On Sunday, July 23, the New England Nordic Ski Association (NENSA) is hosting a dual-technique rollerski race/challenge, the App Gap Challenge, which climbs the Appalachian Gap in Fayston, Vt. The uphill event along Route 17 features a 5-kilometer women’s race and 7 k men’s race, with parking, registration and awards at Mad River Glen. The next day, Monday, July 24, a Best Ball Golf Tournament Fundraiser will be held at the Sugarbush Golf Course in Warren, Vt. More...
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Canadian coach Ivan Babikov on his team’s recent camp in Park City, Utah.) Two days after Andy Newell and Erika Flowers tied the knot in Bozeman, Mont., seven members of the men’s U.S. Ski Team and eight U.S. women’s team members jumped into an intensity training block at their respective dryland camps in Park City, Utah, and the Methow Valley in northern Washington. The 10-day camps...
In the summer of 2013, Bend Endurance Academy (BEA) Executive Director Ben Husaby made what some may have considered a strange company purchase. The two-time Olympic cross-country skier bought an old yellow school bus, painted a pale-blue stripe lengthwise down its side and inscribed the organization’s moniker where an educational institution name once was. Why? Was he planning to shuttle BEA student-athletes to and from school during his spare time? Not quite. When Husaby founded the...
The following recap was written by Justin Beckwith, info@fasterskier.com. The
Talking about their summer plans, University of New Hampshire (UNH) skiers Annavitte Rand and Silje Wilson suddenly had what they called a crazy idea. Wilson hails from Hamar, Norway, and Rand from Vermont. They both wanted something new out of this summer: Wilson wanted to train with other college skiers (and not just Norwegian club teammates), and Rand wanted to go somewhere new. “Given that this is the summer before my senior year, I knew...
The following recap was written with the help of Mike Elliott, director for the Western Regional Elite Group (REG) camp, which took place June 17-24 in Park City, Utah. FasterSkier encourages coaches and athletes from any regional offseason camps (dryland or on-snow, in the U.S., Canada or abroad) to submit their own recaps and photos to
Three years ago, U.S. Ski and Snowboard (officially dropped nordic combined from its funding rolls. It was a potentially big blow and flat-liner moment for a program coming off one the most successful runs in U.S. nordic sports history. As recently as 2013, the foursome of Todd Lodwick, Billy Demong, Bryan Fletcher, and Taylor Fletcher earned bronze in the team event at World Championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy. Now, under the umbrella of USA Nordic, and two World Championships...
As with other epic modern-day adventure race series, the fabled origin of Seward, Alaska’s annual Mount Marathon — held every July 4 — began with beer and a bet: who among us can run from the streets of downtown to the top of the 3,022-foot mountain crowding Seward’s skyline, then back to the bottom the fastest? What about within the hour? While the footrace race has evolved massively since the port town’s pioneer miners took...
After spending last summer training in the U.S. with the Craftsbury Outdoor Center’s U23/collegiate summer training group, this year Johanna Talihärm decided to go home to Estonia. The FIS Cross-County World Cup swings by Otepää periodically (as does the Continental Cup circuit and biathlon’s IBU Cup series), but Talihärm is originally from Tallinn, Estonia’s capital and a World Heritage Site. That’s the atmosphere she moved back to for the summer — which she said had both pros...
Editor’s note: Canada 150 Rollerski Race, drew more than 40 of Canada’s top development skiers and Americans Caitlin and Brian Gregg to showcase rollerski racing as part of the city’s Canada Day festivities. The day began with both men and women racing 1.5-kilometer time-trial sprint qualifiers on a two-lap, 750-meter course. Evan Palmer-Charrette qualified first in a time of 3:03.71 minutes, followed by Julian Smith in second (+3.64) and Jack Carlyle in third (+5.05). In the women’s qualifier, Caitlin Gregg won the qualifier by more than nine seconds...
Earlier this month, a group of leaders from World Taekwondo stood smiling before flashing cameras and their newly unveiled organization logo. Since 1973, the sport’s governing body was known as the World Taekwondo Federation, using the acronym WTF to represent its globally recognized organization and mission. But recent mas organizational mark (the master mark accompanied by the words “Ski & Snowboard”), and the launched on June 18. (Article continues below) The idea to change the logo emerged during...
Note: This is the first of a multiple-part series on the 2018 Winter Olympic selection criteria for the U.S. cross-country ski team. A selection criteria and procedures for nomination to the U.S. Olympic team. Briefly put, what does it take to get to PyeongChang? And what factors will U.S. Ski Team (USST) coaches and (Lahti in 2017. First comes objective qualification via performance on the World Cup. Second comes the potential use of discretionary picks....
Note: This is part of a series on the 2018 Winter Olympic selection criteria for the U.S. cross-country ski team. Read this cross-country athletes will be selected for the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, it’s useful to know some context about how selections are made in other sports. As described in a on the NBC Olympic site. That means that cross-country skiing was the very last set of 2018 U.S. Winter Olympic team criteria to...
The US Biathlon Association (USBA) has already qualified two World Championships medalists for their 2018 Olympic team, but four more men and four more women will still be selected – and those spots could go to almost anyone. USBA has a multi-stage athlete selection process. One or two more athletes of each gender will be selected based on the first period of World Cup results. For both men and women, part of that World Cup...
Following the Women’s Ski Jumping USA national team. In order to train for nordic combined, Armstrong jumps during her scheduled practice times and joins the NYSEF cross-country skiers whenever she can. One workout she likes when she’s not with the NYSEF nordic team is aqua jogging with her sister and cousin, an endurance athlete who also holds the unofficial aqua jogging record at Stanford University. “She really knows what she’s doing,” Armstrong said of her cousin with a laugh....
Joanne Reid was at the proverbial fork in the road: pursue academics after graduating with an Applied Mathematics degree from the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU) or compete as an elite-level nordic skier? Reid was coming off a collegiate season where she won the 15-kilometer freestyle and helped the CU Buffs win outright at NCAA Skiing Championships. It turns out, Reid, who turns 25 on Wednesday, is near completion for a master’s in engineering. And as it turns out, she...
Locked in the heart of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on an arm of land stretching into Lake Superior is the small city of Houghton. Locals there are intimate with lake-effect snow, long winters and a strong sense of community. Houghton is also home to Michigan Technological University (MTU) and the school’s nordic ski team, which officially named MTU’s newest nordic head coach and cross-country running assistant coach. He’ll be joined by his partner and MTU alumna, Kristen Monahan,...
About a year and a half after Colin Rodgers. GMVS went through some transitions. I am staying in the Mad River Valley, which is amazing; another great part of the job is that I get to stay where I am and sort of create some of that vision and move it in a way. It’s a pretty cool job, it’s a very cool lifestyle, it’s something that I am so passionate about. I was just...
Momentum Northwest, Seattle’s Junior Nordic Racing Team, is seeking a Head Coach for its young program. Reliable snow within an hour’s drive. Compensation is dependent on experience. Please submit resume to
You name it and Joe Howdyshell, director and founder of U.S. Ski Mountaineering national team. An average workweek for Howdyshell entails 40-60 hours for the SEA and another four to five hours for his national team coaching duties. His introduction to the U.S. Ski Mountaineering position and sport itself was in large part due to his background in cross-country skiing: he’s been nordic skiing since the age of 12, and he was previously head coach of the Summit Nordic Ski Club prior to...