Kris Freeman out-skied a host of other top US and Canadian racers on his way to winning the first official race of the 2006 Spring Series at the Maine Winter Sports Center in Presque Isle, Maine: the mass-start 15km classic. Temperatures were in the upper 20's (F) and the trails were covered by just enough ice and heavily transformed granular snow that there were only very occasional dirty spots. The challenge however was on the...
Canadian Dasha Gaiazova broke away from a talented lead pack of women to win the first official Spring Series race, a 10km mass-start classic held at the Maine Winter Sports Center, by 35 seconds. Kikkan Randall overtook the Maine Winter Sports Center's own Kate Whitcomb (FSx) on the final climb and managed to hold her off to the finish. Christine Bisson outsprinted Wendy Wagner for fourth place. Karin Camenisch, who suffered a pole-tip to the...
For the past four days the weather has been warm and wet, which has melted some of our bomber base up here in the county. However, a cold front has moved through causing the temps to drop into the twenties during the day and teens at night. The long range forecast shows temps remaining below freezing along with snow showers for the next eight days. The trails are still in great shape and ready to...
Caribou, ME — The Northern Skiers Club of Caribou Maine is playing host to the USSA Spring Series Classic Team Sprint this coming Tuesday 3/20, which will also act as the National Championship for this exciting event. To sweeten the pot for the athletes and make it more exciting for the fans, Soderberg Construction, SW Collins Company, and Cary Medical Center have raised another $900 to go specifically to cash prems for the middle laps...
Spring Series 2006, County style! Aroostook County, The Crown of Maine or The County; what ever you call it, drive on Route 1 North until it ends…then keep going for about an hour. You’ll get here, I promise. It might take a few days, but you can’t miss it. You can also fly. There is tons of snow (with more in the forecast) and the skiing is great. Even if the snow decides to start...
Presque Isle, ME — The Nordic Heritage Ski Club is proud to announce that the 2006 International Spring Series is just 10 days away. We have snow, we have prize money, we have top racers coming, and a great social calendar!! We have 3 SuperTour events, a National Championships Team Sprint and the 30/50km National Championship all happening in Northern Maine. Here are some pictures from the Nordic Heritage Ski Center during the recent Biathlon...
Here are a couple of photos from last weekend's Owl Creek Chase 30K Supertour race in Aspen, Colorado. These photos were taken by Mallory Cox and sent to us by race director Mike Trecker. Dave Chamberlain goes down as Simons sprints ahead of Ward for the victory
Zack Simons of Team FSx won his second race in just over a week, this time the Owl Creek Chase in Aspen, Colorado. The Owl Creek Chase is a SuperTour event, and an extremely demanding course. Last year's winner, Ivan Babikov, called it the hardest race he'd ever skied. Fresh off his victory at the Boulder Mountain Tour, Simons was able to outsprint Casey Ward (Alpina/Madshus), Nathan Shultz (FSx) and David Chamberlain (Atomic) to take...
The tremendously successful CXC FIS SuperTour Series hosted by Central Cross-Country Skiing, overcame everything mother nature threw at them to wrap up the four-week loop around the Midwest last weekend. The Capitol Square Sprints opened the series with a bang, as racers fresh from the U.S. National Championships converged on Madison, Wisconsin to compete in skate team sprints and classic individual sprints around the majestic State Capitol building. From there, skiers traveled north to Mt....
Nordic SuperTour returns to Colorado with the 19th annual Owl Creek Chase presented by Coca-Cola The USSA SuperTour, the national pro tour for Nordic skiers returns to Colorado next Saturday, Feb. 11th with the 19th annual Owl Creek Chase presented by Coca-Cola. The Owl Creek Chase is a 25-kilometer freestyle race from Snowmass to Aspen that combines an elite level pro Nordic race with the casual feel of one of the Roaring Fork Valley’s favorite...
Natasha Naryshkina got her second SuperTour victory in as many days, coming out the right end of a three-way sprint to win Sunday's City of Lakes Loppet in Minneapolis. After winning the freestyle sprint downtown the day before, Naryshkina proved just as strong over the 35km course, holding off Rossignol teammate Karin Camenisch and third place finisher Anna McLoon (Atomic.) These three finished with 4 seconds of eachother and almost a minute and a half...
Despite a grim outlook the week before, the City of Lakes sprint races went off as planned on Saturday thanks to a huge volunteer shoveling effort and some unexpected snow earlier in the week. A couple nights of colder temperatures allowed for some snow-making which helped as well. Due to the uncertainty of the events before this week, many top skiers left town to attend other races such as the Boulder Mountain Tour. However there...
Here we go! Despite the challenges of mother nature, the City of Lakes Loppet, after a tiny snowstorm on Tuesday night, has brought out their shovels and decided to give the race a go. The last minute storm, as well as the concerted effort of numerous volunteers, will give SuperTour athletes one final weekend of racing in the Midwest. The Central Cross-Country Skiing Association NorAm SuperTour series began with downtown sprints in Madison, and then...
Cable, Wisconsin–The Telemark Lodge race venue, famous for holding the start of the American Birkebeiner each year, saw an outstandingly wide range of weather conditions during the three SuperTour events it hosted over the past several days. Wednesday's classic sprint was near-perfect hardwax skiing on powder, followed by a late-spring-like meltdown on Thursday and Friday, with an overnight freeze to give the early starters in Saturday's classic race a rock-hard ice track to pound away...
Team FSx racer Kate Whitcomb rebounded from slightly sub-par performances earlier in the week, and also overcame a broken pole basket on her way to winning Sunday's 10k mass-start SuperTour race at the Telemark Lodge in Cable, Wisconsin. Anna McLoon Jacqui Benson A big crowd of spectators and racers lined up along the course in the stadium, which made a big loop before coming into the finish, allowing for an extended view of the action....
Some parts of the course were in better shape than others… A few of the late-seed skiers pushing into the finish The next-fastest skier behind Chamberlain and Cook was Zach Violett (FSx/Auburn Ski Club), who opened hard and skied a steady second lap to finish one minute behind Chamberlain. UAF college racer Marius Korthauer was another 20 seconds back in 4th, narrowly beating out Maine Winter Sports Center teammates Colin Rodgers (FSx) and Tom Keefe...
Shayla Swanson has racked up several top-3 finishes in Midwest SuperTour races recently. Today however she finally did just enough to win the SuperTour 5k classic at Telemark, edging the strong Russian Natasha Naryshkina by 1.5 seconds. Natasha Naryshkina leading the A-Final of the sprint earlier this week at Telemark Naryshkina, always a fierce fighter when it comes to racing, held off APUNSC's Erin Hood by exactly 5 seconds on a course that featured almost...
Men's and women's photos from Wednesday's SuperTour classic sprint race held at the Telemark Resort in Cable, Wisconsin. Weather and trail conditions could hardly have been better for the event, which was won by Chris Cook and Natasha Naryshkina. (More on the men's race: http://www.fasterskier.com/racing2997.html ) Volunteers at the start. The race crew did an excellent job with course preparation and generally running a high-level event very smoothly. FSx racer Kate Whitcomb starting the qualifying...
Chris Cook is not slowing down. After winning the sprint at US Nationals in early January, he went on to win both the SuperTour team sprint (with Sun Valley teammate Zack Simons) and the individual sprint in Madison, Wisconsin. Today it was the classic sprint at Telemark Resort in Cable, Wisconsin that gave Cook another chance to light up the afterburners on a hilly, testing course. Conditions couldn't have been better, with bright sun, great...
Natasha Naryshkina continued to dominate the Mid-west SuperTour circuit with a win in today's classic sprint race at the Telemark resort in Cable, Wisconsin. Telemark is famous for being the start of the North America's largest annual ski race, the American Birkebeiner. But today it was pure power that mattered in a much faster race. Competition in the women's race was significantly less than in the men's, with only 11 women racing, however there were...