Volunteers and race officials are scrambling to preserve what remains of the snow base in Rumford, Maine, with 16 hours to go before the first race of the 2011 U.S. National Championships. Sunday’s classic sprint should still go off as scheduled. But despite the best efforts of organizers, temperatures in 40’s on Saturday decimated the trails at Black Mountain of Maine. Late in the day, the 1.4-kilometer sprint course was a mix of clean, wet...
Despite surprising herself with top-10 and podium results in the early season, Caitlin Compton is headed into US Senior Nationals knowing that her racing will only get better.
This year, the U.S. Biathlon Association (USBA) had a radical shift in its athlete development strategy: instead of sending a full squad to the World Cup and leaving the rest of the American biathlon field at home, they would minimize their World Cup presence to only those athletes who were succeeding, and field a much larger team at the IBU (International Biathlon Union) Cup races. While the U.S. biathletes that FasterSkier talked to, on and...
While racers on the World Cup have voiced concern over the mini tour format following the FIS World Cup mini-tour in Kuusamo, Finland, earlier this season, North American racers overwhelmingly welcome the format.
HOUGHTON, Mich. – Registration for the 2011 USSA Michigan Tech Super Tour Event presented by Portage Health is now open. The event, January 28-30, will feature races for youth through professional skiers and everyone in between. All races are at the Michigan Tech Nordic Training Center, host of the 2006 Junior Olympics and the 2007 and 2008 U.S. National Championships. “Michigan Tech is proud to host the 2011 USSA Michigan Tech Super Tour Event presented...
“Jessie Diggins basically blew by us on the last lap,” said Holly Brooks, who was leading the tour Sunday morning. Sadie Bjornsen (APUNSC) also gapped Brooks at the end, and left Brooks in third place for the overall Nor-Am minitour.
With eleven athletes already racing in Europe – that’s more than the U.S. Ski Team can say – what could the U.S. biathlon community possibly ask for from their governing body? Well, if some is good, then more is better. After a second series of trials races in Mount Itasca, Minnesota, the U.S. Biathlon Association (USBA) named four more athletes to the IBU Cup roster (the series one level below the World Cup), as well...
One of the intentions of the tour format introduced to elite-level cross-country ski racing in the past few years is to allow sprinters and distance specialists to compete on a level playing field. That balance hasn’t been achieved yet at the World Cup level: None of the winners of the four editions of the Tour de Ski, men’s or women’s, have been pure sprinters. But in this weekend’s three-stage mini-tour held in Rossland, BC, organizers...
Holly Brooks (APU) followed up her second place in Friday’s sprint with an 8.2-second victory over Jessie Diggins (CXC Elite) in the women’s 5 k freestyle on the second day of the Rossland NorAm mini-tour. With extremely fast conditions, Brooks flew around the course in just over 12 minutes. “I knew it was going to be fast,” said Brooks, “but I didn’t know it would be that fast.” Diggins’ CXC teammate, Caitlin Compton, finished third,...
Veteran Lars Flora (APU) posted his first win of an already-successful 2011 season, capturing the top spot in the men’s 10km skate in the second day of the Rossland NorAm mini-tour. Flora edged Canadian World Cup skier George Grey by 2.1 seconds on a fast 5km loop, while fellow Canadian Drew Goldsack was third, +6.9. With a winning time of just under 22 minutes, Flora thinks it may have been his fastest 10k ever. “I...
As the competition heats up on the second day of the NorAm mini-tour here is a quick look back at yesterday’s sprint race through the lens of Rob Whitney.
With Friday’s skate sprint opener at the Rossland mini-tour serving as a winner-takes-all qualifying race for the Canadian World Championships team, smart money said that the Canucks would come out swinging. And they did—at least one of them. After sneaking through her quarter- and semi-final heats, Perianne Jones (Canadian National B-Team) roared out of the start in the finals, intent on staying out of trouble and keeping her Oslo dreams from sliding away in a...
So far this year, Drew Goldsack has been tearing it up on the NorAm sprint circuit. Goldsack, a member of Canada’s senior development team, had won every sprint he entered coming into this weekend’s mini-tour in Rossland, British Columbia. But while he had proven that he was the North American not on the World Cup circuit, he hadn’t had the chance to test himself against his teammates in Europe. Until now. On Friday, Goldsack was...
After a lackluster season last year, Chelsea Holmes, a member of the new Far West Farm Team, had the best results of her career at the West Yellowstone Ski Festival over Thanksgiving weekend, finishing ninth in the classic sprint, fourth in the skate race, and eleventh in the classic race. Holmes, originally from Alaska, was a three-time NCAA qualifier for the University of Nevada (UNR) and an NCAA All-American in 2008. So she certainly has...
Drew Goldsack has proven conclusively that he is the fastest sprinter in North America. The former Canadian National Ski Team (CNST) member and current Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) has won every domestic sprint race he has entered, and heads into the NorAm mini-tour this weekend in Rossland B.C. as a legitimate threat to win the entire event. While Goldsack seems to have a leg up on the Americans in the sprint arena, he has...
Holly Brooks of Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Club won the 10K skate race with almost a minute to spare to Caitlin Compton (CXC) in second place in extremely soft conditions. That was just the first race of the day.
The U.S. Biathlon Association (USBA) decided to try something new this year: instead of sending all of its best athletes to the World Cup, they would send a smaller group of developing athletes to the IBU Cup – biathlon’s equivalent of the Continental Cup, but more competitive – as well. “It’s better for athlete development to go to the IBU Cup and have success, than it is to go straight to the World Cup,” USBA...
Only margins out of second place, US Ski Team’s Taylor Fletcher hauled into third place Sunday, climbing out of 28th to secure an extra World Cup spot for the United States.
While Sunday’s Haywood NorAm 10 and 15 k freestyle races were held in Canada, it was the Americans who took the top step of both podiums – and convincingly. The men’s race started in sloppy conditions – approximately 20 centimeters of snow fell overnight, and continued right up until the start of the men’s race, resulting in ankle deep snow in some places. The men skied three loops of 5 k, and each one contained...
Drew Goldsack of the Canadian National B-Team continued his winning ways in the first NorAm competition of the 2011 season, besting National Team teammate Frederic Touchette in the final of the classic sprint in Vernon, British Columbia on Saturday. Goldsack won both SuperTour sprints over Thanksgiving in West Yellowstone. Those races were qualifier-only, but Goldsack had no problem with the heats today, leading a Canadian sweep of the podium. Graham Nishikawa finished third, just ahead...