For the second-straight year, the World Cup’s season-ending races will be held in Canada, with Québec City hosting 2017 World Cup Finals, this Friday through Sunday. Canada initially announced a according to a press release. On Thursday, FasterSkier confirmed that the list included the Women | U.S. selection criteria, and
OSLO, Norway — Here’s something dizzying: six times around an 8.3-kilometer course with a total vertical gain of just over two thousand meters. In non-metric terms, all 47 finishers on Saturday’s Holmenkollen 50 k classic race accumulated roughly 6,574 feet of climbing. On the sharp end of the race for most of those kilometers were Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby and Finland’s Iivo Niskanen. They were the animators for the hordes of Norwegians lining the course...
NCAA Skiing Championships (Jackson, N.H.): 15/20 k freestyle mass starts On the final day of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Skiing Championships in northern New Hampshire, the University of Utah pulled out a 16.5-point victory over the University of Colorado-Boulder (and finished 17.5 points ahead of the University of Denver) in the team standings, and the Petra Hyncicova, achieved their second-straight titles in as many nordic races this week. On a frigid Saturday morning in Jackson,...
DRAMMEN, Norway — The stage was set around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday when a homegrown Norwegian made good in front of a spectator-lined 1.2-kilometer classic course smack-dab in the middle of Drammen’s city center. It was a day of contrast that began with blue skies and ended with a deep chill and falling snow as thumping music pounded and the gothic Bragernes Church loomed. In between, the clouds amassed and the classic tracks stayed firmed for...
FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Drammen, Norway): Classic sprints Just three days after 2017 Nordic World Championships ended in Lahti, Finland, World Cup cross-country skiers were back to their regular-season grind with 1.2-kilometer classic sprints on Wednesday in Drammen, Norway. In the men’s race, Norway stole the day with Eirik Brandsdal notching his first World Cup win since 2015 in Drammen, but Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov broke up the team’s total domination of the final with a...
LAHTI, Finland — Here’s the basics: fast and firm tracks, cloudless skies, and once again a stacked field for the final event of the 2017 Nordic World Championships: the men’s 50-kilometer freestyle mass start. Over the course of the 50 k, Canada’s Harvey had to think about one thing: be up front near the top three in order to shadow Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby’s inevitable gut punch in the last kilometer. What he didn’t have...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Men’s 50 k freestyle mass start After a week of missing out on the medals at 2017 Nordic World Championships, Canada’s Alex Harvey, a four-time World Championships medalist from 2011, 2013 and 2015, achieved his first individual gold medal in the final race of this year’s World Championships in Lahti, Finland. Harvey, 28, won the men’s 50-kilometer freestyle mass start in a drag race to the finish. Entering the...
LAHTI, Finland — 1, 2, 3, 4: Norway’s Marit Bjørgen, Norway’s Heidi Weng, Norway’s Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, Norway’s Ragnhild Haga. That’s how the women’s 30-kilometer freestyle mass start at the 2017 Nordic World Championships ended on Saturday. Bjørgen has two previous 30-kilometer championship titles, but Saturday’s was her first in freestyle. She won the race in 1:08:36.8 hours, just 1.9 seconds ahead of a hard-charging, photo-finishing Weng for second and Jacobsen for third. Haga finished...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Women’s 30 k freestyle mass start Marit Bjørgen made it a four-peat on Saturday with her fourth gold and third individual win over the last week at 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland. (She previously won the 15-kilometer skiathlon, 10 k classic, and 4 x 5 k relay.) The 36-year-old Norwegian closed out the championships with a 1.9-second victory in the women’s 30-kilometer freestyle mass start, finishing in 1:08:36.8...
LAHTI, Finland — There were three medals up for grabs during Friday’s 4 x 10-kilometer relay at 2017 Nordic World Championships on Friday. Yet after the scramble leg, two distinct races: Norway and Russia’s dance for gold, and what eventually became a four-way tango between Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany for bronze and silver. Russia’s Andrey Larkov and Norway’s Didrik Tønseth first strung out and then smoked the field late in their leg. By the tag...
IBU World Cup (PyeongChang, South Korea): Men’s 10 k sprint US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey kept his clean-shooting streak alive with another one of his personal best results on Friday, racing to second in the men’s 10-kilometer sprint at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. Bailey started 81st and hit all 10 targets in the two-stage race to cross the finish line in first, 4.7 seconds ahead of France’s Martin Fourcade,...
LAHTI, Finland—The Norwegian lineup for the women’s 4 x 5-kilometer team at the 2017 Nordic World Championships on Thursday was daunting: Maiken Caspersen Falla, Heidi Weng, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, Marit Bjørgen. On paper and on snow, a rundown of names and accomplishments. Here during these Lahti championships the Norse foursome have hauled; Falla and Weng with a classic team sprint gold, Bjørgen a 15 k skiathlon gold, and Jacobsen’s hardware was a bronze in the 10 k classic. On Thursday...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Women’s 4 x 5 k relay The Norwegian women’s team got a much-needed lift from Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, the third leg of its 4 x 5-kilometer relay, on Thursday, who tagged her teammate Marit Bjørgen nearly a minute ahead of anyone else. From there, Bjørgen anchored the Norwegians to a 1:01.6-minute victory for her third gold of 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland. Meanwhile, Sweden and Finland battled for...
LAHTI, Finland — Through the first seven medal races of 2017 Nordic World Championships, the hometown Finns came close. There was Niskanen was primed to pass Iversen for what appeared to be a golden performance. Instead of a cheer concluding the sprint, a collective exhale deflated the crowd: Niskanen and teammate Sami Jauhojärvi ultimately settled for bronze. While it wasn’t the result they had hoped for, it remained the 25-year-old Niskanen’s first World Championships medal. Another...
LAHTI, Finland — Moments before the women’s 10-kilometer classic individual start at the 2017 Nordic World Championships on Tuesday, temperatures read 35 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity hovered around 97 percent — the air nearly saturated. Earlier in the day, a near-ground fog lapped the tops of the three iconic ski jumps looming above the ski stadium. In contrast to earlier classic events at these championships — a 15 k skiathlon, and classic team sprint — the...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Women’s 10 k classic No contest. That was the takeaway of Marit Bjørgen’s performance in the women’s 10-kilometer classic individual start on Monday at 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland, after the Norwegian posted a 41-second victory in 25:24.9 minutes. Bjørgen started 54th of 72 starters and clocked the fastest time over every intermediate timing point on the course. Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla had been the previous race leader after...
LAHTI, Finland — The breath taken out of a nation. Throughout the lifetime of a sporting fan, high-stakes races or games offer the chance for seared-into-the-neurons moments, things you remember for an eternity with the distinct recollection of where you were and what you were doing when the news came down. But those are exceptionally rare moments. And depending on what side of the equation you’re on, they can be mile high or a mile...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Classic team sprints Defending champions Norway repeated gold in the women’s team sprint, with Heidi Weng and Maiken Caspersen Falla crossing the finish line first in Lahti, Finland. On the second-to-last loop, it looked like Russia could have something to say about that. Yulia Belorukova put in a furious sprint up the course’s biggest climb, and then beat Weng to the exchange. But her teammate Natalia Matveeva could not match the pace when Falla...
LAHTI, Finland — Electric. With every jumbotron shot of Finland’s Krista Parmakoski or a glimpse of her powerful compact-frame as she lapped through the stadium, the hometown Finns were electric. White and blue flags waved. Like anywhere in the world when a brilliant athletic performance unfolds in the home country, the roars for Parmakoski were deafening. From the start, she emitted a big dose of hope for fans in Lahti during Saturday’s 15-kilometer skiathlon at the...
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): 15/30 k skiathlons This one’s for you, kid. Marit Bjørgen became the second relatively new mom to medal in the second race of 2017 Nordic World Championships on Saturday (after American Kikkan Randall earned victory in Thursday’s 12.5 k individual, Bankes placed 13th and Ellingson achieved her best non-relay result in 18th at Thursday’s 15 k individual) in fifth (+38.2). Cody Johnson was the top American in 46th (+3:02.9), followed by...