Source: Langrenn.com The Norwegian national team’s wax technicians had a very good season, as their athletes had. But the Olympics are coming up next year and this is not the time to let up and relax. The wax team got together for a couple days of season wrap-up and evaluation early this week. – We are satisfied with most everything, but it’s clear that there are things that we can focus in on and improve,...
[Author's note: the views and opinions expressed in this piece are not necessarily those of me, and stand an even less-likely chance of being claimed by fasterskier.com. Any complaints can be directed to the non-existent email adress of your choosing (for those requiring assistance in coming up with an address, please contact http://www.fasterskier.com/racing2086.html ] The World Cup turned its focus to the Norwegian city of Drammen today, where thousands of ski-crazy spectators packed in along...
SOLDA Glide Wax Update: Marathon Cup Leader Paluselli Will Race The Birkie http://www.fasterskier.com/racing1972.html Other news from SOLDA and The US importer TorbjornSport: Team TorbjornSport/SOLDA skier Meiko Hoemke won both the 25-kilometer freestyle and the 25-kilometer classic at last weekend’s Keskinada on SOLDA Glide wax. Hoemke’s wax choice for both Saturday’s classic race and Sunday’s freestyle race was SOLDA HP05 over SOLDA S-30 on a day with starting temps around 0 F. It climbed in to...
Three Russian women on top in a World Cup race for the first time in four years — five days before the start of the World Championship. It raises lingering suspicions. Several coaches doubt that the Russians are clean reports Norwegian newspaper VG (www.vg.no story on We all know the real winner Russia went from having one skier in the top twelve (3rd place) in the 10-k skate in Nove Mesto on January 15 and...
The response to our January 14, article “Sprint Racing — How Can We Get Better?” ( http://www.fasterskier.com/Club/info.php Here are some emails we received: – I believe very strongly that we indeed need to specialize. I am in total agreement with Torbjorn’s suggestions/thoughts/ideas pertaining to the development of World Class Sprinters and need for many, many more race starts for our sprinters. Our athletes who love/live for sprinting and want to be the best in the...
The following is meant to be a contribution to get creative ideas coming and a discussion going regarding sprint race-schedules, race format and athlete selection: I have had a chance to observe the last three main sprint races in the US and have some suggestions for how to make training for sprint racing more attractive and for North American sprinters to become better. There are not enough sprint races. Sprinters need more races and 1000-1500...
It seems that like many other people, I have always had what you might call a love-hate relationship with ski equipment. When it comes to equipment, ski racers can generally be categorized under two types: The first time is your classic technology nerd dork. The second is the Zen Master Hippie. The technology-dork, from certain perspectives, seems more interested in equipment and technology than in actually racing or skiing. If you visit their basements, you...
Team Today Fundraiser Back in my little league days of baseball I nearly would have given my right arm for a Kirby Puckett game jersey. Over the past month half the country has thrown down eighty-five bucks for a Boston Red Sox David Ortiz jersey. Now is your chance to help America’s best skiers chase their Olympic medal dreams and score some super-gucci National Team clothing at the same time. Team Today is selling parkas...
The FIS has partnered with sports instruments leader Suunto to help bring World Cup viewers closer to the action this winter. Their partnership aims to provide new performance measurement data to TV audiences. Soon TV viewers will see precise information on cross-country skiers with the help of Suunto t6 wristop computers and wireless sensors. In the first phase, the wristop computer will transmit the competitors’ heart rate onto TV screens. In the future, the viewer...
Last year, at a Canada Cup race in Calgary, somebody pointed out to me that I was the second oldest person in the Open Men category. The startling part is that I was, at that point, 26 years old! “How could this be?â€, I thought. “I don’t even have gray hair or a beer belly yetâ€. Then I wondered where all the skiers older than myself went. It is kind of sad, if you think...
Lorentz Soderhjelm was contracted and tied up by the Swedish Ski Federation last season. He recently broke off that relationship and the Norwegian team jumped on the opportunity to test his grinds. Soderhjelm was so successful in grinding skis for Swedish skiers that the Swedish federation contracted him prior to last season to make sure that he didn’t grind skis for other nations. Soderhjelm has now chosen to be independent again. – I wasn’t paid...
As reported on FasterSkier, Unni Odegaard was recently involved in an accident in Norway. She was hit by car from behind while rollerskiing. She was in a coma for two days and is currently in the hospital recovering and waiting for the results of a CT scan. Unni studied and ski raced for five years in the US, as a collegiate skier for the University of Colorado and also as a member of the Subaru Factory Team. Unni...
Skiing Fast and Looking Good…Mutually Exclusive?? Steadily rolling my way along a stretch of immaculate pavement recently (while shirtless of course), the standard amalgam of gravel spewing semi’s and profanity spewing rednecks rumbling by, I had the rare (exceedingly so) pleasure of being the recipient of an exuberant “Holy Hotness!!†from a passing vehicle full of women. Now, before you get too excited, understand that the women were A.) all octogenarians on their way to/from...
Have you ever broken one ski, and felt the helpless feeling of only having one ski that you can’t use? Well, now there is a savior to this. Some Canadians, who most likely was irritated by not being able to use one good ski because the other one was broken, have started the World’s first internet site for cross country ski-matching! If you have a broken ski you can see if others have put up...
Nordic racing, over the last ten years or so, has evolved significantly in terms of distances and formats. We have more mass starts, more sprints, all types of variations of the pursuit, and other events like sprint relays. While the question of whether or not these are positive developments has been the subject of fairly frequent debate, the question of how to confront it as a racer seems to surface less often. We have seen...
Fasterskier.com was founded right before the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. We saw a need for a web site with ambitions to create a broader interest for cross country skiing. We wanted to cover not only training articles, but also cover the people in the races and behind the scene, the personalities and psychology in racers of all ages, the events, the equipment, the preparations, the inspiration, the results, the success and failure and...
Not being a carpenter and never having built anything in my life, I took it as a daunting, but doable challenge to build my own hotbox. After consulting with stonegrind/wax guru Nat Brown I had a fairly good idea of how to do it in a simple but effective way. I also consulted with my friend and skier Jim Didomenico who has a very elaborate design which uses a hot water heater. I quickly dismissed...
Pat Tillman Embraced Higher Calling (USA Today Story) My plan for Tuesday called for writing another cross country ski training article but that changed (to a day for reflections instead) after I had read USA Today’s “The Forum†article on page 13A by Dave Kindred (Tuesday, April 27, 2004). The article was called -Tillman embraced higher calling. I have followed sport since childhood but never seen an athlete ever make a choice like Tillman. In...
Today, as the FasterSkier.com staff was browsing the internet looking for the latest in cross-country ski news, we came across a poll on ESPN.com asking the question “Who Is The World's Greatest Athlete?” They gave a list of 64 athletes in an elimination bracket, and asked their readers to vote for the best athlete in each match-up. The eventual winner will be crowned 'World's Greatest Athlete.' We browsed through the names – full of football...
I am only 23 years old but I have spent a majority of my life involved with the US Ski Team. From the time I won my first Junior National Championship at 15, they have been involved in my development. The ski team has had its problems. The most obvious problem was the attitude that the US would never compete internationally. This stance was exacerbated by the Ski Team’s tiny budget, a slew of under...