The third place by Canadians Chandra Crawford and Dasha Gaiazova in Sunday’s team sprint in Dusseldorf was a breakthrough for both women. For Crawford, it was her first World Cup podium finish in three seasons, and her first-ever in the team sprint, while for Gaiazova, it was her first-ever World Cup podium, period. FasterSkier was able to catch up with Crawford after the race to hear about the hectic racing in Dusseldorf, how she and...
With many of the world’s best women eschewing Sunday’s team sprint in Dusseldorf, the outcome of the race wasn’t much of a surprise, as the full-strength Italians, anchored by Saturday’s winner Arianna Follis, skied to a convincing win. For North Americans, the real news was in the continent’s second podium finish in as many days, thanks to Canadians Dasha Gaiazova and Chandra Crawford—and Slovenia. With 50 meters left in the race, the Canadians had a...
If Josef Wenzl wants to race at the 2011 World Ski Championships in Norway, he probably can do it without a bodyguard. But that’s only thanks to the last-minute heroics of the sprinter Anders Gloersen (NOR). Wenzl, a German, squandered a sure podium finish for himself and the top Norwegian pair in Sunday’s team sprint in Dusseldorf, crashing out on the final corner and taking John Kristian Dahl along with him. Gloersen ended up being...
Bring on Marit Bjoergen. That was the message Kikkan Randall sent with her skiing in Dusseldorf, Germany on Saturday, racing to a sensational second place in a freestyle sprint on a short course that doesn’t even suit her strengths. After qualifying in eighth and blazing through the first two rounds, Randall overcame a poor start in her final heat, flying past Slovenian Vesna Fabjan on the homestretch to take her fifth-ever podium finish, just behind...
This weekend’s World Cup city sprints in Dusseldorf aren’t supposed to start in the airport. But the American and Canadian ski teams will be cutting it pretty close. Thanks to a strike by Finnair’s flight attendants, the two squads’ sprinters are spending Thursday night in Finland and departing for Germany on Friday—giving the teams a buffer of roughly 24 hours before the start of the races on Saturday. American Andy Newell’s schedule will be even...
Chandra Crawford and Dasha Gaiazova are currently the only women on the Canadian World Cup squad. But their lack of teammates hasn’t held them back so far: Crawford, a 2006 Olympic gold medalist, won the FIS sprint in Rovaniemi that weekend, and Gaiazova skied to 24th place in the World Cup sprint in Kuusamo, en route to 48th place overall in the mini-tour. Crawford didn’t have an excellent start to the World Cup season, but...
Kris Freeman wasn’t quite able to match his teammate Andy Newell’s result from yesterday – but he came pretty close. Freeman, of the U.S. Ski Team (USST), finished seventh in the 10 k classic in Kuusamo, Finland on Saturday, just 0.3 seconds out of sixth. Newell, who had finished sixth in the sprint yesterday, finished 89th, slipping to 42nd place overall in the mini-tour standings. Meanwhile, Canada’s Alex Harvey finished 17th, moving up to fourth...
Phil Widmer is no stranger to sprinting at the highest levels of skiing. At 28, the Canadian has started 17 World Cups, raced at two World Championships, and represented Canada at the Torino Olympics in 2006. Despite falling short of the Olympic team last year, Widmer dominated the North American sprint scene. He finished on the NorAm podium three times, and won a SuperTour sprint before opting for surgery at the end of February to...
On the Canadian Nor-Am Circuit, things are going to be drastically different this year, both in the athletes competing, and in the events they will be contesting. Here are three things to watch for: 1) New race formats! Cross Country Canada (CCC) has gone mad for the mini-tour concept, and with three on the schedule, expect some interesting results. 2) New faces. After a home Olympics, many of the top Canadian domestic skiers, both male...
In Petter Northug’s absence, Marcus Hellner (SWE) took over the mantle as the dominant World Cup male, following up an impressive victory in Saturday’s 15km freestyle by leading the Swedish relay team to the top of the podium. Hellner outsprinted Russia’s Alexander Legkov after the two teams broke away on the third leg. Daniel Rickardsson (SWE) and young Petr Sedov (RUS) broke away from Norway’s Chris Andre Jespersen and Switzerland’s Remo Fischer during the first...
Canada’s Dasha Gaiazova continued her strong skiing in Rovaniemi, Finland today, winning the women’s 5 k classic by 8 seconds over Victoria Melina of Russia. Gaiazova finished second in the classic sprint yesterday, and appears to be in good form heading into the World Cup mini-tour in Kuusamo next weekend. In the men’s 10 k, Frederic Touchette led Canada and the rest of North America with a twelfth-place finish. He was 45 seconds behind Vasili...
The Canadian National Team led the way in Rovaniemi, Finland today, with Chandra Crawford, Dasha Gaiazova, and Lenny Valjas all cracking the podium in an FIS classic sprint. Meanwhile, the United States was led by Torin Koos in fourth. Temperatures were quite reasonable – between negative five and negative seven degrees Celsius – and the tracks were firm on the out-and-back course, which featured two bridges, a large hill, and several tight corners including a...
While the Americans started their European campaign Friday with much fanfare in Muonio, Finland, news from the Canadian National Ski Team (CNST) has been more sparse this past week. Nonetheless, the Canucks will kick off their own competition season on Saturday and Sunday with two races in Bruksvallarna, Sweden—albeit a little more quietly. Most of the athletes on the team’s World Cup squad, along with a few up-and-comers, are scheduled to start Saturday’s sprint and...
A new crop of elite cross-country ski athletes have emerged in Canada and are now ready to charge for the international podium as the National Ski Team officially kicked off the road to the 2014 Olympic Winter Games on Tuesday. On the heels of engaging its media partners in one of the team’s final training session at Sunshine Village Ski Resort before heading to Europe, Cross Country Canada kicked off the post-Olympic season by unveiling...
If Vegard Ulvang gets run out of Europe, it appears that he still could safely make his home in North America. Ulvang is the chair of the International Ski Federation’s cross-country committee, which is considering the introduction of a new race format that includes five kilometers of climbing followed by five kilometers of technical downhill. Scandinavians have reacted to the idea with derision: Norwegian Eldar Roenning told the newspaper Nettavisen that the idea was “the...
Ivan Babikov is going to Wipeout in Argentina. No, he’s not competing in an early-season World Cup—the 30-year-old Canadian departed yesterday for a week-long stint in South America to compete on the TV show of that name, in which participants navigate a series of obstacles in the hopes of winning the $50,000 winner’s prize. Hazards in the American version of the show include a wall that punches athletes as they climb along it, and spinning...
The Canadian National Ski Team’s tour of North American continues this weekend, as the squad arrives in Utah for a three-week altitude camp. The Canadians are invading Park City, home base of the U.S. Ski Team, and they’ll have ample opportunity for cross-pollination. Kikkan Randall will be living and training with the Canadians for the entirety of their stateside stint, and Morgan Smyth, Katie Ronsse, Liz Stephen, Morgan Arritola, James Southam and Noah Hoffman will...
Unlike some of her peers, like Americans Simi Hamilton and Ida Sargent, Brittany Webster’s rise has not been meteoric. She’s never been on the podium at a major international race, and she has only contested four World Cups—all of which were in her home country of Canada. She doesn’t even have her own website like many of her compatriots—just a plain, infrequently updated blog on WordPress. But of all the North American athletes competing in...
Sure, it’s only August. Sure, it’s the Southern hemisphere. And yeah, okay, the Americans and Canadians have been training over 20 hours a week during their camps in New Zealand. But all this notwithstanding, most people would still agree that winning a skate sprint over Andy Newell is a great way to start your rookie season on the U.S. Ski Team. And that’s what Simi Hamilton did on Saturday, nipping Newell by inches at the...
One day into their three-race series in New Zealand, it’s U.S. 1, Canada 1. In Friday’s 10/15 k classic mass start at the Waiorau Snow Farm, the North American teams stamped their authority on the trails of the southern hemisphere. In the women’s race, Liz Stephen (USA) bested teammate Morgan Arritola in a lunge at the line, while Canada’s Devon Kershaw took the victory over American Kris Freeman in the men’s edition. Kikkan Randall (USA),...