The World Cup opener is still 100 days away, but for the U.S. and Canadian national teams, the 2010-2011 cross-country season kicks off today with a 10/15 k classic mass start event. The race is part of the ANC series – the Australian and New Zealand Continental Cup. It is being held at the Snow Farm in New Zealand, and will feature an elite, if small, field. The U.S. Ski Team (USST) will start their...
George Grey has never been the flashiest male on the Canadian National Ski Team (CNST). He is not nearly as brash, or into Twitter as teammate Devon Kershaw. He’s not a young, fresh-faced Quebecer like Alex Harvey. He’s not a recent émigré from Russia with a sweet tooth as is Ivan Babikov. However, his ability on skis is equal to his slightly more enigmatic teammates, and the man affectionately nicknamed ‘Gino’ by the rest of...
Four months after the conclusion of the Vancouver Paralympic Games, Canada’s Para-Nordic Ski Team has suffered cuts amounting to roughly one-third of its total budget. According to Cross-Country Canada Executive Director Davin Macintosh, the cuts represented 56 percent of the program’s funding from Own the Podium (OTP), the high-performance sports initiative that was set up to propel Canadian athletes to medals at the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver. The exact impacts of the...
During the month of June, the Canadian National Ski Team (CNST) tackled the usual Haig glacier ‘Yo-Yo’ Camp. Featuring 23 days of skiing, intervals, distance workouts and traveling from high to low altitudes and back again, the ‘Yo-Yo’ camp has been a fixture on the CNST schedule for the last couple of years. The training camp has always been a difficult one, due to its length and its strenuous workouts. The 2010 edition featured four...
There are few sports that can challenge the intensity of cross-country skiing, but cycling is one of them. Anyone who has ever pedaled a road bike uphill–which includes almost all cross-country skiers–can appreciate the difficulty of the Tour de France, and as such, we decided to get some perspective on the race from Canadian Olympian Devon Kershaw. Kershaw himself is no stranger to the bicycle–Carlos Barredo-style? DK: Haha, Barredo was classic. Using the wheel for...
When Kris Freeman, Andy Newell, Kikkan Randall, and the four other members of the U.S. Ski Team (USST) head out on the first ski of their on-snow camp in New Zealand this week, they will have at least 7,657 reasons to appreciate it. That’s number of miles separating Wanaka, the site of the team’s camp, from Park City, Utah, where the team is headquartered. The USST leaves Sunday for New Zealand, and for the next...
A quick look at the Canadian draft event calendar will unearth one major revelation – Cross Country Canada (CCC) appears to have fully embraced the concept of the mini-tour. This upcoming season, there are three mini-tours on the CCC schedule. The second Haywood NorAm, held in Rossland, B.C. on December 16, 18 and 19 will be a mini-tour. As well, Western Canadian Championships, held in Kelowna, B.C. on February 4 to 6, and Eastern Canadian...
On July 1st, (otherwise known as Canada Day in the Great White North) Canmore, Alberta hosted its Canada Day Fun Run. Despite the title, it was, in fact, a race, as dozens of local skiers toed the start line. Canmore is home to both Canada’s National Cross Country Ski Team, National Biathlon Team, the Alberta World Cup Academy National Development Center, as well as several powerful Canadian clubs–and the nordic sports were well represented. The 8 k course...
Rhonda Jewett was recently appointed to the Cross Country Canada Board of Directors and hopes that she will be able to help shape the future of Canada’s athletes. As a former racer, she realized how many hours were put into the Canadian ski racing program by volunteers and staff alike. “Now that I’m done ski racing, I feel that I have the time to give back so that younger skiers can have even more opportunities...
Alex Harvey’s training schedule is already busy, but he’s still taking some time out to squeeze in the 2010 Canadian National Mountain Biking Championships in Canmore in mid-July. “It’s a good opportunity since I’m already here,” he said in a phone interview. “It’ll be a really hard workout for me.” Harvey was a very promising mountain bike racer in the junior category, but when the time came to move up to senior, he had to...
Even for a cross country skier, Brent McMurtry spent an obscene amount time this season travelling. His short list of skiing locations in the 2009-2010 season includes New Zealand with the Canadian National Team, World Cup weekends in Estonia, Russia, and Alberta, the Olympic Winter Games, Canadian Nationals in the Yukon and to wrap it all up, US Super Tour finals in Fort Kent, Maine. When the dust settled on his whirlwind season, 24 year-old...
Cross Country Canada’s decision not to host the continent’s first-ever Tour de Ski-style stage race in February, 2012, came despite the recommendation of an independent feasibility study commissioned by the government of Alberta, documents obtained by FasterSkier show. The study, a preliminary version of which was delivered to Cross Country Canada (CCC), the International Ski Federation (FIS), and other stakeholders in early May, urged the organizations to “immediately proceed” with the planning necessary to host...
With American Justin Wadsworth now at the helm of the Canadian National Team, it should come as little surprise that the first camp of the year for the Canadians is being held in Bend, Oregon, in conjunction with the USST. “I wanted my first camp with the team to be really dialed in, in a place I really felt comfortable with,” said Wadsworth on Wednesday “I just wanted a really good quality camp with good...
Dasha Gaiazova exploded onto the North American cross-country scene this past season. She dominated the Nor-Am Cup Circuit, earning seven victories, and never once did she step off the podium in her 11 starts in North America. Gaiazova also made her mark on the international arena, collecting 63 World Cup points. After being an alternate at the Turin Games in 2006, she earned her first Olympic starts for the Canadian team in Vancouver in the...
Devon Kershaw had a stand-out season this winter, racking up top finishes in the World Cup (placing 31st in the overall final) and placing 16th in the Tour de Ski. But his season culminated, appropriately, at the Olympics where he had several inspirational performances, including a 16th place pursuit, 4th place team sprint with teammate Alex Harvey, and his last – and best – race, the 50 kilometer classic, in which he was just .6...
The last time Andy Newell and Ivan Babikov skied together, they were fighting tooth and nail over the top of the Lonesome Pines Ski Area in Fort Kent, during the last stage of the 2010 SuperTour Finals in Fort Kent, Maine. The two were at it again on Monday morning, but in a much more amicable—and slower-paced—setting, as the U.S. and Canadian national teams combined forces to kick off their first camp of the year...
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Ken Davies is currently the chair of the Alberta World Cup Society. FasterSkier regrets the error. Cross Country Canada (CCC) has turned down an opportunity to host a Tour de Ski-style event in February of 2012, according to a letter released by the organization Tuesday. In interviews, CCC officials said that plans for the “Tour of the Rockies” foundered on the potential costs, which could have...
By virtue of his marriage to Beckie Scott, one of Canada’s all-time greatest cross-country skiers, it’s obvious that Justin Wadsworth would be tied into that country’s ski community. But few anticipated his recent appointment as the head coach of the national team, which came after he worked for several years on the World Cup with the American squad. In one sense, Wadsworth doesn’t face too much of a challenge: the Canadian men pulled down half...
Following his resignation last week, longtime Canadian coach and team leader Dave Wood said that he was leaving to take a coaching opportunity with a club closer to his girlfriend, and that his parting from Cross Country Canada (CCC) had been amicable. Current and former CCC athletes all praised Wood’s contributions to the organization over the last dozen years. But in interviews, they also acknowledged that Wood’s last year with the program was marked by...
Cross-Country Skier of the Year The 2010 FasterSkier Awards wrap up with the Cross-Country Skier of the Year. While the women’s winner was a no-brainer, the men’s was not so clear cut. Cross-Country Skier of the Year (women): Kikkan Randall (USA). Randall is head and shoulders above the rest of the North American women. She followed up her silver medal at World Championships last season with a stellar all-around campaign. With a focus on the...