FasterSkier.com is back to close to 100% after a catastrophic server failure two weeks ago. While there is no way to confirm, we would like to think that there had to have been flames shooting out of poor Hedwig (the name of the now-defunct server). The FasterSkier blogs, which continued to show some erratic behavior over the last week, are fixed. In addition, during the work to get the site back online, we fixed several...
U.S. Ski Team Women’s Video Challenge: 24 women’s training groups all over North America submitted their video entry to the contest! The U.S. Ski Team women voted for their five favorite videos. Now it is up to you to decide the winner from finalists posted on USSA Nordic’s facebook page. Voting ends when the Women’s Team comes down from Eagle Glacier on August 1. Prizes will be awarded to the most popular video! Here’s the...
Organizers of the Blink Festival in Sandnes, Norway decided to cancel Saturday’s races in light of the tragic events in Utoya and Oslo that have sent the country reeling. “The situation has changed dramatically over the past day, and all parties agreed to cancel today’s events,” wrote Jan Kvalheim on Saturday, a representative of the festival organizer, World Event. The three-day annual festival, which has been around since 2006, puts on cross country and biathlon...
Holding elite level events, whether World Cup races, National Championships or just FIS points competitions, pose numerous challenges for organizers and National Governing Bodies in the US and Canada. Over the course of the summer FasterSkier will examine the various issues at hand. This is the second installment in the series; the homologated courses this season, which includes the SuperTour and NorAms. Every summer since Craftsbury changed ownership in 2008, Dreissigacker says they have been...
U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) posted the finalized schedule today for the SuperTour, and the Finals will be hosted by the Craftsbury Outdoor Center in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. According to an earlier interview with out-going Nordic Director John Farra, the Outdoor Center’s plan to have snowmaking capabilities in place for this season was integral to its candidacy, as the inconsistency of natural snow coverage in late March would normally make northern Vermont a risky...
If you’re female and a fast skier, Anchorage, Alaska is the place to be. A group of approximately 20 women is currently residing in the northern state during a female-only training camp. Members of the United States Ski Team (USST), the USST Development Team, Alaska Pacific University (APU), and Perianne Jones and Chandra Crawford of the Canadian National Ski Team (CNST) have gathered in Anchorage for two weeks of quality training. Headlining the American contingent...
The 2011-2012 U.S. Ski Team (USST) roster has been out since April, and on the surface, the biggest piece of news in the announcement was sheer numbers. With seven men and five women named to the team, the squad is nearly twice the size it was last year. In order to take advantage of their new strength, USST coaches decided to officially split the team into a men’s and a women’s squad—an arrangement that follows...
The FIS World Cup is returning to Canada in 2012. After a two year hiatus, International Ski Federation (FIS) Cross Country Skiing World Cup competitions will resume in North America, as a brand-new Quebec City site will be unveiled before the show heads west to the Rockies and Canmore, Alberta. According to Norbert Meier, Chair of the Alberta World Cup Society, there will be World Cup races held on December 8th and 9th in Canmore,...
Returning once again to the Rocky Mountains, motivated juniors from the US Biathlon Team took to the peaks and valleys of Colorado in their annual endurance camp. The two-week camp challenged these hopeful juniors to post an impressive week (30+ hours) and several additional over distance workouts that could even make Freeman drool. The amazing deep-blue sky and terrain of the Rocky Mountains provided a great environment to train—and also some vibrant sunburn aided by...
This is the third installment of a seven part series in which the U.S. Ski Team’s Noah Hoffman recounts his 2010-2011 season. 12/5/2010 The race season is in full swing and so far it’s gone really well. I’ve been in Europe now for 4 weeks and it has been a great trip. I’m learning a ton, racing often, and seeing some amazing places. Here’s my teammate Ida Sargent finishing her semi-final. She skied to a...
If you’d asked John Farra a few months ago what he’d be doing in 2014, he would have told you, “Going to Sochi and kicking some butt.” He still plans on doing just that, but not with the team he would have expected. The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) announced Thursday that Farra is leaving his post of the past three years as the Nordic Program Director for a position as Director of the...
If the decision-making process at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) Spring Congress is exhausting, the annual International Ski Federation (FIS) meetings are even more challenging. While American skiers often lament the relative lack of visibility of our beloved sport within the US, the FIS Calendar Conference that convened in early June demonstrated that popularity comes at a price. Namely, the larger the number of significant stakeholders—countries, athletes, coaches, administrators and TDs, of course,...
This is the third installment of a seven part series in which the U.S. Ski Team’s Noah Hoffman recounts his 2010-2011 season. 11/1/2010 Since my last update I’ve been in Sun Valley, Seattle, Denver, and Lake Placid. I’ve been incredibly busy, but I’ve had a really productive fall. I’m ready to start racing! My training has gone as well as I could have hoped. My coaches and I have some high expectations for my winter....
The Canadian National Ski Team (CNST) escaped Canada for their second training camp of the year – to the islands of Hawaii. “When we came out of the Haig Glacier last year, about a year ago exactly, it was pouring rain, we had been snowshoeing out for numerous hours, and people were kicking around other places to train at this time of year,” said Head Coach Justin Wadsworth in a recent interview with FasterSkier. Somehow...
Some are skiing. Get it? Sum…R…Skiing…Oh, never mind… This past winter; Auburn Ski Club, installed a large glacier on their property just south of I-80, on Donner Summit. The massive installation has allowed them to groom XC ski trails for their Nordic Teams all of June, with planned operations into July. “The late season storms we received were an insulating blanket for the glacier and almost no melting has occurred until recently,” says Auburn Ski...
Colin Rodgers, a longtime member of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Olympic Development Team (ODT), has been named its head coach. He is taking over for Travis Jones, who stepped down this spring after three years on the job. “I am very fortunate for this opportunity,” Rodgers told FasterSkier in an interview. “I am going to be able to work with some great athletes that I already know really well.” A native of...
This is the second installment of a seven part series in which the US Ski Team’s Noah Hoffman recounts his 2010-2011 season. 8/16/2010 My training so far this year has progressed really well! I feel fit, my energy has been really good, I’ve really enjoyed all of the travel, and my technique work is slowly but surely heading in the right direction. Since my last update I’ve been to two US Ski Team Camps in...
Canadian Devon Kershaw has risen steadily through the ranks of the cross-country skiing world, to the point where he is now considered one of the best skiers on the World Cup circuit. Last season, he finished seventh in the Tour de Ski, after standing on the podium four times during the event – including a win. Along with teammate Alex Harvey, he also became Canada’s first World Champion in cross-country skiing, winning the team sprint...
Canadian Devon Kershaw has risen steadily through the ranks of the cross-country skiing world, to the point where he is now considered one of the best skiers on the World Cup circuit. Last season, he finished seventh in the Tour de Ski, after standing on the podium four times during the event – including a win. Along with teammate Alex Harvey, he also became Canada’s first World Champion in cross-country skiing, winning the team sprint...
In April, CXC skier and USST alum Garrott Kuzzy announced