Dear Cross Country Community, We are pleased to announce the XC Team for Period 1 of the 2026-27 World Cup season: Ruka, FIN 10 km C & Trondheim, NOR 10 km C Men Zach Jayne Objective 25-26 Overall SuperTour Leader Gus Schumacher Objective 12th Distance World Cup 25-26 Zak Ketterson Objective 36th Distance World Cup 25-26 Ben Ogden Discretion 11th Lake Placid World Cup 10 km C Zanden McMullen Discretion 18th...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. U.S. Biathlon’s board votes Wednesday on a formal operating alliance with U.S. Ski & Snowboard. Supporters call it the stability the sport has always lacked. Skeptics call it a surrender of independence. Both are working from the same set of facts. Here is what the deal actually says, and what...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. For Ben Ogden, the strangest change since taking home two medals from Milano Cortina has not been that more people started recognizing him around Vermont. He admits he is still adjusting to the newfound fame, but that part has mostly been fun. There have been school visits, community events and...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. Part two of a two-part series. Read part one here. A parent once cornered Adam St. Pierre to complain that he was letting the kids play games. St. Pierre had ten-year-olds on skis running sharks and minnows, shrieking and chasing each other across the snow, and the parent was...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. Part one of a two-part series. Adam St. Pierre finished second to last in the first cross-country ski race of his life. The one skier he beat had crashed into a tree. He was a sophomore at Fall Mountain Regional High School, a rural school in Charlestown, New Hampshire,...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. Rosie Brennan has stepped away from the World Cup, though she’s still figuring out exactly how to define the next chapter in her life. Retirement is the easy word, and in some ways, the accurate one. She is done with the World Cup. She is done with the version of...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. The five minutes Beckie Scott spent at the finish line in Soldier Hollow on February 15, 2002, lasted longer than most things in her career. She had crossed the line in what felt like third place. She thought she had a medal. She did not yet know. “It was actually...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. Will Sweetser thinks American Nordic skiing is recruiting in the wrong places. Here is what he is building on Donner Pass to prove it. This is the second of two parts — be sure to read part one, to learn about Sweetser’s background and coaching philosophy — Keep Showing Up:...
by long-time Lumi guest from Anchorage, Alaska: Gunnar Knapp On March 8, 2026 I skied the Engadin Ski Marathon in the Engadin valley of Switzerland. I was very pleased to complete my tenth Worldloppet, thus earning my Worldloppet Master Diploma and gold medal. To ski the race, I joined the trip organized by Lumi Experiences to Seefeld (Austria) and the Engadin Marathon. I had taken numerous other fun trips with Lumi, including trips for all...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. A Different Equation Masters’ athletes are often told to “train smarter, not harder,” or the current version: “Go easy on the endurance sessions so you can go hard on the intense sessions.” Those phrases get repeated so often they’ve lost context and meaning. But there is a real physiological reason...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. I was reviewing recent U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Sport Committee meeting minutes and came across an interesting note in the April 7, 2026, meeting. The following item stood out: “Rick shared the announcement of adding Para Cross Country and that there is a strong drive from the...
The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) unveiled its proposed 2026/2027 cross-country skiing World Cup calendar this week at the FIS Spring Meetings in Portorož, Slovenia. The schedule — first shared publicly through FIS social media and still pending FIS Council approval — builds the season around the 2027 World Championships in Falun, Sweden, with three pre-Christmas stops, a nine-race Tour de Ski, a stretch of three weekends between the Tour and Worlds, and a...
The Craftsbury Green Racing Project has named Annika Martell as its new Head Ski Coach. Martell brings a resume that spans nearly every corner of the Nordic skiing world. A Minnesota native, she headed east to ski at Colby College, where she captained the team and earned recognition for her leadership before graduating with a degree in economics and environmental science. Her coaching career has taken a similarly wide path. Early on, she interned with...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. As the season winds down, it’s worth stepping back and asking a simple question: Does the way we develop young skiers in the United States reflect the philosophy we say we believe in? I know everyone is probably done with hearing about how the Norwegians do it, so let’s look...
Yesterday’s announcement of changes to next year’s World Cup schedule came as a dramatic surprise to the cross-country skiing community. But the story behind those changes is just as interesting as the changes themselves. Lars Johansen, the Swedish delegate to the FIS (International Ski Federation) competition committee described how the historic changes came about. “I was sitting glumly in my Cortina hotel room. In nine days, I was due to give my final report to...
This episode was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. Yeah…the Olympics really took it out of us. But we’ve finally rallied the troops, plus a special guest, for our last episode of the season. We recap Oslo and the Lake Placid World Cups before signing off. We’ll be out getting our last kilometers of the year, but will read...
This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. LAKE PLACID, New York (March 21) — As the snow settled on Lake Placid and clouds began to dissipate over Mt. Van Hoevenberg, a growing sense that something momentous could happen permeated...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. CRAFTSBURY, Vermont — Craftsbury’s SuperTour Finals 40k highlighted some awesome battles amongst the top American men and women. The women started off the day with some extremely fast conditions on the winding and punchy Craftsbury 5k loop. The men took on the course later in the morning and conditions...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. CRAFTSBURY, Vermont — The second day of racing at Craftbury’s SuperTour Finals brought on some hard-hitting team relays. The “Club Relay” had a diverse array of club skiers young and old, along with some college teams. In the afternoon, the “SuperTour Relay” featured the North American pro teams along...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. CRAFTSBURY, Vermont — Craftsbury Outdoor Center kicked off the first of the SuperTour Finals races with a classic sprint on Friday. Yesterday’s weather brought gnarly, foggy, and temperatures in the 50s. Craftsbury’s grooming crew has been putting in long hours over the last few weeks to ensure that conditions...