A Midwest native and avid mountain biker, Garrott Kuzzy is as passionate about the outdoors as he is about nordic training and racing. Starting as a ski jumper and nordic combined athlete, his love of the cross country aspect of the sport won over. Early on he was exposed to the real world of nordic by his dad, Jim, who was a Worldloppet Master and took his young son first to watch and later to...
Ben Koons has been New Zealand’s fastest nordic skier for quite some time. Born and raised in Dunedin, on the South Island, he grew up participating in a variety of sports but only cross country skied a handful of times. His family moved to Maine when Ben was fourteen and he started his freshman year as a hockey player at Messalonskee High School. Soon afterward he switched to nordic skiing, found he had an aptitude for the...
CANMORE, Alta. – A pair of ski boots designed to control pain may be one key to Chandra Crawford’s bid to return to Olympic cross-country skiing glory. The young skier from Canmore created Canadian elation at the 2006 Turin Winter Games, stunning more experienced rivals with a 1.1-kilometre dash to a sprint gold medal. She stood atop the podium and belted out the national anthem, a clip that remains on YouTube, attracting about 137,000 hits....
There is an eternal conflict shared by car, bike and ski companies. At what point do you unleash a new design unto the public? How much testing, how many races, does a ski or a bike or a car need to undertake before it is ready for the market? The Italian car manufacturer Alfa Romeo had a race director named Enzo Ferrari who left Alfa and started his own company over this very issue. Atomic...
After proving her talent as a junior racer, Rebecca Dussault hung up her skis for several years between 1999 and 2003 in order to focus on her family. After returning to racing in 2004 she found that she still had the talent, love for the sport, and a mind for the competition. Since then she has set her focus on national and international titles – not only in nordic skiing but also in winter and summer...
As a three-sport athlete at Whitman College, Laura Valaas earned four All-American titles in Nordic skiing as well as five podium finishes and three more top-ten finishes in the National Collegiate Cycling Championships. As if that wasn’t enough, Laura also ran cross country in the fall. She graduated Whitman in 2006 with magana cum laude honors and a BA in Applied Mathematics. In the year following, Laura made herself very well known on the national and...
World Championship gold medalist Billy Demong (Vermontville, NY) has undoubtedly left his mark on the world of nordic combined skiing. But, on the brink of an Olympic season, he is looking to make an even bigger splash. Any fun summer adventures? My fun getaway is bike racing and I definitely did a few of those, not as many as I did last year but if I focus my training in other directions for periods I...
Universal Sports recently published an interview with US World Champion Nordic Combined skier Billy Demong. Peter Graves talks to Billy about his past, the future, and upcoming Olympics. Billy Demong has a real shot at an Olympic medal in Nordic combined. Demong was born in Vermontville, New York, not far from the Olympic village of Lake Placid. His birth was a month before the games ended in 1980, but with new venues available, he was...
Allan Maki of “The Globe and Mail” checks in with the Canadian Ski Team’s Sara Renner. Ironically, on the very morning Sara Renner is discussing her sport and the evils within, a certified drug tester appears and politely asks for a moment of her time, along with a sample, of course. The Olympic silver medalist obliges without annoyance because she believes in the purity of cross-country skiing and because she no longer frets the changeups...
Rick Halling is the Director of Nordic Racing for Atomic US. The summer preceding an Olympic year is a tense time for coaches, athletes and suppliers. The old saying that skiers are made in the summer definitely holds true. Both the quality and quantity of summer training are highly scrutinized in an Olympic year. Along with the training, athletes are reviewing their equipment needs and many are switching to what they feel are more competitive...
FasterSkier is pleased to announce the first podcast in The Road to Whistler series, which we hope to continue every few weeks. To listen, just click the play button below (you will need a recent version of Adobe Flash installed to access the player). We are still working on our podcasting system, so there may be a few hiccups. Please email us at
Brayton Osgood currently skis for the XC Oregon team. A two-time All-American while attending Dartmouth College, Osgood has had five seventh-place finishes at Senior Nationals, including one last year in the 10 k skate in Anchorage, where he also finished eighth in the sprint. We caught up with him in the middle of a visit to the east coast. Note-Osgood was even more articulate and thoughtful than he comes across as during the interview, but...
Lindsey Dehlin is already a veteran of two Olympic Games, having been selected to the U.S. teams in 2002 and 2006. In 2008, Dehlin won her first national championship, in the team sprint with Lindsay Williams. Last year, Dehlin took third place in the sprint at the U.S. National Championships in Anchorage, and eighth in the five k skate. FasterSkier: You went to Northern Michigan University for four years, and now you’re back training with...
Matt Liebsch enters the 2009-2010 season coming off of a killer season. Last year, he was third place at U.S. Nationals in Anchorage in the 15-kilometer skate, and he dropped the field on his way to nearly a 45-second victory in the American Birkebeiner. Liebsch currently trains with CXC, and he was able to take a few minutes to talk with FasterSkier after his kids had finished their lunch. FasterSkier: Last year was a pretty good...
Mike Sinnott is in his third year out of Dartmouth College, skiing for Salomon and the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. Last year, he was fourth in the sprint at U.S. Nationals in Anchorage, participated in the team sprint and classic sprint at the Whistler World Cups, and took a victory in the Noquemanon Ski Marathon. FasterSkier: Before we talk about the Olympics, stuff like that, I remember back to the winter of 2006-2007 when...
At just 19 years old, Noah Hoffman is brimming with potential. He followed 2008’s 12th place in the 10k classic at the World Junior Championships with a 17th and a 14th this year, but then emerged from a month off to take a solid fourth place (second American) at Distance Nationals in Fairbanks. Hoffman is currently training with the U.S. Ski Team in Park City, Utah. FasterSkier: Before we start talking about what you’re doing...
Tim Burke is a member of the U.S. Biathlon A Team, and has already qualified for the 2010 Olympics based on his results from last year. In 2008-2009, he finished 25th overall in the World Cup standings, with two top-ten finishes: eighth in the pursuit in Khanty-Mansijsk, Russia, and ninth in the sprint in Trondheim, Norway. He competed in the Olympics in Torino in 2006, placing 37th in the sprint. FasterSkier: You’re currently at a...
A three-time participant at World Championships, David Chamberlain is currently training and racing with the Maine Winter Sports Center (MWSC). Last year, Chamberlain was on the podium at three different Super Tours: he won the 10 kilometer classic race at Mt. Itasca, MN and placed second at both the 10 kilometer classic in Telemark, WI, and the classic sprint in Rumford, ME. FasterSkier: You’re currently living up in Aroostook County in northern Maine, right? How...
At just twenty years old, Canadian Alex Harvey had a breakout year in 2008-2009 with two World Cup podium finishes: third in the team sprint in Whistler, and another third in the 50 kilometer classic in Trondheim, Norway. FasterSkier caught up with him just after he finished his afternoon massage at a National Team camp in Canmore. FS: You’re out in Canmore right now training with the National Team. It seems like you have a...
Rick Halling is Nordic Race Director for Atomic US. Nordic skiers love our blogs and websites where too often we dwell on the negative. Sometimes our discussions degenerate to the point of whining and always present is the claim that Nordic doesn’t get its fair share of support. A number of times it has been suggested that the US Cross Country Team and US Nordic Combined Team should break away from USSA and form a...