Rhonda Jewett was recently appointed to the Cross Country Canada Board of Directors and hopes that she will be able to help shape the future of Canada’s athletes. As a former racer, she realized how many hours were put into the Canadian ski racing program by volunteers and staff alike. “Now that I’m done ski racing, I feel that I have the time to give back so that younger skiers can have even more opportunities...
Marcus Hellner one, Petter Northug zero. In an hour-long production worthy of two A-list celebrities, Hellner outlasted Northug in a one-on-one game of Texas Hold’em at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas on Sunday evening. Orchestrated by the Norwegian men’s magazine Vi Menn and the online gambling company PokerStars, the event showcased the kind of status that the two athletes enjoy in Europe. Clad in a crisp white button-down shirt emblazoned with a Norwegian flag...
If Petter Northug and Marcus Hellner had any doubts as to whether they’d be out of their element during the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, the high temperatures in the triple digits over the weekend should serve to quash them. The two may be Olympic gold medalists, but they’re also unseasoned card-players. If they hope to fare well in the tournament, the Scandinavians will have to better old-school pros, new-school math-whizzes, and hundreds...
FasterSkier is proud to announce the launch of its e-mail newsletter, the Start List. Each edition of the Start List will feature summaries of our top stories from the last two weeks, a new series in which we talk to elite athletes about their favorite workouts, product give-aways and more. This week, Olympian and national champion Simi Hamilton gives us the scoop on a speed workout he does with the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation....
What do a GPS, a retired airline pilot, and a Norwegian guru named Hermod Bjorkestol have in common? All are key components of a plan to bring many of the U.S.’s biggest venues in line with International Ski Federation (FIS) standards. At its annual meetings in Turkey in early June, FIS made it clear to American officials that a longstanding exception would be revoked: starting in the winter of 2011-2012, all races held in the...
Training with Marit Bjoergen and the Norwegian women’s cross-country team might be an intimidating prospect even for some of North America’s elite men. But not for Kikkan Randall. In the middle of a two-week visit to Norway this month, Randall took up an offer to go head-to-head with the country’s women’s squad in a double-pole interval workout. And while the pace was high—“pretty much all out”—Randall wasn’t blown away. “It was pretty cool just to...
Petter Northug Jr. wins 2010 Tour de Troendelag with a healthy margin after snow ski race Saturday was canceled due to inclement weather.
Petter Northug Jr. had to cede the top of the podium to Eldar Roenning at the opening event in the 2010 Tour de Troendelag Friday night.
The lack of a World Cup 50K race has Soedergren frustrated. “XC skiing is well on its way to lose its identity and its character,” Soedergren said to zsport.se.
Even for a cross country skier, Brent McMurtry spent an obscene amount time this season travelling. His short list of skiing locations in the 2009-2010 season includes New Zealand with the Canadian National Team, World Cup weekends in Estonia, Russia, and Alberta, the Olympic Winter Games, Canadian Nationals in the Yukon and to wrap it all up, US Super Tour finals in Fort Kent, Maine. When the dust settled on his whirlwind season, 24 year-old...
Tim Burke became the first-ever American biathlete to pull on the yellow bib of the overall World Cup leader last winter, but first place still eludes him–he has never won a race outright. This year, he intends to change that. “I would love to win a World Cup, to know that on that day, I was the best biathlete in the world,” Burke said. Burke didn’t get any victories last year, but he came tantalizingly...
During the summer there are more hours for training, barbecues and lawn games. And without the seemingly endless string of races to cover, we have more time to explore interesting stories. We are always looking for tips and ideas, and while we can’t promise to follow up on everything, we will certainly do our best – whether it is a profile on an impressive local athlete, a redesigned trail system, or a controversial move to...
New York’s Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) has received $5.6 million in funding in a budget measure that passed in the New York state assembly on Friday and the state senate on Monday. ORDA manages Mount Van Hoevenberg, the site of the cross country, biathlon and nordic combined events during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid NY, and the other legacy venues from those Games. The appropriation is about 16 percent of ORDA’s approximately...
Olympic gold medalist Claudia Nystad has announced she has stepped down from professional cross-country skiing. Nystad’s career marked a very succesful period for the German Ski Association, as she captured not only five Olympic medals but also five from World Championships. Eventually, the 32-year-old felt her triumph at the Olympic Games in Vancouver turn into another sensation. “The Games in Vancouver were a highlight of my career,” said Claudia Nystad. “I’ve been thinking a lot...
Sadie Bjornsen, a new member of Alaska Pacific University’s ski team, gave this firsthand account towards the end of the recently-completed National Training Group camp in Utah. This post originally appeared on her blog,
Kris Freeman may not have won Saturday’s Mt. Washington Road Race, but he did run quickly enough to win the next best thing: the title of Fastest Freeman. Kris held off his brother, Justin, to finish the uphill running race in a time of 1:07:56, good enough for 15th place out of a field of over 900—just over seven and a half minutes back from the winner, Chris Siemers of Colorado. Justin was 16 seconds...
FasterSkier will be in Las Vegas from July 3 to July 6 for the Petter Northug-Marcus Hellner poker showdown and rollerski race. The pair will face off in a head-to-head poker matchup on the fourth of July, play their first day of the World Series of Poker on July 5, and then compete in the rollerski race on July 6. FasterSkier has reserved a double room at the
Do cheaters deserve a second chance? Gerhard Urain thinks so. And since Urain is the nordic race director for Fischer Skis, that means that his company is willing to sponsor athletes who have returned from serving two-year doping suspensions, like Russian Olympic medalist Irina Khazova. “I always try to compare it with normal life,” Urain said. “If you sent somebody to prison…and the punishment is finished, then everyone is having a resocialization program.” In an...
Mary Anne Levins of Rutland, Vermont has been awarded the 2010 L.L. Bean Outdoor Hero award for her phenomenal dedication and devotion to youth Nordic skiing in New England. Created in 2007, the award was established by L.L.Bean to recognize individuals working towards the preservation and promotion of outdoor recreation. Each year, a committee selects six recipients from a pool of submissions. “Out of this year’s many nominations, one name rose to the top of...
