TOBLACH, Italy – The Dolomites were the site of brutal battles between the Austrians and Italians during World War I. Nearly 100 years later, members of European and North American countries once again waged war among these mountains in the depths of winter—this time, in a cross-country ski race. Perhaps appropriately, it was a Swiss athlete who rose above the fray here on Thursday, winning a 32-kilometer freestyle pursuit by skiing his own race and...
TOBLACH, Italy – Ivan Babikov (CAN) will race Stage 5 of the 2012 Tour de Ski, according to Canadian Head Coach Justin Wadsworth. “He’s for sure going to race today,” Wadsworth said. Babikov had a catastrophic crash at the end of Stage 4 of the Tour in Germany, breaking a ski and a pole. Canadian staff initially feared he had broken his wrist. X-rays came up negative, and after an examination by Mireille Belzile—the mother...
OBERSTDORF, Germany – That was more like it. Such was the prevailing mood in the Canadian National Ski Team camp after Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey finished sixth and seventh in Stage 4 of the Tour de Ski here on Sunday. The day wasn’t perfect,
OBERSTDORF, Germany – Ivan Babikov’s arm isn’t broken, according to his coach Justin Wadsworth. X-rays at a local hospital Sunday afternoon revealed that Babikov’s bones were intact, after a hard crash at the end of Stage 4 of the 2012 Tour de Ski that busted Babikov’s pole and one of his best skis, Wadsworth said. Local physicians gave Babikov a brace, and told him to let pain govern his decisions about racing. Wadsworth said in...
OBERHOF, Germany — There’s no shortage of grit among the top men on the Canadian cross-country ski team. Each year, Alex Harvey, Devon Kershaw, and Ivan Babikov train for hundreds of hours, climbing dozens of steep hills through sun, rain, and snow. The training has powered the athletes to some pretty impressive accomplishments this season. But even after all that preparation, Stage 2 of the Tour de Ski on Friday threw a challenge at the...
OBERHOF, Germany – Thursday’s freestyle prologue will probably not end up being significant in the grand scheme of the 2012 Tour de Ski, which includes eight more competitions and 100 kilometers of racing spread across two countries. But that doesn’t mean good results here didn’t give athletes a boost. Led by Alex Harvey’s sixth-place finish, the Canadian men are flying high after Stage 1 of the Tour. With Harvey just seven seconds away from the...
How fast is Maya MacIsaac-Jones? At a recent NorAm sprint in Rossland, British Columbia, the Albertan had the fastest qualifying time of any junior, covering the course more than eight seconds faster than any of her competitors. She went on to win the junior race, despite the fact that she’s only sixteen – three years younger than the other podium finishers. And if that isn’t impressive enough, MacIsaac-Jones’ time in the qualifier would have put...
Lenny Valjas and Ivan Babikov are in, Kris Freeman is out, and the U.S. is looking forward to more quota spots for its women’s team next year During the first period of World Cup racing, the U.S. and Canadian ski teams had plenty of notable results. Kikkan Randall won and won again, much to the delight of the Americans. She and Sadie Bjornsen shared a team sprint podium, while Holly Brooks notched a couple of...
Coming off a season in which Canada got its first-ever World Championships gold in the team sprint, the winners, Alex Harvey and Devon Kershaw, are the Canadians you’d expect to see in sprint finals. But while the duo certainly haven’t been slacking on the World Cup this year, in Rogla, Slovenia it was the women who impressed in a fast and furious one-kilometer skate sprint on Sunday. 2006 Olympic gold medalist Chandra Crawford returned to...
The 2012 World Cup season is already a month old, and there has yet to be a mass start. That changes on Saturday in Rogla, Slovenia when women ski a 10km classic and men 14k. The races feature intermediary sprints for World Cup points—once for women at 5.2k and twice for men at 5.2k and 11.2k. In a new twist, points will be awarded to the top-10 at the intermediary marks, instead of just the...
On November 2nd, snow-lovers gathered to celebrate the most recent inductees into the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame. Gathering at the prestigious Chateau Cartier in Gatineau, Quebec, six nominees were celebrated in style, including Beckie Scott and the late Heinz Niederhauser. Part of the Canadian Ski Museum located in Ottawa, Ontario, the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame commemorates over 140 individuals involved in the ski or snowboarding world. Formerly named the Honour Roll of Canadian...
No Alex Harvey, no Devon Kershaw, no problem for the Canadian men’s team as Ivan Babikov toyed with the top-5 and ultimately placed seventh in the men’s 30km freestyle in Davos, Switzerland on Saturday. With Kershaw and Harvey sitting out in preparation for the Tour de Ski, it was up to Babikov to pick up the slack. Circumstances seemed ideal for the distance specialist. The length of the race, the challenging hilly course, and the...
CANMORE, Alta.—Cross Country Canada has named two of Canada’s best-ever femalecross-country skiers, Beckie Scott and Milaine Theriault as chairs of its Women’s Committee. The Committee has recently been given a fresh mandate that will improve the profile of the Committee as it facilitates opportunities for girls and women in all facets of cross-country skiing. The Women’s Committee is an operational committee of Cross Country Canada (CCC) which exists to ensure equality of opportunity for girls...
With Devon Kershaw returning to Italy to join Alex Harvey, the defending World Champions in the Team Sprint turned to Drew Goldsack and Len Valjas to represent the nation of Canada. And represent they did. The pair may not have reprised Harvey and Kershaw’s gold medal performance, but they certainly surpassed expectations, advancing to the finals in Dusseldorf and remaining in contention for the podium in the final before settling for fifth place. “Most would...
The North Americans on the World Cup circuit had plenty to look forward to as they flew to Davos, Switzerland. After three straight days of races in Kuusamo, Finland, the cross-country skiers would have a chance to kick back, train and enjoy the sun. What many didn’t think about was the snow. The Canadians first set eyes on the green landscape before the Americans, as they drove from the airport to Davos on Monday. As...
Petter Northug (NOR), famed for his unmatched finishing kick, fired up the afterburners once again, accelerating out of the final stadium hairpin and into the homestretch. The seconds ticked off the clock, and it seemed impossible that Northug would overtake his challenger. But lifting off the snow with each stride, Northug ate up the final meters, lunging across the line before collapsing in a heap, just two tenths of a second ahead of Roland Clara...
Following Ostersund, Sweden). Not all of the Canadians got their wish. In fact, few of the North Americans did in the men’s 15 k freestyle. Alex Harvey was a bright spot, placing fifth in 32:49.9, 40.6 seconds behind Sweden’s Johan Olsson, the winner. Additional coverage of Harvey’s performance can be found in the main race recap here. Devon Kershaw was 37th (1:37.1), a week after placing 28th in Bruksvallarna. Saturday’s finish wasn’t exactly the result...
Last season, Dasha Gaiazova was making headlines with a strong World Cup campaign which saw her pick up her first World Cup medal, and finish 6th in the Team Sprint at World Championships in Oslo, Norway. However, she has spent much of this spring and summer in limbo due to a disagreement with Cross Country Canada (CCC) and the Canadian National Ski Team (CNST). Earlier this year, at a CNST training camp in Bend, Oregon,...
Say what you will about the Canadians, but the country with the Team Sprint World Champions aren’t resting on their laurels. A week after returning from a camp in Park City, Utah, Canadian National Ski Team (CNST) Head Coach Justin Wadsworth had the athletes packing up again and headed for Whistler, B.C. for a short intensity-filled camp before heading back to Canmore, Alberta, for Canadian Thanksgiving. While it may seem unusual that the Canadian team...
Over 115 athletes, 30 coaches, the full National Development Center Thunder Bay (NDC T-Bay) roster, and Canadian National Ski Team (CNST) World Cup team member Len Valjas. Does this sound like any ski camp you’ve been to this year? Unless you’re in Norway, chances are it sounds more like a skiing fantasy rather than reality. Yet Ontario’s Team Hardwood, a club just outside of Orillia, Ontario, attracted the massive numbers in a training camp at...