This series comes to FasterSkier from the Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Club A Day in the Life: APUNSC is checking in with Elite Team members of the course of the next few months to get a glimpse into what life looks like for elite athletes as training starts up again during a global pandemic. APUNSC is also running a fundraiser in which the Elite Team is working towards skiing 1,000 kilometers as a team...
Jakroo Custom Apparel is pleased to announce their partnership with Gold Medalist Kikkan Randall to create a new vision for Jakroo Nordic apparel. Kikkan will work directly with Jakroo product development team to bring innovative products to the table. Randall recently collaborated with Jakroo to provide valuable input for launching the women’s sizing and fit for the Arendal and Bergen warm ups. An expanded women’s collection is in development for next season with her direction....
Bjørgen Returns: Reported last week by several news outlets, retired World Cup star from Norway, Marit Bjørgen, will return to racing next season. Bjørgen (40), will be a member of Team Ragde Eiendom, managed by Jörgen Aukland. (The team is owned by Anders and Jørgen Aukland.) Bjørgen told Norwegian broadcaster NRK she would focus on winning the 90-kilometer Swedish Vasaloppet. It has also been reported that Bjørgen will be joined by the current overall...
Norwegian outdoor magazine UTE Magasinet, recently announced Madshus Fjelltech Intelligrip® skin skis the test winners in a large test of backcountry skin skis. Test winner: Madshus Fjelltech M44 Intelligrip® (Score: Best in Test) The perfect ski for those looking for a fast, lively and responsive steel-edged ski that fits all kinds of trails, easy to ski both on uphill and downhill terrain. “The lively flex makes the Fjelltech M44 fun to ski on. Madshus strikes the...
We are deeply shaken by recent events. We are at a loss, beyond reflecting on how we can be better. Where do we even begin? The ski community is a predominantly homogeneous population – be it the Nordic origins of the sport, the socioeconomic and geographic barriers to entry, or a myriad of other factors. Here at FasterSkier, we have an all-white staff. The World Cup skiers whose accomplishments we highlight are almost exclusively white....
On April 9th, the Crosscut Mountain Sports Center in Bozeman, MT released information and qualification criteria for their newly founded elite team. As you skim what it takes to earn a spot at each tier of the program, it may catch your attention that the cross country, biathlon, and para nordic are housed within the same program. This single team approach reflects the growth and development at Crosscut in connection with its partnership with the...
FasterSkier spoke with Chris Grover this week to discuss the International Ski Federation’s fluoro wax ban, which will be implemented this season, and the potential for a modified World Cup schedule. Grover is the Davis U.S. Cross Country Team Program Director and the former head coach of the U.S. team. He is also a member of the FIS Cross-Country Committee and the chair of the Sub-Committee for World and Continental Cups. For starters, here...
The cowbells, lycra, and the spine of the Northern Rockies as the serrated backdrop would have been part of the World Cup scene in Canmore, Alberta this past March. We all know the story: the global pandemic became a whip crack. The racing was canceled. Now, imagining the scene in Canmore, it’s easy to become wistful. Beyond the racing, visitors to Canmore missed an opportunity to experience six temporary art installations near the World Cup,...
This series comes to FasterSkier from the Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Club A Day in the Life: APUNSC is checking in with Elite Team members of the course of the next few months to get a glimpse into what life looks like for elite athletes as training starts up again during a global pandemic. Today we check in with David Norris (29), a 2019 World Championship team member who has been competing on...
Last week U.S. Ski and Snowboard announced the recipients of two awards. Gus Schumacher of Anchorage, Alaska, and newly minted U.S. B-Team member, won the Beck International Trophy recognizing the top athlete in international competition. He shared the honor with alpine skier Mikela Shiffrin. Schumacher comes off a year during which he won the 10 k classic at World Juniors and anchored the men’s 4 x 5 k relay to their second consecutive Word Junior’s...
This article has been updated to clarify the relationship between the junior races now known as FIS Nordic Junior World Ski Championships and its precursor, the World Junior Nordic Championships and the European Junior Nordic Championships. There are, to briefly traffic in the obvious, 60 seconds in a minute. Sixty seconds in a minute; 60 minutes in an hour; 3,600 seconds in an hour. Skiers measure their lives in these increments; we track total yearly training hours,...
Press Release The Davis U.S. Cross Country Ski Team welcomes two new staff members for the 2020-21 season, including Development Team coach Kate Barton, and to the World Cup Service Team, Chris Hecker. Kate brings a wealth of knowledge to the team as both a former competitor, and coach, most recently at Vermont’s Middlebury College. Since 2016, Kate has been the assistant nordic coach at Middlebury, and prior to her tenure there, she was the...
Press Release PARK CITY, Utah (May 20, 2020) – Olympian Jed Hinkley has been named as the new sport director for USA Nordic, which oversees the sports of ski jumping and nordic combined across America. Moving forward, Hinkley will lead all USA Nordic athletic programs with the goal of putting athletes on the podium and maintaining a sustainable athletic pipeline. Hinkley spent six years on the U.S. Ski Team from 2001-2006 and represented the United...
Although the training cycle has officially begun, it decidedly has a different vibe and look. Adding some complexity to our short-term new normal are a crosshatch of state, county, and city regulations as it relates to mitigating the community spread of Covid-19. The core question elite cross-country ski programs are asking is this: How can we most responsibly promote safe and effective training for their athletes? (The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) has...
This series comes to FasterSkier from the Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Club A Day in the Life: APUNSC is checking in with Elite Team members of the course of the next few months to get a glimpse into what life looks like for elite athletes as training starts up again during a global pandemic. Today we check in with Rosie Frankowski (28), a 2018 Olympian, 2019 World Championship team member, and SuperTour podium regular....
Jeremy Hecker has been hired at Pioneer Midwest as the fulltime race service manager. Hecker was most recently employed as the head Nordic ski coach as the University of Wisconsin Green Bay. “Jeremy brings a wealth of Nordic experience and knowledge to our team at Pioneer,” said Matt Liebsch, co-owner at Pioneer Midwest. “He has waxed on the world cup circuit and was my personal wax tech when I last raced on that circuit in...
Over two days in March, the North American World Cup races were cancelled. Amid rising health concerns, NCAA Championships also shut down after one race; Junior Nationals after two races. Canadian National Championships never got off the ground. After the abrupt end of winter, people are trying to assess how the pandemic will affect the coming winter. In The Atlantic, Juliette Kayyem posits that “From a public health perspective, the pandemic will not end for...
Every crisis offers an opportunity for improvement and progress. Madshus has taken advantage of the longer offseason in racing due to the global corona pandemic this spring to work even harder on research and development. “All the hard work our product engineers, test crews and race techs put in now, will result in even faster skis and better equipment for Team Madshus racers when the season kicks off in the fall,” says Per Wiik, Global...
First in a two-part series. Coming next week: The meaning of a single FIS point for national team selection. The recent news that David Norris was not named to the national team by the narrowest of margins, following the application of objective selection criteria tied to an athlete’s position on an overall FIS points world ranking list, has inspired FasterSkier to take a closer look at where these numbers come from. The goal of this...
A year and more has elapsed since a doping scandal rocked the 2019 cross-country World Championships in Austria. Over that time, we have learned a bit more about what transpired at the micro-level. In the broader picture, those covering doping in sport often scour The World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) annual release of a voluminous document titled “Anti-Doping Testing Figures”. The data dump runs hundreds of pages. Looking for figures on the number of tests per...