Gatineau, February 21, 2010 – Although more than 20 countries were represented at this year’s Gatineau Loppet, the podium’s top rung belonged to Canadians after nearly every run. On this second and last day of competition, several hundred cross-country skiers turned out to take part in the different free style races, that is to say the 10 km, 27 km and 49 km Bell. Today’s snow conditions were fast, and the 32nd edition ended with...
The fastest man on the 63km ski track of 39th Tartu Marathon in Estonia was Anders Aukland (with 2:59:41) from Norway. The second place belonged to Joergen Brink (2:59:42) and third to Oskar Svaerd (2:59:42), both from Sweden. Anders Aukland, the winner of the second consecutive year said that is was a difficult race and the track was very good. “I felt strong during the last kilometers and stayed up front. I had enough power,”...
After being selected as the fourth member of the U.S. nordic combined team’s relay squad, the pressure was all on Brett Camerota’s shoulders this morning as he took to the top of the jump. He didn’t disappoint, coming through with his best-ever leap on the big hill here in Whistler and setting up the Americans for another podium finish this afternoon, after Johnny Spillane’s silver last week. The team will start the 4×5 k relay...
The American Birkebeiner *FIS Marathon Cup and Worldloppet Race *Years in the running: 37th annual *Number of participants in all races: 10,000 (last year: approx. 8,500) *Number of participants in 50k skate and classic: 8,300 *Countries represented: 20 *States represented: 47 *Most represented countries other than U.S.: Canada, Norway and Finland *Top five U.S. states represented: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan and Colorado *Volunteers: 2,000 *Spectators: 15,000 *Last year’s winners: Elite sprint: Kevin Hochtl, Rebecca Dussault...
The prolonged, brutal physical demands of the team sprint make the event a fickle friend. Just ask Charlotte Kalla and Anna Haag. After blowing the doors off the eight other teams in their semifinal, the Swedish women came into the gold-medal round as an irresistible force. But they ran head on into the immovable object of Claudia Nystad and Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle, a pair of veteran German women without the speed for the first round, but...
Aside from a few small clusters in New England and New Zealand, millions of people glued to TV screens around the world were all asking the same question at the beginning of Saturday’s 30k pursuit: “Who is that guy?” That guy was Ben Koons, a former Dartmouth College skier and Maine resident competing for the Kiwis at the Games. Not even one kilometer from the start, Koons had slid into the track in the lead,...
The last EISA carnival before Regionals was hosted by Williams College this weekend. There were already several feet of base snow on the race courses at Prospect Mountain in Woodford, VT, but that didn’t stop more snow from falling overnight and into the morning of Friday’s classic races. Despite soft conditions on Friday, the snow stopped and temperatures stayed below freezing, making for hard wax conditions in the classic tracks and a solid base for...
With temperatures at Whistler Olympic Park over 50 degrees on Saturday, it was easily warm enough for a bike race. And that was basically what spectators got, as the racing, the strategy, and the cast of characters in the men’s 30 k pursuit could have been lifted straight out of a Tour de France stage. On the shoulders of his Swedish teammates, Marcus Hellner played the role of Lance Armstrong, outkicking a four-strong bunch in...
After being “screwed by the jury” in Wednesday’s sprint, according to one of her teammates, Canada’s Sara Renner had some unfinished business to take care of. In the sprint, Renner was impeded when a skier in the track in front of her wouldn’t move—causing her to miss out on the heats in the same event in which she took third just two weeks ago in Canmore. But today, in the 15k pursuit, she got a...
Anyone watching knew that it was going to be close. When Sergey Novikov (BLR) left the range after his final round of shooting in the 20k individual start, he led Norwegians Emil Hegle Svendsen and Ole Einar Bjoerndalen by seven and 26 seconds, respectively. But Novikov’s lead was due to good shooting, not fast skiing, and the question was whether he could hold on. For the two Norwegians, who had already finished racing, the nine...
Lanny Barnes is known as a good shot. But coming into the Olympics, she said she had never shot perfectly in a race with four shooting stages over her entire ten-year international career. That ended today, as the Colorado native went 20 for 20 to propel herself to a 23rd place in the women’s 15k individual start race—the best Olympic result from an American woman since Joan Smith was 14th in Lillehammar in 1994. “It...
If those pesky NBC producers were still searching for that perfect feel-good story, they sure got it today. After a horrifying crash in her warm-up for the women’s classic sprint at the Vancouver Olympics, Slovenia’s Petra Majdic was in so much pain that she could barely breath. But somehow, she still found the strength and courage to stay with the best skiers in the world, winning a bronze medal behind Norway’s Marit Bjoergen and Poland’s...
Sunny skies and warm temperatures greeted sprinters on their arrival at Whistler Olympic Park this morning for the men’s and women’s sprint. This is a big chance for the Canadians and the U.S.—all six Americans are capable of qualifying for the heats, with three medal hopefuls in Kikkan Randall, Torin Koos, and Andy Newell. The Canadians are set up just as well, with Devon Kershaw, Sarah Renner, Dasha Gaiazova, and Perianne Jones gunning for the...
“Definitely Not the Typical Worldloppet, by any means.” I caught up with Seth Downs yesterday as he was still trying to process his
Yeah, we know we have been carbo loading and our training was planned for us to peak yesterday, but things did not goes as we planned. Here are the ten reasons why – David Letterman style: 10) Our logo was too big and the IOC issued a 12 hour blackout as a penalty. 9) NBC thought that we were in competition with their figure skating coverage and decided to whack our IT support, Tonya Harding-style....
With a few hours to go before the start of the men’s 15k freestyle this morning, what was Dario Cologna thinking about? Not the pressure he was under. Not that the race was his Olympic debut. In fact, Cologna wasn’t thinking about cross country skiing at all: Instead, he was watching alpine skiing on TV, waiting to find out how his Swiss countrymen would fare in the men’s downhill race. Cologna ended up five minutes...
Sunday was the 5th Worldloppet in the FIS Marathon Cup Series: La Transjurassienne. Since 1979 the Transjurassienne has been held on the third Sunday in February, and prides itself not only on attracting a large number of racers, but on the great international mix of racers who come to ski in one of seven events. This year there were nearly 4000 racers from 26 nations. There are short and long classic races on Saturday, followed...
The 30th Anniversary Sapporo Ski Marathon took place yesterday under very good conditions. It was about 17 degrees Fahrenheit at the start. 2,536 skiers, including 88 skiers from 16 overseas countries participated, including Mr. Andrus Ansip, Prime Minister of Estonia. 687 Finishers in 50km and 619 finishers in 25km. The race starts and finishes in the Sapporo Dome in Sapporo, Japan – the site of the opening ceremonies for the 2007 Nordic World Ski Championships....
The first cross-country races of the 2010 Olympics – the 10/15km individual start freestyle – may represent the best chance for medals – for both the US and Canada. Kris Freeman (USA) has twice finished 4th at the World Championships in this distance, and while he has had more success in classic, he has raised his skating to a similar level in recent years, and should be better positioned in the individual start format. While...
After Johnny Spillane won a silver medal Sunday afternoon—the first of any color in U.S. nordic combined history—his former coach, Tom Steitz, voiced the rhetorical question on every reporter’s mind here. “How do you boil up 86 years of emotion and frustration?” he asked. The answer? Todd Lodwick’s face. Struggling to explain himself and holding back tears after just missing out on the bronze, Lodwick quivered with feeling: fierce pride for his teammate and friend,...