With the 2017/2018 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to outstanding North American junior athletes across all nordic disciplines. *** Ben Loomis, U.S. Nordic Combined Team In late January,...
Two and a half years ago, Kelsey Dickinson automatically landed a spot on the U.S. World Cup squad for December. “Our goal for her this year is to make that Olympic team, for sure, but she’s really four years ahead of schedule with it,” Dickinson’s ski coach at Saint Scholastica, Maria Stuber, said. “Nothing about what’s going on right now is what I expected to happen,” Dickinson, a double-major in philosophy and natural science, said....
At the end of Mads Ek Strøm’s senior year at the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU), the 26-year-old Norwegian had some decisions to make. He started by looking for a job in the U.S., specifically in the finance industry, in addition to pursuing a master’s degree in finance. Then the three-time National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion — who won back-to-back races at the 2016 championships and came winningest male skier in CU history, accepted the...
Ann-Cathrin Uhl will be a senior at the University of Anchorage Fairbanks (UAF) this year, but for the summer she was back in her native Germany as usual. Uhl made her first trip to NCAA Skiing Championships last season, finishing 30th and 34th at the races in Jackson, N.H. But she has long been a contributor to the UAF Nanooks effort both on the ski trails and as a cross-country runner. This summer, a group...
For almost as long as Nick Lovett has been skiing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), he has been thinking about how people train in other parts of the world. This summer, the Wyoming native went on a trip to find out, visiting teammate Jan Čech at his home in the Czech Republic. “I have been roommates with Jan for two years, and have been considering training with him in Czech for just as...
A World Junior Championships and World U23 Championships skier for Finland who had racked up top-10 finishes in her country’s competitive national-championships field, Krista Niiranen moved to the American Southwest last year. “I had been studying law in the University of Lapland in Finland, but for the last season I transferred to the University of New Mexico and represented the UNM Ski Team,” she explained. Niiranen made a splash on the SuperTour and NCAA circuits,...
Talking about their summer plans, University of New Hampshire (UNH) skiers Annavitte Rand and Silje Wilson suddenly had what they called a crazy idea. Wilson hails from Hamar, Norway, and Rand from Vermont. They both wanted something new out of this summer: Wilson wanted to train with other college skiers (and not just Norwegian club teammates), and Rand wanted to go somewhere new. “Given that this is the summer before my senior year, I knew...
After spending last summer training in the U.S. with the Craftsbury Outdoor Center’s U23/collegiate summer training group, this year Johanna Talihärm decided to go home to Estonia. The FIS Cross-County World Cup swings by Otepää periodically (as does the Continental Cup circuit and biathlon’s IBU Cup series), but Talihärm is originally from Tallinn, Estonia’s capital and a World Heritage Site. That’s the atmosphere she moved back to for the summer — which she said had both pros...
Locked in the heart of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on an arm of land stretching into Lake Superior is the small city of Houghton. Locals there are intimate with lake-effect snow, long winters and a strong sense of community. Houghton is also home to Michigan Technological University (MTU) and the school’s nordic ski team, which officially named MTU’s newest nordic head coach and cross-country running assistant coach. He’ll be joined by his partner and MTU alumna, Kristen Monahan,...
A Mainer for most of his life, Tim Whiton jumped on the chance to take his first college head coaching job back in his home state. It wasn’t just the chance to move back to New England that snagged his attention. As Whiton heads to the University of Maine Presque Isle (UMPI), he is also excited about trying to build up a program that has seen four other head coaches come and go in the...
The finances of the University of New Mexico (UNM) athletic department are back in the news once more, this time with allegations of spending nearly $65,000 in public funds to pay for a 2015 golfing trip to Scotland and then actively hiding the trip and its participants, on top of a recent history of money-losing sports programs and expensive coaching buyouts. As FasterSkier pointed to a mitigation clause written into the quondam coach’s contract that...
Harald Bjerke got on a plane to the U.S. in 1963, and after competing for Denver University and earning a degree in business marketing went on to become the product manager for Swix for 42 years.
Two-and-half months into her summer training last year, Kristen Bourne woke up in a cold sweat. Her temperature read higher than normal and no amount of lozenges could soothe her sore throat. The Central Collegiate Ski Association (CSSA) Distance Championships and also qualified for NCAA Skiing Championships. There in Jackson, N.H., she finished 17th in the 5 k classic and was the top NMU woman in the 15 k freestyle mass start two days later, placing 13th and
This article has been updated with additional comments from UNM student-athlete Brenna Egan. * * * Skiing at the University of New Mexico (UNM) is officially alive again, at least for one more year, while the university and the ski team pursue viable long-term funding sources, school officials announced earlier on Thursday. Speaking at a regularly scheduled meeting of the UNM Board of Regents Thursday afternoon, Acting President Chaouki T. Abdallah told the board that “several...
Organizers in Ishpeming, Mich., had everything in place to host the 2003 U.S. SuperTour Finals and Distance Nationals. Everything but snow. The area had encountered a heat wave and with barely any coverage, the competitions needed to be moved. The chief of competition and the organizing committee for the weeklong event, Joe Haggenmiller had his hands full in finding a new venue. A little more than an hour northwest was his answer. Houghton, located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, had plenty of...
When #everyonesalobo is more than just a hashtag: Mikaela Shiffrin and Jessie Diggins lend their support to the UNM Ski Team. Meanwhile, current athletes encourage others to take advantage of opportunities, "Because you never know if that opportunity is going to be taken away from you."
With spring in full swing and many skiers returning to training, this week’s Wednesday Workout is presented by University of Utah Ski Team member, Kevin Bolger. While most of his athletic accomplishments from this past season are nordic-based — he’s a NCAA All-American, the 2017 Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association (RMISA) U.S. nationals classic sprint champion — most of Bolger’s spring workouts mean giving skiing a spring ‘break.’ *** It’s no secret that natives of Sweden, Norway and other overseas nations often...
Football at the University of New Mexico (UNM) cost nearly as much in allocated expenses last fiscal year as 19 other sports combined, according to a new analysis of data provided to the federal government by the UNM athletic department. The financial context comes amid continuing suggestions by ski-team advocates that as elsewhere, football is king. The school reported total expenses for football, in the 2015 fiscal year (July 2015 – June 2016), of, in...
UNM suggests that athletes who can compete for the podium will readily find another home. Where does that leave solid skiers who are realistically not yet podium contenders? “We have been informed about this so late that it is too late to apply to many scholarships,” UNM skier Brenna Egan says. “Of course I am going to do everything I can, but every indication is pointing to the end of my ski career.”
With the 2016/2017 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S. and Canada, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to outstanding male and female skiers on the U.S. NCAA collegiate circuit. *** When you led the University of Utah to its first...