a 15-second lead and literally ran with it, beating Norwegian teammate Marit Bjørgen by nearly 30 seconds in Sunday's 10 k freestyle pursuit to win the World Cup Finals and her first overall World Cup title.
The U.S. Paralympic Nordic skiing team closed out the 2014 Paralympics on a high on Sunday as Oksana Masters won bronze in the women’s 5 k sit ski cross-country race at the Laura Cross-Country Ski Center. “I am in complete shock and amazement,” says Masters, the most successful U.S. Paralympic cross-country female.