U.S. Ski Team A-team member Sophie Caldwell has taken the proverbial next step and topped a World Cup podium. The seventh-ranked sprinter in the world, she feels that nothing's broken with her training, so she hasn't had any significant changes this offseason.
More volume, double-poling, and a strong female training posse: Nakkertok and Thunder Bay's Katherine Stewart-Jones is feeling fast and looking forward to racing U23 World Championships Utah this winter.
Jesse Cockney just earned World Cup starts for period I with the Canadian national team. After a stint in Quebec City, Cockney moved back to Canmore - where he has lived since age seven - and says he has felt a big improvement in his fitness.
A silver medalist at 2016 Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway, 18-year-old Ben Loomis was named this year to the U.S. National Team for nordic combined.
22-year-old Sarah Beaudry scored her first World Cup points last season. The Canadian biathlete is quickly becoming a contributing member of the senior national team.
Kikkan Randall is back! Logging hours with her APU teammates in Anchorage and with the U.S. Ski Team at camps, the three-time Sprint Cup winner is looking forward to packing her Aeropress and heading back to the World Cup after a season off last year while pregnant with her son, Breck.
After a junior and U23 career spent skiing for Rossland, BC's Black Jack ski team, Julien Locke earned a national team nod in May and has relocated to Canmore, Alberta. He's aiming to impress at the World Cup sprint selection races at Frozen Thunder this week.
US Biathlon's Tim Burke leaves nothing up to chance as he preps for the upcoming race season. The 34-year-old team veteran recently explained he's not averse to double pole training and has been perfecting his shooting from one of the Jedis of American sport shooting.
Having joined the SMST2 Elite Team this year as well as enrolling at Dartmouth College, Kern has made some changes and is looking forward to another big year. "I think there isn’t one specific area where I have seen improvement over the past few months, but actually in every area," she wrote.
Kershaw tackled our "17 Questions" from a training camp in Utah. After training around Oslo this season, he thinks that Martin Johnsrud Sundby will still be the man to beat when the World Cup starts: "he's a beast."
Go, go, go. That's the type of energy Liz Stephen brings to skiing. From a high-tempo skate technique to steeper is better, Stephen has been a force on the Distance World Cup since her push into the top 30 in 2012. Last year was a setback for the Park City resident and she feels like this offseason she's done the work to make a rebound.
Megan Tandy, a two-time Olympian who hails from British Columbia but lives in Germany, has been working with Canadian national team coach Roddy Ward - her closest off-season collaboration with the team in eight years. She hopes to regain the form that handed her four top-15s on the World Cup in 2015.
Between a rafting trip on the Snake River and working on his jumps with a new coach from Austria, Ben Berend also got in lots of nordic combined competition this summer: he podiumed at U.S. Nationals and competed in Europe in the Grand Prix. Bernend will start the season on the World Cup for the first time this year.
Over the dryland season, U.S. Ski Team sprinter Simi Hamilton has been working on improving his double poling and as always -- keeping the soul fed with adventure training. “I have been playing around with a much shorter range of motion on the climbs to keep my tempo much higher,” he explains.
In 2016, Maya MacIsaac-Jones got her first World Cup top-30 in the Gatineau sprint stage of the Ski Tour Canada. She'll start this season on the World Cup, but is shooting for excellence at U23 World Championships in Utah later in the year - fueled by pre-race Harry Potter reading.
After her first SuperTour podium and junior national titles last season, Sugar Bowl Academy's Hannah Halvorsen snagged a U.S. Ski Team nomination. Now she's making the most of her first training season without school.
Carsen Campbell, a stalwart on Canada's youth and junior biathlon squads, has moved into the senior ranks and got his first World Cup start last season. What's the first thing he packs for a European race tour? "My Hammock! Never know when you'll have to sleep in an airport."
What's one thing Canadian senior national team member Cendrine Browne would change about skiing? "I'd take back the [FIS] rule on double poling!"
Not such a great summer for the Norwegian Ski Federation and Martin Johnsrud Sundby; now add Therese Johaug to that list. In this podcast episode, FasterSkier Editor-at-Large Chelsea Little discusses these doping cases and the recent IOC meetings where much was discussed, but perhaps not so much decided upon. Have a listen.
After notching a World Cup top 20 last season, Canadian national-team member Julia Ransom is feeling more ready than ever for the upcoming season. On top of racing, she also volunteers with a local youth biathlon program in Canmore and is working toward a management degree.