What kind of ski racing hasn’t Snorri Einarsson done? Einarsson moved from Norway to the United States for the 2007 season, racing for the University of Utah and winning an NCAA Championship title. After returning to Norway, he
Coming off ajetted to a victory in the first SuperTour race of 2017/2018 — the freestyle sprint in West Yellowstone, Montana. “I haven’t straight out won a highly competitive race in two years, so winning on my arch nemesis course of West Yellowstone was huge,” Hart, 25, wrote in an email last week about her Dec. 2 sprint win. “I know that the period one altitude is not my best friend, and am really working...
Day 1 | Day 3 *** Day 4: Casual Wear Even though I clearly established on Day 2 with training clothing, and on glove model, but did you know that this hunky Dartmouth graduate also has a vision to “Make Skiing Great Again?” It’s true. Now before everyone gets all worked up that we (really, he, in particular if you are mad – write Zach, NOT me) are normalizing the theme that this hat is...
DAVOS, Switzerland — Aside from Alex Harvey’s 10th- and 23rd-place finishes in the men’s race, the Canadian National Ski Team at first glance didn’t have many other standout results in the last weekend of racing. But looks can be deceiving, they would tell you. Julien Locke finished 36th in the skate sprint qualifier on Saturday, his second-best World Cup result ever and mystically close to the “fake top 30”, as the Canadians call the results...
Casper, Wyoming might not be the first place that comes up in a discussion of world-class Nordic skiing in North America. Rob Rosser – a 5-time US national biathlon champion, and 1998 Olympian – and his colleagues at the Casper Mountain Biathlon Club (CMBC) are working hard to change that perception. In the past two years they have built 15km of race trails designed by the Morton Trails team to meet FIS, IBU, and World...
It was a busy weekend for the U.S. Ski Team in Davos, Switzerland, with some successes and some not-so-great races. Kikkan Randall returned to the podium, and six different women had top-20 results – including two each from Randall, Jessie Diggins, and Sadie Bjornsen. Sprinter Simi Hamilton had his first top-10 of the season. We’ve already posted our race reports – for the men’s sprint, men’s 15 k – but for even more from the...
Strong gusts of wind on the range required strong nerves and a lot of luck in the women’s and men’s relay races that concluded the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Hochfilzen, Austria, on Sunday afternoon. While the relays concluded with teams on the podium one might expect there, tempestuous weather conditions that at times made it almost impossible to hit the targets also gave outsiders a good chance, and both the U.S. men...
There’s always a bit of pomp and circumstance in Davos, Switzerland, where you’re as likely to spot a world banker, posh fur coat or World Cup skiers taking center stage. With a brisk wind, clouds descending from the Alps, and light snowfall on Sunday, it was 15-kilometer freestyle time in Davos. With an interval-start format and the traditional three laps of the course that essentially climbs to 3.3 k then descends through forest to the...
DAVOS, Switzerland – Ingvild Flugstad Østberg picked up the third Davos win of her career, and just like one year ago, the Olympic silver medalist didn’t do it in the sprint. Instead, Østberg made her mark in the distance event, this year a 10 kilometer freestyle race. Bib 42 in the interval-start competition, the Norwegian knew the split times of some of her top competitors, and quickly surpassed them. By the 5 k mark she...
NorAm/SuperTour (Sovereign Lake near Vernon, British Columbia): 10/15 k freestyle VERNON, B.C. — The combined NorAm and SuperTour event at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre continued with individual-start distance races and continued with the theme of U.S. domination of the leaderboard. Ian Torchia, of Northern Michigan University (NMU) and the U.S. Ski Team D-team, started the day with a big victory in the men’s 15 k freestyle, finishing in 36:29.7 minutes and on the heels...
Emma Lunder may be aclose to zero visibility in the sprint, in the women’s 10-kilometer pursuit in Hochfilzen, Austria. Despite having started more than two dozen World Cups since the 2013/2014 season, this was only her third pursuit. “I went into this race knowing that both snow and wind were expected, so I anticipated conditions similar to yesterday’s sprint,” Lunder, who had previously raced to 42nd in the sprint with 9-for-10 shooting, wrote in an...
One day after Friday’s 10-kilometer sprint, Doherty shot 18-for-20 in the pursuit (1+0+1+0). “I am very happy with the race today,” Doherty wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “The execution on the range was good in the tough conditions we had today. It’s nice to have a solid back-to-back set of races here. … The ski shape is still a ways off but it’s heading in the right direction.” In very difficult conditions in the...
DAVOS, Switzerland — Stina Nilsson came into Saturday’s freestyle sprint looking to return to her winning ways after having a four-sprint victory streak broken last weekend in Lillehammer, Norway. The Norwegian women came into the day looking to further redeem themselves after a slow – by their standards – start to the season, with Nilsson and her Swedish teammate Charlotte Kalla combining to win four of the five races held so far. And the U.S....
DAVOS, Switzerland – Would Johannes Høsflot Klæbo cruise to win No. 6, a perfect World Cup record, in the skate sprint today, or could someone stop him? As qualifying finished, the quarterfinals passed, and the semifinals began on Saturday, it became clear that only one man had a chance: Federico Pellegrino, the Italian who won World Championships gold over Klæbo last season. Sergey Ustiugov, the Russian who would have challenged Klæbo last year, didn’t make...
NorAm/SuperTour (Sovereign Lake near Vernon, British Columbia): Classic sprints On the opening day of the NorAm Continental Cup series in Canada (which doubled as a U.S. SuperTour), American Kaitlynn Miller of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) started Saturday with a nearly three-second win in the classic-sprint qualifier at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre, then went on to win her quarterfinal and semifinal before topping the final as well. Miller was the fastest women’s qualifier...
Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Biathlon Canada’s Nathan Smith and Emma Lunder. Calm wind and a light drizzle for the men’s International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup sprint on Friday afternoon in Hochfilzen, Austria, turned into a full-blown blizzard for the women’s sprint that followed. One multiple-time Olympic and world champion weathered the elements best, as Darya Domracheva of Belarus won the latter with clean shooting. She was one of...
Picture trying to ski after staring directly at the sun. Bushes blend into the snow. Turns become an illusion; one second they are there and the next they are not. If it sounds somewhat impossible, consider it’s the field of vision Canadian Paralympic cross-country skier Brian McKeever has had for the past 19 years of his professional cross-country career. “If you stare at the sun for a long time and turn away, you get these...
his SuperTour win last Sunday and I told him that it was nice to see a good guy win. His response was excellent too, as he asked me, “Thanks FBD, but honestly, are there any guys out here who aren’t good guys that you wouldn’t want to see win?” This is such a good point and it goes to show you that even at the highest level in the sport, those fighting tool and nail...
Since 2008 when Sweden arrived on the World Cup scene with a full-scale, blue-and-yellow-wrapped wax truck, it didn’t take long for the other major cross-country ski nations to not only keep up with the Joneses but surpass them. 2009 saw Norway arrive and begin lording over the wax-truck world with a succession of vehicles. As only Norway might do on the nordic-resource amenities side of things — Norway out Norway-ed itself. Its World Cup...
Right off the line with the hole shot, the first item is probably also one of the most effective. And certainly the most cost-effective: the trusty foam roller. Available for less than $20, my entire test team (along with countless other athletes) all agreed that some form of this item is basically indispensable. In fact, physical therapist to the stars (and U.S. Ski Team), Dave Cieslowski, once told me, “FBD, probably about 80 percent...