(Note: This is the fourth in a series of interviews with athletes who will be competing at the first-ever winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria this winter. The second with Anna Kubek, the third with Aleksandra Zakrzewska, all U.S. biathletes. The last was with John competed in the 1952 Games, and his father Tim competed in four more. When Caldwell was selected as America’s sole male nordic skier for the Youth Olympic Games in...
NEW YORK — After Norwegian ski legend and five-time gold medalist Thomas Alsgaard, 39, decided not to run the New York City Marathon, he met with FasterSkier’s Nat Herz on Saturday at a diner on Broadway. He said his legs weren’t ready for the 26.2-mile grind, a decision he came to after trying to run for two hours in Central Park on Friday. After an 1 1/2 hours, he had to walk back. On Sunday,...
It’s not often that an eastern collegiate skier gets the chance to train on snow in the middle of October. Recent two-inch storms excluded, most student-athletes in New England don’t see snow until Thanksgiving, and are likely getting ready to chuck their rollerskis over the next bridge. Not so for Tony Ryerson, a Harvard junior and native of Vail, Colorado. In addition to taking classes abroad this semester at Universitat Innsbruck, which is situated in...
Fresh off the plane from his training camp in Austria with the Norwegian team Sjusjoen, Torin Koos was audibly excited for the upcoming season. The defending U.S. classic and freestyle sprint champ is gearing up for his second season racing independently of the U.S. Ski Team (USST), and with no major championship to target this year, he’s used the past summer and fall to try new things. Most notably, he split from the Methow Olympic...
Note: This is the third profile in a series about working out with high-performance athletes. The idea is to shed light on the daily routine of someone dedicated to training and share a regular Joe’s story of trying to keep up. LONDONDERRY, Vt. — As I pulled my vehicle up alongside Skyler Davis’ black Subaru in a grocery store parking lot, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had seen him once before at this year’s...
This article is the first installment of the ‘Where are They Now’ series, made possible through the generous support of Fischer Sports. Learn more about their products at
Under two years apart in age, Sadie and Erik Bjornsen have always been competitive siblings. But as two of the newest members of the U.S. Ski Team (USST), they don’t seem too worried about upstaging each other. On the contrary, Erik made the decision to join his older sister at Alaska Pacific University (APU) this May at his sister’s encouragement. The Winthrop, WA natives have cut strikingly similar career paths so far. Both dominated the...
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — Tad Elliott isn’t a big runner. Reflecting on his training from inside the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center, he was quick to admit that. So when fellow U.S. Ski Team rookie Ida Sargent took him on a long run in Park City, Utah, and the two ended up lost, he wasn’t thrilled. Elliott, the fun-loving, laid-back jokester, not happy? “I was cranky,” he said of what turned out to be a...
The way 16-year-old Amelia Hennessy throws the word “tachycardia” around, you would think she was talking about an annoying homework assignment. But when the high school runner and nordic skier felt her heart beating abnormally hard to the point of severe dizziness, she knew her reoccurring problem – supraventricular tachycardia – was worse than the average teenager’s. The issue came frighteningly front and center in August, when Hennessy collapsed at the finish line of the...
When Rossignol first hired Ryan Green back in 1998, the field sales associate felt he should hide his nordic ties a little bit – at least when dealing with alpine companies. A nordic rep as well, he had picked up the sport in college to stay fit during the cycling offseason. He developed his skill sets in both markets, and in 2006, delved further into downhill as product manager for Lange and Dynastar. “I’ve always...
At 25 years old, Anna Haag is already a star for Sweden. She followed up her two silvers from Vancouver (in the 15 k pursuit and team sprint) with a strong showing as the second leg for Sweden’s silver medal-winning relay in Oslo. She is currently living and training in Davos, Switzerland, where she and her boyfriend—Swedish sprint standout Emil Jonsson—have an apartment at about 5,000 feet above sea level. She hit the ground running...
Earlier this spring, Michael Meehlhause did what most nordic skiers wouldn’t think of doing on camera, let alone upload for the world to see. He rapped and submitted the video to his college’s film festival. Soon after, he posted “Bemidji State of Mind” on You Tube. Three months later in July, the 22-year-old Bemidji State University graduate accepted the position of executive director for the Minnesota Nordic Ski Association. While Meehlhause’s hip-hop tribute to the...
Since graduating from Dartmouth College in 2009, Glenn Randall has skied for the Bridger Ski Foundation in Bozeman, MT. While an undergrad, he competed three seasons a year for Dartmouth’s cross-country, skiing, and track teams, winning the 10 k freestyle at NCAAs his junior year. Running has always been an important part of Randall’s career, both in training and racing. But he didn’t discover he was good at post-graduate running until he entered and won...
There is only one thing that I really know about Duncan. Duncan truly enjoys punishing himself through endurance activity more than any other human that I know. Training is his drug of choice and he is a serious addict. – Tim Burke Utter the name “Duncan Douglas” to anyone who knows anything about skiing, and you are guaranteed to elicit one of three responses: (1) dismissive incredulity, (2) respectful awe, or (3) idolizing hero-worship. If...
(Note: This is the fourth in a series of interviews with athletes who will be competing at the first-ever winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria this winter. The first interview was with Sean Doherty, the Nick Proell.) When the Youth Olympic Games kick off in Innsbruck, Austria this January, one American biathlete will have a lot of experience on her side. It’s not her own experience: neither of the two girls named to the...
Note: This is the second profile in a new series about working out with high-performance athletes. While Alex Matthews was in Middlebury to observe and report, she focused on the kids who trained with U.S. Olympian Garrott Kuzzy at a summer camp. MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — Leaning on the back of his Volkswagen station wagon, Garrott Kuzzy smiled as his training partners arrived at the Middlebury College parking lot. All seven poured out of two vehicles....
(Note: This is the third in a series of interviews with athletes who will be competing at the first-ever winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria this winter. The first interview was with Sean Doherty and the
Not far from the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus lies a notorious climb – 2,000 feet in five kilometers – and every year, the college’s cross country and nordic ski team members test themselves on its terrain. For the last three years, Matt Dunlap, the assistant coach for both, clocked his athletes from the side of the steep trail as they forged ahead. A week after this year’s fall time trial, he found himself racing...
When two-time Olympian Zina Kocher was left off of Biathlon Canada’s “A” team this spring, she was surprised. “Criteria was never set before the season started,” Kocher told FasterSkier in an interview; it wasn’t until after the season was over that athletes learned whether their results were good enough for a nomination. Instead of simply adjusting and continuing on with the national team, Kocher turned down the “B” team nomination altogether and joined another squad,...
Note: This is part of an ongoing series on junior and collegiate racers in the U.S. and beyond. The nordic sports are certainly not the largest, but there are still thousands of great stories. We will be picking athletes out of this pack to feature – nominations for outstanding or interesting nordic skiers can be sent to