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Canadian National Ski Team

MSA NorAm Trials: Notes and Quotes

The third NorAm of the season in Mont Sainte-Anne (MSA), Québec, was also a Canadian selection event for next month’s Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, as well as Junior and U23 World Championships, which start later this month in Goms, Switzerland. The original schedule of racing from Saturday, Jan. 6, to Tuesday, Jan. 9, with a backup race day on Wednesday had to be modified when Saturday and Sunday were colder than International Ski Federation...

U.S. and Canada Annouce Squads for FIS World Junior & U23 Championships

The U.S. and Canada have named their squads for FIS Cross Country World Junior and U23 Championships, set to begin later this month in Goms, Switzerland. Both countries’ selections include athletes who excelled against the senior fields at recent domestic races (U.S. National Championships and NorAms) which served as selection races for Olympic teams. In fact, Canada’s U23 women did so well against their senior compatriots that it’s unclear who will represent Canada at the...

Wednesday Rundown: Ruhpolding IBU World Cup; MSA NorAm Trials

IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Men’s 20 k individual For France’s Martin Fourcade, the difference between a miss on the last shooting stage of the men’s 20-kilometer individual International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup on Wednesday versus perfect shooting wouldn’t have ultimately changed his result in Ruhpolding. Despite the one-minute penalty, which was tagged onto his total time after his lone miss of the day, Fourcade still won by a minute. The Czech Republic’s Ondřej...

Monday Rundown: U.S. Nationals; MSA NorAm Trials

U.S. Cross Country Championships (Anchorage, Alaska): Classic sprint Men’s report Caitlin Patterson did it. With a classic-sprint win on Monday, she successfully capped off an undefeated 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships, as the top American woman in all four races over the past week in Anchorage, Alaska. Patterson, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, qualified seventh then won the women’s 1.5-kilometer final by more than 2 seconds in 3:39.58 minutes. Finland’s Jasmi Joensuu, a junior...

Sunday Rundown: U.S. Nationals; Tour de Ski Finale; Oberhof Relays

U.S. Cross Country Championships (Anchorage, Alaska): 20/30 k classic mass starts Women’s report Sweden’s Hedda Bångman denied Caitlin Patterson of her first outright victory of the week at 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships, but Patterson as the first American racked up her third-straight national title in the women’s 20-kilometer classic mass start at Kincaid Park on Sunday in Anchorage, Alaska. Bångman, a 22-year-old freshman at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), pulled off a 15.9-second...

Cologna Wins Tour de Ski; Harvey Solves the Alpe Cermis for Third Overall

The 2018 Tour de Ski is a wrap. On Sunday in Val di Fiemme, Italy, the final Stage 7 hill climb was a mirage of sorts as Switzerland’s Dario Cologna soloed in for his fourth overall Tour de Ski (TdS) victory. The stage, a 9-kilometer freestyle pursuit “final climb” ascends an alpine ski-area slope for the final three k’s as it climbs 425 meters from race start to finish. Not once did the 31-year-old Cologna...

Tour Turnaround: Poltoranin Wins Fiemme Classic, Vaults into 2nd Overall; Harvey Third; Ustiugov Fades

Saturday’s 15 k classic mass start in Val di Fiemme, Italy, began as many expected: with aggressive skiing from Sergey Ustiugov and his Russian teammates. Ustiugov, last year’s Tour de Ski champion, started the day ranked second, 53 seconds behind Switzerland’s Dario Cologna, himself a three-time Tour de Ski champion. Ustiugov was obviously trying to make up some of that time in a bid to challenge Cologna for the title: he skied hard from the...

Canadian Olympic Trials: How Selection Works and Who to Watch as They Brave the Cold

Cross Country Canada’s Olympic selection trials begin on Friday (a number of cross-country skiers already qualified for the 2018 Games in PyeongChang, South Korea: Alex Harvey, Len Valjas, Devon Kershaw, Knute Johnsgaard, Jesse Cockney, Graeme Killick, Emily Nishikawa, and Dahria Beatty. But in fact, that might be too many. Cross Country Canada (CCC) learned that they currently stand to receive a quota of nine team members (men and women combined) for PyeongChang, based on Canada’s...

Rethinking Concussions: Katherine Stewart-Jones’s Personal Journey

In a split second, Katherine Stewart-Jones was flying over her handlebars and headed face-first for the road. She had been biking to her local gym in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on Sept. 19 when her bike’s front tire rammed into an irregular rise in the road and sent her off her bike seat and toward the unforgiving pavement below. A person driving by witnessed Stewart-Jones catapult off her bike and stopped immediately to check if she...

Tour de Ski Rundown: Sadie Bjornsen 3rd; Østberg Posts 25-Second Win; Cologna Wins at Home

Tour de Ski Stage 2 (Lenzerheide, Switzerland): 10/15 classic Men’s report For the second-straight day of the Tour de Ski, an American landed on the podium, with Sadie Bjornsen placing third in the women’s 10-kilometer classic individual start on Sunday in Lenzerheide. For Bjornsen, it was her third individual podium of the season and first in a race longer than 5 k.  She finished behind two Norwegians, Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, who took the win in...

Ustiugov Sets Stage, Wins Tour-Opening Skate Sprint in Lenzerheide

For Sergey Ustiugov, the Tour de Ski (TdS) is picking up where he left it last year. Last January, the 25-year-old Russiansix stages remaining. “I really wanted to win today to start the Tour strong,” Ustiugov said, according to an International Ski Federation (FIS) press release. Ustiugov’s opening day began with his qualifier, which he won after covering the course in a time of 2:58.46 minutes. Italy’s Federico Pellegrino posted the second-fastest qualifying time, 1.08...

Sunday Rundown: Ramsau, Toblach, Annecy, St. Ulrich, Rossland (Updated)

NorAm mini tour (Rossland, B.C.): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits Team Gregg ended the Rossland NorAm mini tour with another double win, with American Caitlin Gregg and her husband Brian Gregg winning the 10- and 15-kilometer freestyle pursuits, respectively, at the Black Jack Ski Club trails. Caitlin capped the long weekend with her third-straight win, a 48.28-second victory over former Canadian biathlete Zina Kocher (Foothills Nordic). Caitlin started first and was first across the finish in 29:02.86,...

As Results Start to Improve, Canadians Building Towards PyeongChang

DAVOS, Switzerland — Aside from Alex Harvey’s 10th- and 23rd-place finishes in the men’s race, the Canadian National Ski Team at first glance didn’t have many other standout results in the last weekend of racing. But looks can be deceiving, they would tell you. Julien Locke finished 36th in the skate sprint qualifier on Saturday, his second-best World Cup result ever and mystically close to the “fake top 30”, as the Canadians call the results...

Manificat Thrives in Davos 15 k Skate; Harvey Steady in 10th

There’s always a bit of pomp and circumstance in Davos, Switzerland, where you’re as likely to spot a world banker, posh fur coat or World Cup skiers taking center stage. With a brisk wind, clouds descending from the Alps, and light snowfall on Sunday, it was 15-kilometer freestyle time in Davos. With an interval-start format and the traditional three laps of the course that essentially climbs to 3.3 k then descends through forest to the...

Klæbo 5 for 5 with Lillehammer Skiathlon Win; Harvey 6th, Kershaw 19th, Bjornsen 20th

Imagine for a moment that only months ago, at about 33 years old, you were in your prime — with World Cup globes on the mantle, six World Championship medals presumably in a drawer somewhere, and four Olympic medals (three of which are from the 2014 Games and will be awarded post-Sochi since the Bjornsen placed 42nd overall, over five minutes back from Sundby, that day’s winner. Bjornsen’s strategy paid off on Sunday. In a...

Klæbo Wins Lillehammer Classic Sprint for Win No. 4 of the Season

Smack dab in the heart of the nordic sport world in Lillehammer, Norway, the World Cup began its second weekend of the 2017/2018 season with a kick-and-glide bang on Saturday. The men contested a 1.5-kilometer classic sprint on a course featuring a flat run into and out of a three successive climb-descent combo. At 21 years old, Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo remains peerless. Is it the lungs? His up-tempo, high-output running style? For all the...

Klæbo Holds Off Sundby, Bolshunov and Harvey for Ruka Triple Sweep

Two previous days of racing, and back-to-back victories no less, had begun to take its toll on Johannes Høsflot Klæbo within the first few laps of the men’s 15-kilometer freestyle pursuit on Sunday in Kuusamo, Finland. The 21-year-old Norwegian could feel it throughout his body; he was tired and 38 seconds of a starting cushion wasn’t going to be enough to hold off the hungry challengers behind him. Klæbo, who won Friday’s classic sprint and...

Klæbo Steamrolls to Another Ruka Win; Harvey 13th in 15 k Classic

Is Johannes Høsflot Klæbo better than Petter Northug* was at his age? It’s hard to say, reigning Norwegian World Cup winner Martin Johnsrud Sundby told NRK. But his performance in the last two days is pretty unheard of, Sundby said after Saturday’s 15-kilometer classic. On both Friday and Saturday at the Ruka World Cup opener in Kuusamo, Finland, Klæbo (who’s still a U23 athlete at just 21 years old, although he’s on Norway’s exclusive World...

Klæbo Commands Kuusamo Classic Sprint; Harvey 21st, Bjornsen 24th

There was no mistaking Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo in Friday’s 1.4-kilometer classic sprint, even with no natural light illuminating the course in Kuusamo, Finland, by the time the men’s final left the start line. The 21 year old’s distinct runner-like, high-tempo stride could be seen leading the five other men’s finalists on every climb, distinguishing him from the light fog and densely packed trees lining the course’s firmly packed tracks. Making his World Cup debut...