Alex Harvey took 8th place in Sunday’s 15 k individual freestyle race in Lahti, Finland, proving that he’s still on form and hungry for results in the final weeks of the World Cup season. “Effort wise and everything it’s the race I’m the most proud of this year, it’s the race I get the most satisfaction out of, I was really happy with it," said Harvey.
Japan's Akira Lenting, 23, got one start at the Olympics, in the men's relay. But a bad day for the rest of his team meant that things didn't go as planned.
On Thursday, two days after a disappointing result in the Olympic sprint, U.S. skier Kikkan Randall talked about how she'd been buoyed by her fans, her attitude in the days after the race, and her preparation for the rest of the events at the games.
FasterSkier caught up with U.S. Ski Team member Noah Hoffman to talk about everything from his training to his mentality and goals before the Olympics. Hoffman plans to compete in four events: the 30-kilometer skiathlon, 15 k classic individual start, 4 x 10 k relay, and 50 k freestyle, respectively.
With the Winter Olympics set to kick off in earnest with the Opening Ceremony on Friday night, the Canadian National Cross-Country Team is ready to go in the mountain village of Krasnaya Polyana, where it's been training for the last few days. This is the story of how their team grew by two just a few weeks before the Olympics, shortly after the official nomination.
En Sochi, Alex Harvey parle de Québec et le niveau des athlètes seniors et juniors, fondeurs et biathlètes, de son province. Il est fier des résultats Québecois aux championnats mondiales juniors, et il a de grands éspoirs pour l'avenir. / In another bilingual piece, Alex Harvey talks about Quebec and the level of athletes, junior and senior, skier and biathlete, in his province.
FasterSkier caught up last month with Pete Vordenberg, the former head coach of the U.S. Ski Team. A former Olympic cross-country skier himself, Vordenberg coached with the American team for 10 years before resigning after the 2012 season.
Pam Weiss, a top American competitor in both biathlon and cross country skiing who now splits her time between Jackson Hole and teaching kayaking in New Zealand, tells us more about the wild early days of women's biathlon, based on her personal experience. Art Stegen, a former national team coach now based in upstate New York, provides commentary around the edges about why adding a women's team was the best move the U.S. ever could have made.
From seven years of chemotherapy and a treatment-induced stroke, to being nominated to his first Olympic Team, Bryan Fletcher has overcome the odds to be one of the best athletes in the world. He will be joined by his brother, Taylor, in Sochi to partake in the quest to reach Olympic greatness and achieve their ultimate goal: an Olympic medal.
Days after the U.S. Nordic Ski Team officially announced its Olympic squad, several of the skiers that narrowly missed the cut have been dealing with ranging emotions -- mostly disappointment -- while U.S. Head Coach Chris Grover explains the decision to keep the team size to 14.
Regardless of what happens with the official U.S. Olympic Nordic Ski Team naming on Wednesday, Caitlin Gregg says she's happy. The last four years have been about balance, Gregg explains, and a journey with her husband that she wouldn't trade for anything. "One of the greatest things though is that anticipation of not knowing that you made it," she says.
One last video from the final day of the Seefeld Triple on Sunday, with thoughts from U.S. Nordic Combined Head Coach Dave Jarrett, Bryan Fletcher, who notched a season-best fifth overall, and Billy Demong, who skied the third-fastest time to end up 11th in the first cumulative event of its kind in nordic combined.
A broken pole couldn't keep Billy Demong from skiing to his best result of the season in eighth on the first day of the Nordic Combined World Cup Triple, and he talks all about it on camera after Friday's individual jump and 5-kilometer prologue. Teammate Bryan Fletcher led the U.S. Nordic Combined team in sixth, also a season best.
Early Saturday morning, Kikkan Randall's parents sat groggily in front of a pair of laptop computers in an East Anchorage condominium. Their daughter was seconds from starting a ski race 5,000 miles away, in a resort town in the Czech Republic. But their live stream of a Eurosport TV channel was showing ski jumping instead. "OK, come on," Kikkan's mother, said impatiently.
"I’m a firm believer that things happen in life for a reason," Todd Lodwick said Tuesday afternoon while icing his shoulder at the Center of Excellence in Park City, Utah. Four days after a "fluky" crash in a provisional jump in France, the U.S. Nordic Combined veteran is rehabbing stateside. "We’re going to move forward with every intention to go to the Olympic Games," he said.
Gus Kaeding literally had one foot out the door and his vehicle running Tuesday morning, but he couldn’t draw himself away from what was unfolding some 3,700 miles away in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. Two of his skiers were in their first sprint finals of their career, one of which was on his way to making U.S. history.
We know, you’ve been on the edge of your seat since the release of “The Adventures of Gregg and Liebsch: Part I,” and you can’t wait to find out what happened to the two Midwest pals in their quest to qualify for the Olympics. Picking up where we left off: the plane ride from Washington state to Bozeman, Mont.
Brendan Green may have missed last season with a back injury, but as Canada's top biathlete in the 2012 season it's still not a surprise that he made the Olympic squad. Though he didn't compete at the Sochi warmup event last year, he was on hand to train and help with skis, so he has an idea of what he's up against.
Wondering why Billy Demong was competing at the Continental Cup this week in Utah? Things are definitely not derailing for the U.S. Nordic Combined veteran or his teammates back in Europe -- in fact, they're right on track. On Thursday, Demong secured the team's fifth World Cup quota spot.
From the cross-country World Cup in Davos, Switzerland, to U.S. Nordic Combined's best finish in a team sprint in Ramsau, Austria, to five straight days of biathlon races in Annecy, France: here's everything you didn’t get to read about over the weekend.