HomeCategory

News

Closing the Gap: Racing in the Dark

Editor’s Note: The following is part of a series proposed by Maks Zechel, a 20-year-old Canadian cross-country skier embarking on his first season training abroad. In August, he made the big move to Norway, where he’ll be training and racing with Team Asker for the entire winter. Through these updates, Maks hopes to share his personal “observations, stories and lessons learned” to help close the gap between North American and Scandinavian nordic skiing. Previous posts: #2, #4, #6, and

FasterSkier’s 12 Days of FBD Christmas: Day 8

DDay 2 | Day 4 | Day 6 | mom jeans with his squad, we’d skin up the ski mountain at “O-Dark Thirty” on Dong Patrol (how Steamboat bros refer to Dawn Patrol, because it’s usually nothing but about 10 smelly dudes doing this) with nothing but our headlamp and shining personalities to light the way. For anyone who has ever spent any time with either myself or J-Smu, this obviously meant that we were quite reliant on...

Notes and Quotes: French Biathlon World Cup Weekend

LE GRAND-BORNAND, France — After a long weekend of racing, beginning with heavy snow and continuing with glazed tracks, the biathlon World Cup is on break for two weeks to recalibrate and rejuvenate as the athletes prepare for the rest of the season and the 2018 Olympics in February. Here’s what some members of the field thought about the races this weekend – the bits of interviews and press conferences that didn’t make it into...

FasterSkier’s 12 Days of FBD Christmas: Day 7

DDay 2 | Day 4 | Day 6 *** Day 7: Nordic Tech Since no one has more style, steez and flow than the FBD, we’re going to mix it up a bit today and bring in, for lack of a better expression, an expert guest speaker to help walk us through today’s gift suggestions for Nordic Tech. I actually tapped into two experts for today’s gift ideas, Nathan Schultz from Boulder Nordic Sport and Zach Caldwell...

Sunday Rundown: Ramsau, Toblach, Annecy, St. Ulrich, Rossland (Updated)

NorAm mini tour (Rossland, B.C.): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits Team Gregg ended the Rossland NorAm mini tour with another double win, with American Caitlin Gregg and her husband Brian Gregg winning the 10- and 15-kilometer freestyle pursuits, respectively, at the Black Jack Ski Club trails. Caitlin capped the long weekend with her third-straight win, a 48.28-second victory over former Canadian biathlete Zina Kocher (Foothills Nordic). Caitlin started first and was first across the finish in 29:02.86,...

Klæbo Sets Record with Win No. 7; Harvey 9th; Bjornsen 26th in Toblach Pursuit

Johannes Høsflot Klæbo is making a name for himself. The 21-year-old Norwegian broke a record on Sunday, after taking the men’s 15-kilometer classic pursuit title in Toblach, Italy and tallying his seventh World Cup win this season, the most victories ever recorded by a male skier before the new year. In previous seasons, Norwegians Petter Northug and Martin Johnsrud Sundby had topped out at six. With the win, Klæbo remained the Overall World Cup leader with...

Bjørgen Back on Top in Toblach; Diggins, Bjornsen Repeat in Top 10

No, this was no ordinary dream. If you woke Sunday to watch the women’s World Cup 10-kilomeer classic pursuit in Toblach, Italy, it was a bit of a nightmare if you were rooting for Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla wearing the yellow bib as the Overall World Cup leader. Kalla began the day with a five-second micro-cushion as the first skier out of the gate after her She also won the gritty no-kick 10 k classic during...

Fourcade Gets Emotional First Win of Season in Annecy, But Battle with Bø Continues

LE GRAND-BORNAND, France—Martin Fourcade was winless so far this season, a strange situation. On Saturday he joked that his current foe, Johannes Thingnes Bø of Norway, was just too good and couldn’t be beaten. But in the last race of the French World Cup weekend, the men’s 15 k mass start, Fourcade managed to do it, thrilling the 16,000-strong home crowd in the process. The formula was simple: shoot clean. Fourcade did, Bø didn’t, and...

Braisaz Stuns in Home Mass Start with First Victory; Dunklee 20th, Lunder 28th

LE GRAND-BORNAND, France—Justine Braisaz was so excited for today’s 15 k mass start that she jumped the gun, scooting forward on her skis a few seconds before the start and having to reset. That provoked a laugh among the crowd and perhaps even her competitors, but they weren’t laughing by the time the race finished and Braisaz had left them in the dust, claiming her first World Cup win – on her father’s birthday, no...

Saturday Rundown: Annecy, Toblach, St. Ulrich, Rossland (Updated)

NorAm Mini Tour (Rossland, B.C.): Freestyle sprints On Day 2 of NorAm racing in Rossland, British Columbia, Julien Locke, of the Black Jack Ski Club and Canadian National U25 Team, won the men’s 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint final on his home trails by just one-hundredth of a second over Evan Palmer-Charrette, of the National Team Development Centre (NTDC) Thunder Bay, in 2:38.13. NTDC Thunder Bay had two on the podium with Julian Smith in third, 0.4...

Krüger Tallies First World Cup Win in Toblach; Harvey 4th; Klæbo 10th

The first time Simen Hegstad Krüger stood atop a World Cup podium, it was last season in the company of three teammates, after Team Norway won the men’s relay in Ulricehamn, Sweden. An individual podium win had remained elusive to the 24-year-old Norwegian for the past four World Cup seasons. Over the course of his professional cross-country career, Krüger had recorded two top-three results: his relay podium and a third place in the 10-kilometer freestyle stage of...

Kalla Scores Another Win in Toblach; Diggins 7th, Bjornsen 9th, Brennan 19th

The premise was simple on the World Cup Saturday in Toblach, Italy, for the women’s 10-kilometer freestyle interval start: with firm tracks, sunny skies and only the timer to dictate the effort, it was a hammertime from the start. The threshold-type race featured two laps on a 5 k course that threw grinding climbs and working flats at the 78 female starters. Early in the race it appeared the red and blue of Norway would...

Dunklee Sixth in Annecy Pursuit; Dahlmeier Back to World Cup Winning; Lunder 18th

LE GRAND-BORNAND, France – Well, that didn’t take long. After missing the first stop on the World Cup calendar due to illness and showing less than her usual ski speed in Hochfilzen last weekend, Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier picked up her first International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup win of the season in the women’s 10-kilometer pursuit on Saturday. The 24-year-old German, who was the overall IBU World Cup champion last season as well as three-time...

LE GRAND-BORNAND, France– Johannes Thingnes Bø had won three straight races coming into today’s 12.5 k pursuit. But if anyone was going to knock him off his pedestal, it seemed likely to be the home team. Behind Bø, Martin Fourcade started second, Antoine Guigonnat third, and Simon Destheiux fifth. When each of them sprinted out of the race start, the 15,000 spectators went wild, enveloping this mountain venue in a wall of noise. But never...

Friday Rundown: Annecy, St. Ulrich, Rossland (Updated)

IBU World Cup (Annecy, France): Men’s 10 k sprint (Note: This rundown has been updated to include quotes from US Biathlon’s Tim Burke and Sean Doherty.) Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø racked up his third-straight individual win of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup season on Friday (and fourth non-relay win of 2017/2018), topping the men’s 10-kilometer sprint in Annecy, France. And he did so in head-turning fashion, beating French superstar Martin Fourcade, the race’s...

Kern on the European World Cup Scene: ‘There’s No 99 Percent Out There’

After scoring World Cup points in her first try as part of the U.S. Nations Group roster in Canada last season, Julia Kern is getting a crack at the European World Cup scene this winter. The 20-year-old Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite Team member, Dartmouth College student, and U.S. Ski Team D-teamer has been finding her place, surrounded by teammates who have racked up three sprint podiums so far this season. “The early season World...

FasterSkier’s 12 Days of FBD Christmas: Day 6

Day 1 | Day 3 | Day 5 *** Day 6: Kick-Ass Gear  There is gear and then there is kick-ass gear. You know what I’m talking about — that backpack that you got in college, have taken all over the world, and is still going strong? Those skis that always seem to do well in testing despite getting “a little long in the tooth.” Your lucky “windies,” the wind briefs that have help guide you...

Dunklee Proves Her Resiliency, 10th in Annecy Sprint

Susan Dunklee’s start to another International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup season hadn’t played out as she’d hoped, specifically in terms of results. Coming off a banner winter, with a silver at 2017 World Championships (in the women’s mass start), Dunklee 31, had so far placed 53rd, 79th and 97th, respectively, in non-relay races over the last two weeks. She had yet to race a mass start, but also had yet to qualify for a...

Biathlon Canada to Boycott Russian World Cups

On Dec. 10, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) Russia’s participation at the 2018 Winter Games. Despite the RBU’s less-than-full IBU member status, Russia is still scheduled to host the final IBU World Cup races of the season from March 20-25 in Tyumen and the IBU Cup 7 & 8 in Uvat and Khanty-Mansiysk. In an open letter sent to IBU President Anders Besseberg and IBU Secretary General Nicole Resch dated Dec. 8, 2017, Biathlon Canada’s President...

Sovereign NorAm/SuperTour Rewind: Craftsbury Women on Top; Thompson and Torchia Take Wins [Updated Photo Gallery]

  VERNON, British Columbia — For the second consecutive year, the Sovereign Lake NorAm was combined with the SuperTour for an expanded field of racers. The warm, sunny, and windless conditions on both days were a welcome change from the previous season’s cold weather and falling snow. What didn’t change was the ‘south of the border’ feel to the leaderboard. The race formats were similar to that of the Davos World Cup, just nine time...