Colin Rodgers has left Sun Valley to take charge at Green Mountain Valley School in his native Vermont, while his good friend Chris Mallory, also from Vermont, parted ways with UVM and is moving West to head up the SVSEF Gold Team.
If you're looking to be faster in speed workouts, 2006 Olympian Justin Freeman suggests adding some technique drills and accelerations to your warmup. “We do ten to fifteen minutes of running technique drills, focused on sort of generating power, quick foot strike, kind of getting off your feet,” he says of his Netherlands-based running club.
For the Canadian World Cup Team, September entailed a trip to the Italian Alps for altitude training. Alex Harvey, Devon Kershaw, Lenny Valjas, Graeme Killick, and their coaches ventured to Livigno and Stelvio Pass, and joined the Norwegian men's team for some workouts.
In the first three days of the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Tatyana McFadden, a seasoned wheelchair racer with 11 Paralympic medals (including silver in sit-skiing in Sochi), racked up silver and gold in her first two track-and-field races.
Dubbed “The Dirty 30” by Drew Holbrook, this L4/5 rollerski workout (with repetitions of 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off) comes from Gear West's Matt Liebsch. “Between 20-40mins the workout will feel unbearable at times… this is where mental fortitude comes into play," he explains.
Although the IOC said in July that Russia should not host any international winter sports events due to their systematic doping violations and cheating at the 2014 Olympics, it apparently walked those guidelines back -- and now Russia has been awarded biathlon World Championships, despite the fact that the country is not currently in compliance with the WADA Code.
Seven weeks, four countries, one van. For US Biathlon A-team members Leif Nordgren and Sean Doherty, this might sum up their summer, or at least how they spent the last month and a half training. "We wanted to expand our boundaries a little bit," Nordgren said. "Mostly just get out and experience new stimuli and train in other cool places with new people.”
Wrapping up their Australian camp, three Sun Valley skiers reached the podium at the 42 k Kangaroo Hoppet, part of the Worldloppet marathon series. Deedra Irwin edged teammate Mary Rose, and Matt Gelso won the men's race ahead of Australian national-team skiers. One weekend later, the U.S. Ski Team swept first and second New Zealand's Merino Muster.
U.S. Biathlon Association President and CEO Max Cobb will join the International Biathlon Union's Executive Board, after serving for four years as the head of the Technical Committee. "As biathlon develops even further, the marriage of the technical aspects of the sport with further development... will become more and more important."
A closer look at the U.S. Ski Team's new selection criteria for 2017 World Championships, designed to reward the top performers in a given season and discourage points chasing. “Athletes who skied fast in the spring of the previous season no longer have a potential advantage over those athletes skiing fast in the current season," U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover wrote. "...The athlete that is winning races is most likely going to make the Team.”
It's a full three weeks until the end of summer, a perfect time for the FIS Nordic Combined Summer Grand Prix. Last Sunday, Taylor Fletcher scorched in the 90-degree heat to ski the fastest time on the day and place seventh overall for the U.S. Racing wrapped up in Austria on Wednesday.
At Norway's Blink festival, the women's winner of the 60 k classic received just one-fifth the prize money as the men's winner. Smaller women's fields present a conundrum for long-distance race organizers: how can they promote women's racing and incentivize attendance, and what constitutes enough effort toward doing so?
Sixteen years in close to top-form -- a grind no matter how you look at it. That's how long this former U.S. Ski Team member has raced at the top-tier of nordic sport. Despite his near-constant management of his Type 1 diabetes, Freeman, recently married, maintains that he has two more years of racing left.
With plans to begin research this fall, CXC's Madison-based Center of Excellence is on the brink of bringing new scientific studies to nordic skiing. “Our goal is to have top sports science facility to study latest innovations in the sport, potential application in cross country skiing to improve training, recovery and performance," CXC Executive and Athletic Director Yuriy Gusev explained.
Martin Johnsrud Sundby is beginning the appeals process, seeking to overturn his doping ban by way of the Swiss Supreme Court. Meanwhile, other Norwegian skiers -- healthy ones -- were allegedly recommended to use nebulizers as well.
Here's an in-depth look at the upcoming U.S. SuperTour schedule, addressing why the season’s first races won't be in West Yellowstone, why some SuperTour races are in Canada, why U.S. nationals are returning to Soldier Hollow so soon, why there is a skiathlon at Spring Series, etc.
Exertional compartment syndrome can ruin a ski season if not a career. In this Wednesday Workout, physical therapist Dave Cieslowski presents two exercises designed to tame a compartment syndrome flare-up.
Facing drastic cuts to Alaska's state budget, a review team has proposed several options, some of which would end Division I college skiing at one or both of Alaska’s two NCAA schools in Anchorage and Fairbanks. “It’s scary not just for us, but it can start to be scary for the rest of the college ski teams around the country,” UAA Nordic Head Coach Andrew Kastning said.
When the SVSEF Gold Team found out that Falls Creek, a ski resort located in Victoria, Australia, had premium on-snow training in August, several team members said yes to the trip Down Under for a monthlong camp.
It was a hard decision to leave the Roaring Fork Valley, where Maria Stuber headed the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club nordic team, but the Midwest native is taking the reins at the College of St. Scholastica, and thrilled to build on the program's young-but-strong legacy.