Late last February, Canadian Alex Harvey got the tag from his teammate Devon Kershaw to ski the second leg of the 4×10 k men’s relay at the Vancouver Olympic Games. Kershaw was having a bad day, and he’d dug his team into a hole—Harvey started out his race with a 30-second deficit to the leaders. The 22-year-old Quebec native fought as hard as he could, burying himself in an effort to chase down Norway, Sweden,...
With a squad consisting of Alex Harvey, Devon Kershaw, Ivan Babikov, and Len Valjas, Canadian Head Coach Justin Wadsworth thought his team would have a chance at its second World Championship medal in three days in Friday’s men’s relay. But those chances have just taken a hit. According to Wadsworth, Harvey, who won gold with Kershaw in Wednesday’s team sprint, will skip the relay, worn out by a tough race and a long day in...
When Dasha Gaiazova started the 4 x 5 k relay at World Championships in Oslo on Thursday, she still had a hangover. Was it from drinking? No. “We went to bed on time,” Gaiazova told FasterSkier, promising that the women’s team had behaved themselves and not celebrated too hard. But after her teammates Alex Harvey and Devon Kershaw won the men’s team sprint in thrilling fashion on Wednesday and got to stand atop the podium...
Devon Kershaw’s day could not have changed more drastically over the course of two hours than it did on Wednesday in Oslo. While he ended the day atop the podium with teammate Alex Harvey, there was a moment when becoming one of Canada’s first World Champions seemed next to impossible. On the first uphill in Canada’s semifinal in the World Championships team sprint, Kershaw, the leadoff skier, lost a ski. “I had a small heart...
After just missing the medals in the first two competitions at the 2011 World Championships, an American-born athlete was back on top of the nordic combined podium on Wednesday. Billy Demong? Nope. Todd Lodwick? Guess again. Maybe Johnny Spillane? Or the two flying Fletcher brothers, Bryan and Taylor? No, no, and no. Instead, it was Jason Lamy Chappuis, a French citizen born in Montana, who took the win in the individual large hill competition in...
The Canadian men might have won gold in today’s World Championship team sprint, but they weren’t the only ones walking away from Holmenkollen Stadium in Oslo with smiles on their faces. Another Canadian team was excited about its results, too: Canadians Perianne Jones and Dasha Gaiazova, who finished sixth in the women’s final. After the semifinal, in which the pair was forced to ski mostly alone after Slovenia, Norway, and Sweden went off the front,...
When Matti Heikkinen caught Kris Freeman just three kilometers into Tuesday’s 15 k classic race at World Championships, Freeman was surprised. “I was thinking, holy God, what is going on,” Freeman told FasterSkier. “Turns out he was having the race of his life.” The Finn has just one World Cup victory to his name this season, and came into the individual start race more favored than Freeman, but only barely. So when he had made...
“Comfy,” was how American Sadie Bjornsen described the leader’s chair, the seat occupied by the finishers with the best times after they cross the line in individual start races. The young American continued a strong World Championships showing, notching her second top-30 in two starts in the 10 k classic in Oslo. Starting at bib 36, Bjornsen was not unseated as race leader for nearly five minutes, when Sweden’s Sara Lindborg took over. Bjornsen, who...
Two-thirds of the way through Sunday’s World Championships pursuit, Alex Harvey was taking a page out of Johan Olsson’s book. Harvey, the 22-year-old Canadian, had launched a surprise, solo attack reminiscent of the move made by Olsson, a Swede, in the same race at the Vancouver Olympics last year. The Swedes took two medals in that event, with Olsson getting bronze. And for a while, it looked like the Canadians were on their way to...
Marit Bjoergen (NOR) has already achieved her goal of winning an individual gold at the 2011 World Championships. Now the ski world gets to see what a relaxed Bjoergen can do. The winner of five medals, including three golds, at the 2010 Olympics, Bjoergen is the clear favorite in the women’s 15 k pursuit on Saturday, as distance racing gets underway at Holmenkollen in Oslo, Norway. While rival Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) is the defending World...
The U.S.’s Kikkan Randall wasn’t the only North American to see her World Championships skate sprint hopes go down the drain in a collision. Canada’s Alex Harvey met with the same fate in his semifinal heat on Thursday when he tangled with a Swiss skier, Martin Jaeger, to fall out of contention. On the back side of the Oslo sprint course, before the men re-entered the stadium, Harvey said he was skiing at the head...
The North American men may not have a gold-medal favorite among their ranks for Thursday’s men’s World Championship freestyle sprint in Oslo. But if they lack a reliable podium candidate, they make up for it in their numbers: no fewer than seven U.S. and Canadian skiers have a shot at cracking the heats. In Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey, the Canadians have two men with freestyle sprints podiums already this season—Harvey’s a second place last...
If the directors at the International Ski Federation had gone to Canadian Len Valjas and asked him to lay out a 1.6-kilometer course, it would have looked a lot like the one used for the World Cup skate sprint in Drammen on Sunday. Mostly flat, with a ton of V2, the 6’6” Valjas described it as “the best course for me.” “I don’t have to offset,” he said, referring to the technique Americans call V1....
Four weeks training at home without a race did not slow Kikkan Randall. The defending World Championship silver medalist in the freestyle sprint picked up where she left off a month ago, and found herself in the same spot – standing on the top of the podium. Randall scored her third career World Cup victory, and second in a row when she powered to the front on the tough finishing stretch in the Konnerud Ski...
For Canada’s Alex Harvey, the bad news is that at next week’s World Ski Championships in Oslo, he’s not likely to improve much on his finish in his final tune-up race. The good news is why: in Sunday’s World Cup skate sprint in Drammen, Norway, he was a stunning second place, surging on the homestretch to top Olympic medalists Petter Northug (NOR) and Marcus Hellner (SWE), and falling just a few feet short of catching...
Last year the Canadian men proved that performance a week before a major championship event is meaningless as a predictor. The hope is that that is the case this time around, as well. Both the Canadians and Americans did not impress in their final distance tune-up prior to this year’s World Championships – but the general consensus was that there was little to be concerned about. Devon Kershaw led all North American finishers in 26th...
At least there’s another week until Oslo. That was the take-away for the Americans after Saturday’s 10 k classic race in Drammen, where the top U.S. women struggled on a tough course, in a stacked field of Norwegians. In her World Cup debut, Sadie Bjornsen (USA) led the way in 52nd, 3:19 behind the winner, Marit Bjoergen (NOR). But none of the other American women came within three-and-a-half minutes of Bjoergen’s time, leaving them with...
A World Cup race in Norway is always a big deal, but with the start of World Championships less than seven days away, this weekend’s two-race stop in Drammen serves as both a tune-up, and an indicator of who will be contending for medals in Oslo. FasterSkier arrived in Oslo on Friday morning, and will be reporting live from the event! With many skiers skipping the Rybinsk World Cups two weeks ago, it has been...
Europe seems to suit Sadie Bjornsen just fine. Nearly a month into her first long-term overseas tour, Bjornsen is skiing fast and appears to be getting faster. She led a contingent of a US World Championship skiers in the 5km classic FIS race in Beitostolen, Norway, placing 8th overall. The race was won by former overall World Cup runner-up and current Norwegian World Championship team member, Astrid Jacobsen. The veteran posted a time of 15:02,...
One year ago, the US and Canadian Olympic teams were in Whistler, British Columbia getting ready for the 2010 Olympic Games. This year, there are obviously no Olympics, but with medals on the line at the only marginally less prestigious World Championships, North American athletes are gearing up for the highlight of the season. Both team have arrived in Norway, and many of the skiers are looking to a series of FIS races in Beitostolen...