(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Vidar Løfshus, head of the Norwegian cross-country ski team, and the team’s former performance manager, Åge Skinstad.) The News in English.no. “We had many fun years together on the national team.” Odd-Bjørn Hjelmeset, a former skier who competed until 2011 and became a national team coach, recalled her “infectious humor”. Erik Røste, president of the Norwegian Ski Federation since 2012, said she was “an important ambassador for...
Note: This article has been updated to include more detail about Vibeke Skofterud’s accident as well as comments from her partner, Marit Stenshorne. A former member of Norway’s prestigious national ski team and a gold medalist in the 2010 Olympic 4 x 5-kilometer relay, Vibeke Skofterud, 38, was found dead on Sunday morning after a jet ski accident near an island in southern Norway. According to NRK, Skofterud was reported missing around 1 a.m. Sunday morning,...
Perhaps you have heard of them. Or at least seen them. At 6 feet and 6 feet 2 inches tall, respectively, the Mooney sisters, Heather and Brooke, are hard to miss. But their height is not the only reason the two women stand out. The sisterly pair also share a talent for the sports they pursue. At one point, for both of them, that sport was skiing. And at one point, for both of them,...
(Update: On Thursday, Aug. 2, the Summit County coroner’s office provided details on what happened to Hannah Taylor on July 21. Those details can be found here.) A Summit Nordic Ski Club coach for the last 14 years, Hannah Taylor, 39, passed away on Saturday after a trail running accident in the Gore Range near Frisco, Colorado. Originally from Hopkinton, N.H., Taylor, who lived in the Frisco area for the better part of the last...
This month, the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team (USST) held dryland camps simultaneously, about 6,000 kilometers away from each other, inSeptember staple on the USST calendar. Meanwhile, four of the team’s men trained together in the picturesque, mountainous region of southeast France from July 9-18. Who was where? In Lake Placid,
It wasn’t until recently that Erika Flowers learned the meaning of her middle name. At the time of her birth, her father had been cutting around Montana’s mountain slopes on Elan alpine skis. Though the brand’s company is based out of Slovenia, the definition of élan, according to Webster’s dictionary, is a vigorous spirit or enthusiasm. Whether Flower’s father, Pat, had researched the word’s meaning or whether the name had simply struck him, the skis...
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — This past Sunday, July 15, FasterSkier visited the U.S. women’s cross-country team in Lake Placid, where the team has been holding a dryland camp since July 11. Most all of the team’s top athletes are there — sans those that train with Alaska Pacific University (they’ll largely stick to Anchorage and nearby Eagle Glacier for summer training) — for a “semi-intensity focused” camp that will last through Friday, July 20. Their...
On Wednesday, Kikkan Randall went public with the news that she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. “Although we caught it early and the prognosis is good, my life will change quite a bit in the coming months,” she wrote on Facebook. (Article continues below) View this post on Instagram The color pink has taken on a new chapter in my life as I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Although we caught it early...
The 91st annual Mount Marathon Race, one of the oldest footraces in the country, once more descended on the small town of Seward, Alaska, on July 4. Crowds estimated at up to 30,000 perennially throng to the waterfront community, population less than 3,000, to watch racers push themselves up a steep mountain and hurl themselves back down. At the end of the day, a pair of Alaska Pacific University (APU) skiers, Jessica Yeaton and David...
Jessie Diggins is having a big month. Nominated for an ESPY Award (along with Kikkan Randall for “Best Male and Female Athlete With A Disability”), Diggins recently posed ESPN The Magazine’s annual “The Body Issue”, which features various famous athletes sans clothes. In a “The Body Issue 2018” came out, Diggins, 26, explained her reasons for agreeing to the “tastefully nude shoot that shows off athlete’s muscles”. The post, titled “Body Issue(s)” (which she called...
The last time Rosie Brennan was focused on competitive running, she was sporting a red, white and black singlet as a senior at Park City High School in Utah. In the 11 years since, the former U.S. Ski Team member’s running has shifted from a seasonal sport to supplemental training for her true passion: cross-country skiing. Yet earlier this month, on June 9, Brennan surged to the front of the Alaska Run for Women in...
Cross Country Canada has reset. In this nascent Olympic cycle, there’s been an CCC hired Nic Lemyre as a high performance and development advisor. (Former high performance director Tom Holland recently retired.) For the past 21 years, Lemyre has resided and worked in Norway, most recently as a professor of sport psychology at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences (NIH) in Oslo. He also currently serves as the head of the department of coaching...
Press release) Ontario’s Jennifer Tomlinson Named New Chair of the Board of Directors for Cross Country Ski de fond Canada Tomlinson to lead Board of Directors committed to excellence, and sport development CANMORE, Alta.—Jennifer Tomlinson will become the first woman ever to serve as chair of the Board of Directors for Cross Country Ski de fond Canada. An energetic leader and strategic thinker in her professional career, who brings a lifelong passion for skiing and...
police investigation related to accepting Russian bribes in exchange for concealing Russian biathlon doping cases. Secretary General Nicole Resch was suspended as a result of the scandal as well, but both have denied any wrongdoing, according to Inside The Games. The IBU’s board and committee elections will be conducted Sept. 5-9 at the 13th Regular IBU Congress in Porec, Croatia. Two current North American board members, Dr. Jim Carrabre of Biathlon Canada (who according to...
For this week’s Wednesday Workout (WW), FasterSkier is featuring Knute Johnsgaard, a native of Canada’s Yukon Territory. A 2018 Olympic cross-country skier and former Canadian World Cup Team member, Johnsgaard, 25,
The 2018 Winter Paralympic Games was one for the books for Team Canada. Its athletes racked up a total of 28 medals in PyeongChang, South Korea, surpassing its previous record of 19 in Vancouver 2010. Of those 28 medals, 16 came from Cross Country Canada’s (CCC) Para Nordic skiers (which includes both cross-country and biathlon). In comparison, five of the 19 medals Canada won in Vancouver were a product of a para-nordic team made up for...
Cross Country Canada (CCC) has appointed a new high-performance and development advisor, CCC’s CEO since November 2016. On the upside, he explained that another sponsor and investment firm, Haywood Securities, has agreed to sponsor the NorAm circuit as it has in the past. Asked if budget cuts were among the biggest challenges affecting CCC at the moment and the reasoning behind the latest layoffs, Pearsall said, “Yes. If things had stayed the same that would’ve...
BEND, Oregon — Late last month, FasterSkier reached out to U.S. Ski Team (USST) Head Coach Chris Grover to discuss the team’s And then Kevin obviously had one of the best entrances to the World Cup of any U.S. athlete in history. So he really showed up and he did exactly what he needs to do to demonstrate that he absolutely has a ton of potential. That was an easier call for us. The questions...
Press release) CANMORE, Alta.—Cross Country Ski de fond Canada has tapped Nic Lemyre to guide the organization’s high-performance program into a new era. Originally from Montreal, Lemyre takes on the role of high performance and development advisor with clear goals in mind – to break barriers and establish Canada as a strong Nordic nation with multiple male and female athletes performing at the highest level, while providing our nation’s best cross-country skiers with the means...
