Petter Northug, Jr., revealed last week that he lied about an illness in 2011 in order to get out of racing at Norwegian Nationals prior to the Oslo World Championships. The revelation sparked debate across Norway about whether nationals should move to the spring. The discussion should be a familiar one for Americans as the best U.S. athletes increasingly skip the event to focus on international races.
For over 20 years now, women have had their own race at Birkebeiner Skistadion - and while there's serious competition, there's also a whole lot of fun the week before the Birkebeiner proper. The 4,000 women of the Inga-Lami spend more money than the 16,000 Birkebeiners combined, making women-only ski races not only a great party, but also a good investment.
After a bad crash while training in Sochi, Alex Harvey dislocated his shoulder and will not be competing in the upcoming World Cups Friday through Sunday. The Canadian national team member will take four to five days off, but should be OK for World Championships.
After a short break in the calendar, World Cup action begins again on Friday in Sochi, Russia, with a triple-header. More than the usual amount of intrigue surrounds the upcoming events; in addition to being the first World Cup in almost two weeks, this will be the first international cross-country event to take place at the Olympic venue for the 2014 Games.
Colby College President William D. "Bro" Adams donned spandex to complete a ceremonial 2-kilometer parade lap around his college's new home trails this weekend.
Colby President William D. “Bro” Adams will be forerunning one of the first-ever competitions at the Quarry Road Recreation Area in Waterville this weekend — his way of punctuating the completion of a trail system that he hopes will be a draw for both his college and the surrounding community.
Over the course of a trying Tour de Ski Holly Brooks learned what it means to overextend herself, and after a recovery period plans to take a brief step back from the World Cup circuit to regain confidence in smaller races.
A brief tour of the geopolitical changes in the last 25 years that have led to deeper fields, and the development of the sport itself from initial Olympic inclusion in 1960 to today, when 30 medals are on offer and biathlon is a good investment towards the medal count. Individual racing is just as hard as it always was, but relay racing? Probably harder.
Domestic racing was on hold because of holidays and the looming U.S. Nationals, but the Tour de Ski kicked off in Germany, which also hosted a strange and exciting team biathlon event in a soccer stadium. American junior biathletes also vied for spots at World Youth and Junior Championships.
Want to win a race at World Championships or the Olympics? Then you might want to stay away from the top step of the Tour de Ski podium.
Just when you thought you couldn’t go another day without races to follow and results to check, the Tour de Ski is here to deliver a concentrated dose of cross country drama. The seventh edition of the event begins on Saturday with a freestyle prologue in Oberhof, Germany. Here's a taste of what to expect.
The curse may be broken; U.S. Nationals could take place on natural snow yet. Ten inches of new-fallen powder accumulated at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, over Tuesday and Wednesday, creating an additional three to four inches of packed corduroy on top of the artificial snow the venue began blowing last week.
Ever wonder what it's like inside the Bill Warren Training Centre, Canada's premiere indoor facility for national and development skiers? FasterSkier took a tour and some photos while in Canmore, Alberta.
A recent report published by Protect Our Winters and the Natural Resources placed an economic value on climate change: for the winter sports and tourism industry, a billion dollars of revenue have been lost in bad snow years in the last decade, and a bad season means a six percent drop in employment compared to a good one. Yet the industry hasn't taken action.
FasterSkier contributor Gerry Furseth recently asked a few top European World Cup skiers about their favourite places to race internationally. Of course, there's some bias (since the interviews were done in Canmore), but several athletes didn't hesitate to reveal their top picks.
In Bozeman earlier this season, bibs had to be redistributed for SuperTour sprint heats once starters were already on lining up. More recently and catastrophically in Craftsbury, an Eastern Cup had to cancel its sprint heats and hold a second qualifier after cascading hardware failures wreaked havoc on results. Here's why we can't expect these problems to go away.
The dearth of snow that characterized the 2011-2012 season continues. Barring a surprise snowstorm in Midway, Utah, in the next 12 days, U.S. Nationals will take place once again on a modified loop of artificial snow.
Lee-Steve Jackson's two top-60 performances highlighted the first period of World Cup racing for Great Britain. But for him and other team leaders like Amanda Lightfoot, much has changed; both now train in Lillehammer, and have less support on the World Cup. FasterSkier talked to them in Ostersund, Sweden, earlier this winter.
Based on their recent results from Quebec City and Canmore, the USST has offered Sophie Caldwell and Skyler Davis the chance to start another World Cup in Liberec, Czech Republic, in mid January. The races there take place just before U23 Worlds at the same venue and fall just inside the selection period the USST will use to select its team for World Championships.
Very little has been written or talked about in terms of wax safety in recent years. We, as skiers and parents and wax techs, need to start being cautious and safer.