The cowbells, lycra, and the spine of the Northern Rockies as the serrated backdrop would have been part of the World Cup scene in Canmore, Alberta this past March. We all know the story: the global pandemic became a whip crack. The racing was canceled. Now, imagining the scene in Canmore, it’s easy to become wistful. Beyond the racing, visitors to Canmore missed an opportunity to experience six temporary art installations near the World Cup,...
This series comes to FasterSkier from the Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Club A Day in the Life: APUNSC is checking in with Elite Team members of the course of the next few months to get a glimpse into what life looks like for elite athletes as training starts up again during a global pandemic. Today we check in with David Norris (29), a 2019 World Championship team member who has been competing on...
Last week U.S. Ski and Snowboard announced the recipients of two awards. Gus Schumacher of Anchorage, Alaska, and newly minted U.S. B-Team member, won the Beck International Trophy recognizing the top athlete in international competition. He shared the honor with alpine skier Mikela Shiffrin. Schumacher comes off a year during which he won the 10 k classic at World Juniors and anchored the men’s 4 x 5 k relay to their second consecutive Word Junior’s...
This article has been updated to clarify the relationship between the junior races now known as FIS Nordic Junior World Ski Championships and its precursor, the World Junior Nordic Championships and the European Junior Nordic Championships. There are, to briefly traffic in the obvious, 60 seconds in a minute. Sixty seconds in a minute; 60 minutes in an hour; 3,600 seconds in an hour. Skiers measure their lives in these increments; we track total yearly training hours,...
Press Release The Davis U.S. Cross Country Ski Team welcomes two new staff members for the 2020-21 season, including Development Team coach Kate Barton, and to the World Cup Service Team, Chris Hecker. Kate brings a wealth of knowledge to the team as both a former competitor, and coach, most recently at Vermont’s Middlebury College. Since 2016, Kate has been the assistant nordic coach at Middlebury, and prior to her tenure there, she was the...
Press Release PARK CITY, Utah (May 20, 2020) – Olympian Jed Hinkley has been named as the new sport director for USA Nordic, which oversees the sports of ski jumping and nordic combined across America. Moving forward, Hinkley will lead all USA Nordic athletic programs with the goal of putting athletes on the podium and maintaining a sustainable athletic pipeline. Hinkley spent six years on the U.S. Ski Team from 2001-2006 and represented the United...
Although the training cycle has officially begun, it decidedly has a different vibe and look. Adding some complexity to our short-term new normal are a crosshatch of state, county, and city regulations as it relates to mitigating the community spread of Covid-19. The core question elite cross-country ski programs are asking is this: How can we most responsibly promote safe and effective training for their athletes? (The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) has...
Editor’s note: FasterSkier’s initial coverage of the women’s relay at this year’s FIS Nordic Junior World Championships in Oberwiesenthal, Germany, gave just the facts: The American women, fourth in this event a year before, skied their way up to second this year. This was entirely true, but didn’t get at the whole story. FasterSkier analyst Devon Kershaw, in a podcast shared later that day, hinted at some of the madness behind these facts, proclaiming early in...
Biathlon is a unique Olympic event that attracts athletes and fans alike for its integration of two opposing athletic elements. Fans can now gain greater insights into the sport and their favorite athletes with Heartbeat: The US Biathlon Podcast. Heartbeat takes listeners inside the world of a sport that combines the heart-pumping aerobics of cross country skiing with the precision element of marksmanship. The US Biathlon podcast brings you close to the athletes, breaking down...
Bright lights in PyeongChang. The men’s second semifinal of the Olympic freestyle team sprint was a career highlight moment for Erik Bjornsen. Fourteen teams would crowd the start lanes with Martin Johnsrud Sundby in bib 1. The Norwegian was paired with Johannes Høsflot Klæbo: The duo blessed with Sundby’s stamina and his younger counterpart’s break-from-the-pack speed. With Simi Hamilton racing the second, fourth, and sixth legs for the U.S., and Bjornsen leading off, the semi...
Although time may have felt like a stand still since mid-March, the news has continued to flow. Emily Nishikawa: Emily Nishikawa stepped away from elite level competition announcing her retirement at 30 years old. Having grown up Whitehorse, Yukon she spent nine years as a member of the Canadian National Team, was a two-time Olympian (2014 and 2018) and six-time national champion. For several years running, Nishikawa was the distance skier to beat in Canada....
Here’s a news brief from around the Inter-webs. Unofficial thoughts on next season’s World Cup On April 9, Nowegian news outlet VG published an interview with International Ski Federation (FIS) Cross-Country Race Director Pierre Mignerey. The interview created some mild buzz, as Mignerey discussed some 2020-2021 World Cup scheduling scenarios. Still seven months away, but with the Covid-19 pandemic impacting global sport, it is no surprise FIS officials are discussing contingency plans. VG’s article was...
You may have noticed that health concerns are on everyone’s mind these days. You may also have noticed that your favorite park/ski trail/hiking trail/bike path is unusually crowded, as a nation of stay-at-home individuals ventures out for fresh air and the undeniable health benefits that physical exercise provides. FasterSkier here compiles some recent popular scholarship on the topics of exercise best practices in the time of coronavirus. FasterSkier explicitly does not give its imprimatur to any...
Press Release The University of Minnesota Press is thrilled to announce a LIVE virtual workout and book talk with Jessie Diggins for her new memoir Brave Enough next week, April 7, 2020 at 11 am CST/12 PM EST/ 6 PM CET! Jessie’s event is kicking of the The Loft Literary Center’s virtual book festival, Wordplay, and is in partnership with NEA Big Read in the St. Croix Valley powered by ArtReach St. Croix. In...
Press Release This week a healthy gathering of the US Nordic Olympic Women, (US NOW), came together in a virtual meeting organized by group members Kikkan Randall, Alison Bradley and Sue Wemyss. The group had planned to meet up at this year’s Minneapolis World Cup, after having met and enjoyed their first reunion last March, at the Quebec City World Cup. Determined not to be deterred by the World Cup cancellation, modern day technology and...
This story could be about many things; developing coping mechanisms when a stay at home order is in effect; finding ingenious ways to elevate the heart rate in a small space; fighting the urge to deem outsiders as outsiders; knowing when to check the urge to be selfish. Obvious disclaimer here, I live in a tourist town, Bend, Oregon where it’s clear tourists and fresh-air-seeking coronavirus “refugees” should abide by the city’s discouragement of...
A year ago Martin Fourcade was coming off the worst showing of his career, a cataclysm of a season leaving everyone who follows the sport scratching their heads. While he had two victories and another podium by Christmas, something was apparently wrong; his results declined after New Year’s and he wasn’t on the podium again for the rest of the season. He skipped the North American leg of the World Cup, raced World Champs, where...
Swirling around social media yesterday was the announcement that Swedish ski star, Stina Nilsson (26) has swapped cross-country for biathlon. She has yet to make the national biathlon team, yet she is committed to pursuing biathlon at the highest level. On the World Cup, she was feared as a sprinter, winning the sprint cup in 2019. She earned a total of 23 World Cup wins in 108 starts. The Swede could also rise to the...
Press Release from the Finnish Ski Association Ville Oksanen, cross country skiing coach of the Finnish Ski Association, has been in quarantine since Wednesday last week due to exposure and infection with corona viruses. The Finnish team traveled to Québec City to Canada on Tuesday for the World Cup. The next day, Oksanen became aware of the exposure. “When I woke up on Wednesday morning, I had received calls and messages from Finland. The wedding I attended this weekend had...
Road Trip Day 1 (Tuesday) It all started at home, grinding out quality training hours in spectacularly good ski conditions. The plan was simple: A skiing road trip with three World Cup events, followed by Nationals/SuperTour finals at home, culminating in a 50km against the best skiers in North America. Start Wednesday March 11th, arrive home on the 24th, and closing out the racing season on April 2nd. With restricted training opportunities during the trip,...