(Note: this preview doesn’t include college or junior skiers, although many will be competing in the opening SuperTours. College racing will have its own preview at a later date.) With one week until the opening SuperTour races in West Yellowstone, it’s time to start remembering what the domestic race circuit looks like. A number of top athletes retired after last season, but their spots have been filled by recent college graduates. Here’s what you need...
Team Canada wrapped up its World Cup selection trials in Canmore on Tuesday with a pair of mass start races, which were won by Megan Imrie and Nathan Smith. With barely any snow in Scandinavia, the team was lucky to be at home in Canmore, where there has been skiing thanks to “Frozen Thunder,” a snow-saving operation. The team was racing to select two women and one man to join prequalified racers Imrie, LP Leguellec,...
When the parade of brightly-colored spandex suits heats up the domestic circuit this year, competitors and spectators will see a new squad: Stella Racing. And while America’s first elite women-only team in more than a decade might be small, it will definitely be fast. Morgan Smyth, Evelyn Dong, and Zoe Roy decided to start a team based out of Salt Lake City, Utah, and have spent the spring and summer making it happen. Their rationale...
Last winter, the Canadian NorAm series embraced the mini-tour concept with open arms. With four events over the course of the season, athletes, coaches, race organizers and fans alike had the opportunity to experience the new race format, which has become a significant part of the World Cup circuit. Hosted at four separate locations – Rossland, B.C., Orford, Quebec, Nakkertok, Quebec, and Kelowna, B.C., the mini-tours were spread out—both geographically, with two in the East...
The U.S. House of Representatives gave ski areas a big boost on Monday, passing a bill that would help resorts create summer jobs. According to the Vail Daily, the Ski Area Recreational Opportunity Enhancement Act would amend the ski-only rules that currently govern U.S. Forest Service Land. The bill, H.R. 765, received unanimous support in the House and next goes to the Senate. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Denver) was its driving force in the House. “At...
About halfway up Sun Valley’s Bald Mountain, Chelsea Holmes strained to see the top. Without much luck, she put her head down and poles forward, reciting a familiar mantra to push her to the finish. “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming,” a little fish sang out in her head. In her first time racing Idaho’s Baldy Hill Climb on Saturday, the 24-year-old Holmes wasn’t hallucinating. She actually felt pretty good scaling 3,140 vertical feet on...
For the last two years, the U.S. Ski Team (USST) and U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) have been pushing American athletes to compete more in Europe, citing a need for experience in the cutthroat racing environment there. Belying that push, however, were thousands of dollars in prize money awarded to the winners of the sprint and distance disciplines of the SuperTour, the four month-long domestic race series. Those bonuses—$2,000 for each one, for men...
Continuing on in our over-analysis of the recent New Zealand FIS races, we turn to the sprints. It’s much harder to do anything sensible with these races (even given that I’ve over-analyzing things!) since the fields are so small even the difference in placing between specific skiers is potentially misleading. However, just for fun let’s [...] Related posts:
Hey, the first international ski races of the 2011-2012 season took place recently in New Zealand! They are officially FIS sanctioned races, but my impression is that they have a bit more of a training camp time trial feel to them. The Americans, Canadians, some Russians, and then an assortment of Japanese, Korean, and locals [...] Related posts:
Holding elite level events, whether World Cup races, National Championships or just FIS points competitions, pose numerous challenges for organizers and National Governing Bodies in the US and Canada. Over the course of the summer FasterSkier will examine the various issues at hand. Today we start with a piece on homologation, with future topics to include snowmaking and prize money, among others. Until this year, the U.S. and Canada have had reprieve from the International...
Every May, after storage wax has cooled and spandex has been washed for the first time since November, coaches, officials, and athletes from around the country descend upon Park City for four days to discuss scheduling for the following year and implementing new race rules and formats. This is the USSA Congress. FasterSkier caught up with John Farra, USSA Nordic Director, to get a run down of the most import developments to come out of...
As the ski season for Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club (SSWSC) wound down, juniors coach and former World Cup nordic combined skier Kerry Lynch answered questions via phone and e-mail with FasterSkier correspondent Peter Minde. A three-time nordic combined national champion, Lynch raced from 1979 until 1987, and his international success presaged the later successes of Ryan Heckman and the current crop of U.S. nordic combined skiers. A participant in the 1980 and 1984 Winter...
FasterSkier Continental Skier of the Year With two different continental cup series and two sets of national championships, determining the top domestic racers can be challenging. Head-to-head match ups are usually limited, and it can be difficult to compare field strength. Such was the case this year. A strong argument can be made for both the overall SuperTour winner and the NorAm Cup. Champions. As is sometimes the case, we felt there was no better...
FasterSkier Breakthrough Skier of the Year For the first time we are naming a Breakthrough Skier of the Year. The award is even less defined than the Rookie of the Year. Any skier who took a significant step forward is eligible. Though not limited to domestic skiers, we will lean toward such athletes, as the Rookie of the Year has generally gone to the World Cup level. Breakthrough Skier of the Year (women): Kate Fitzgerald...
The following is the USSA’s list of nominations for the 2012 U.S. Cross Country Ski Team. The nominations include those athletes who qualified based on published selection criteria. The USSA will announce the actual team roster later this spring, naming those athletes who accept the responsibilities of being a part of the U.S. Ski Team and who are planning to compete in the 2012 season. Athletes nominated to the 2012 U.S. Cross Country Ski Team...
The U.S. Cross-Country Ski Team (USST) for the 2011-2012 season is expected to be announced in a few hours, according to John Farra, the program’s director. The nominations haven’t been made public yet, but in making them, Farra and Chris Grover, the USST head coach, have faced a familiar dilemma: add a number of athletes to the squad, and dilute an always-tight budget, or preserve the higher levels of support that come with a smaller...
Aiming to add more action and increase interest for the sport, the recent FIS Nordic Combined meeting in Zürich (SUI) discussed new race formats.
Kris Freeman (USST) had one last chance to nail it. A type 1 diabetic, Freeman had had two straight races in Sun Valley in which his efforts had been stymied by the disease. Saturday’s freestyle hill climb up Dollar Mountain, the final race in the four-stage SuperTour Finals, was his last shot to get it right. He did, which allowed him to leave behind three other athletes on the toughest section of the four-kilometer course,...
If there was anyone who deserved a beer after Saturday’s hill climb in Sun Valley, it was Kikkan Randall. After winning four straight races here—and the first three in the four-stage SuperTour Finals—Randall (APU/USST) had a whopping 1:23 head start over her nearest challenger in the four-kilometer hill climb up Dollar Mountain, which was handicapped based on results from earlier this week. Randall could have taken it easy. But that’s not the approach that gave...
Four down, one to go. The best season of Kikkan Randall’s career is almost over, and she’s going out in style, having won four straight races at the SuperTour Finals and U.S. 30 k Championships in Sun Valley. The latest was Friday’s classic sprint, in which she skied into the finish with a clear, two-and-a-half second lead over her roommate, Canadian Chandra Crawford, with Utah’s Maria Graefnings in third. Under a hot sun, the finals...