HomeCategory

Nordic Combined

Coverage of World Cup and Continental Cup Nordic Combined competitions.

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report A few shooting errors by pursuit bronze medalist Anais Bescond were not enough to derail France, as the team of Marie Dorin Habert, Bescond, Simon Desthieux, and Martin Fourcade took gold in the mixed relay. Skiing the first leg, Dorin Habert shot clean and tagged off just seven seconds behind the leading team from Italy. Bescond then used four spare rounds over the course of her relay leg, dropping the team to fourth...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, postponed to Thursday due to high winds, the nordic-combined jumping portion went off earlier in the day as planned. The men’s individual normal hill/10-kilometer Gundersen competition saw Austria’s Franz-Josef Rehrl scored the highest number of points off the jump with a jump of 112 meters and 130.6 points. Norway’s Jarl Magnus Riiber jumped to second, flying 111 meters and scoring 126.9 points, and Japan’s Akito Watabe posted the third-best...

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report After the jumping round of the nordic-combined individual normal hill/10-kilometer Gundersen-start competition on Wednesday, Austria’s Franz-Josef Rehrl topped the standings thanks to a jump of 112 meters, just a meter farther than second place Jarl Magnus Riiber of Norway. The top American was Bryan Fletcher, who sat in 18th place after a jump of 97.5 meters good for 99 points. He started the 10 k cross-country skiing portion of the competition 2:06...

Sunday Rundown: Gatineau, Hakuba & Planica

NorAm Eastern Canadian Championships (Gatineau, Quebec): 10/15 k classic pursuits Rosie Frankowski defended her lead and tallied her won Saturday’s large hill/10 k competition, took the final spot on the podium after a photo finish with the Czech Republic’s Tomas Portyk. They finished 11.1 and 11.2 seconds behind Schmid in third and fourth, respectively. American Adam Loomis achieved his best individual result in three years, placing 24th (+3:03.4), after jumping to 30th and starting 3:20...

Saturday Rundown: Relay Silver for U.S. Men; Loomis 4th; Plus Hakuba & Gatineau

(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Americans Ben Loomis, Luke Jager and Gus Schumacher.) Junior World Championships (Goms, Switzerland): Men’s and women’s relays Two individual medals and a relay podium. That’s how the U.S. team fared this week at Junior World Championships in terms of a medal count, but the significance of its breakthroughs go way beyond the hardware. Hailey Swirbul became the most successful American nordic skier at Junior World...

Thursday Rundown: Swirbul 3rd in Junior Worlds Skiathlon; U.S. NoCo Relay 7th (Updated)

(This article has been updated to include comments from Americans Hailey Swirbul and Gus Schumacher.) Junior World Championships (Goms, Switzerland): 10/20 k skiathlons second in the 5 k classic for her first individual medal and the best-ever finish for the U.S. at Junior Worlds. “This means so much,” she told race organizers after taking third in Thursday’s skiathlon. “I’m so happy to represent the United States here and show how we can improve in the...

Under 23 Questions: Jared Shumate

In an effort to showcase the North Americans competing at this week’s International Ski Federation (FIS) 2018 Nordic Combined Junior World Championships in Kandersteg, Switzerland, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. Here we have 18-year-old Jared Shumate, of the Park City Nordic Ski Club, who’s representing the U.S. at his second Junior Worlds. On Thursday, Shumate individual normal hill/10 k on Tuesday for an individual...

Sunday Rundown: Seefeld, Goms, Ridnaun, Craftsbury

IBU Open European Championships (Ridnaun-Val Ridanna, Italy): Single mixed & mixed relays Susan Dunklee and Lowell Bailey teamed up for the final day of the 2018 International Biathlon Union (IBU) Open European Championships in Ridnaun, Italy, and raced to a bronze medal in the single mixed relay. The American duo, both of which earned individual medals at last year’s IBU World Championships, finished just 9.1 seconds out of first, which went to Norway’s Thelka Brun-Lie...

Saturday Rundown: Seefeld and Ridnaun

FIS Nordic Combined World Cup (Seefeld, Austria): Normal hill/10 k Two of the same men from Jumping | Women’s report Women’s final  Men’s qualifier | Friday’s sprint and thus started first), and shot clean to take the lead after the third stage — where Varvynets missed one. Chevalier went on to clean the final stage for perfect 20-for-20 shooting and crossed the line first in 29:25.4. Varvynets finished second, 11.0 seconds back after missing a...

Friday Rundown: Seefeld, Craftsbury, Ridnaun

Nordic Combined World Cup (Seefeld, Austria): Individual normal hill/5 k On the first of the three-day Seefeld Triple Nordic Combined World Cup, Japan’s Akito Watabe took the win and Taylor Fletcher was the top American in 28th in the individual normal hill/5-kilometer Gundersen on Friday. Watabe put himself in second in the jump portion and started the 5 k ski race 21 seconds behind Norway’s Jarl Magnus Riiber in first. Watabe caught Riiber and beat...

Sunday Rundown: Planica, Chaux-Neuve, Rena, Red Deer

FIS Cross Country World Cup (Planica, Slovenia): 10/15 k classic Men’s report Just when it looked like one of those Charlotte-Kalla days, Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski swooped in and topped the Swede’s time by 3.6 seconds in the women’s 10-kilometer classic individual start on Sunday for her first-career outright World Cup win. Outright meaning non-stage; Pärmäkoski has two World Cup wins to her name for setting the fastest time of day in 2016 pursuit races. But...

Packing Ski-Speed Punch, Fletcher Brothers Aim to Lock Up PyeongChang

On Dec. 30, the nordic-combined community will gather in Park City for the his best individual result in nearly two years. “The opportunity was there,” Bryan, 31, said on the phone from Utah this week. He explained that the jumping hill in Ramsau is smaller than the hill used for the opening weekend in Ruka, Finland. “Ramsau is one of those hills where everybody tends to jump a little bit closer. That was the first...

FasterSkier’s 12 Days of FBD Christmas: Day 8

DDay 2 | Day 4 | Day 6 | mom jeans with his squad, we’d skin up the ski mountain at “O-Dark Thirty” on Dong Patrol (how Steamboat bros refer to Dawn Patrol, because it’s usually nothing but about 10 smelly dudes doing this) with nothing but our headlamp and shining personalities to light the way. For anyone who has ever spent any time with either myself or J-Smu, this obviously meant that we were quite reliant on...

Sunday Rundown: Ramsau, Toblach, Annecy, St. Ulrich, Rossland (Updated)

NorAm mini tour (Rossland, B.C.): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits Team Gregg ended the Rossland NorAm mini tour with another double win, with American Caitlin Gregg and her husband Brian Gregg winning the 10- and 15-kilometer freestyle pursuits, respectively, at the Black Jack Ski Club trails. Caitlin capped the long weekend with her third-straight win, a 48.28-second victory over former Canadian biathlete Zina Kocher (Foothills Nordic). Caitlin started first and was first across the finish in 29:02.86,...

Grand Prix Continues: Bryan Fletcher 15th in Tschagguns, Taylor Fletcher Wears Red Bib (Updated)

After during a provisional competition round (PCR). Beyond the top-tier competition, the Summer Grand Prix offers the opportunity for athletes to test equipment and experience how new rules are enforced. One of the key rules has to do with suit permeability. “I got DQ’d in the first PCR because my suit didn’t pass enough air,” Fetcher wrote in an email. “I wasn’t trying to cheat, but actually it was very warm and I was sweating...

Taylor Fletcher Leads U.S. in 11th on Day 2 of NoCo Grand Prix

Green grass, plastic jumping surfaces, big jumps, sunshine, rollerskis and no snow means one thing. It’s August in Europe and it’s time for the International Ski Federation (FIS) Nordic Combined Summer Grand Prix 2017. Last weekend Aug. 19-20, Oberwiesenthal, Germany hosted a two-day Grand Prix event. Day 1 featured a two-person team event with the requisite jump and 2 x 7.5-kilometer cross-country race to determine the winners. Czech Republic’s first team (Czech Republic I), comprised of...

Wednesday Workout: Developing an Annual Rollerski Time Trial with USA NoCo

From late June into early July, U.S. Nordic Combined hosted a major training camp in Steamboat Springs, Colo. Among the sessions was the Fish Creek Time Trial, a skate rollerski race first held in 2007. That year, Johnny Spillane set down the first in a series of course records that would be improved by different athletes in the next decade. The time trial is 8 kilometers and gains 885 feet of elevation, starting just south of...

What Predicts Nordic Combined Success? Study Finds Out

What are the physiological capacities of nordic-combined athletes and can laboratory tests predict performance capabilities on the World Cup? Those are the questions that a team of Norwegian researchers set out to answer by testing 12 competitors from eight different countries before a 2015 World Cup competition in Trondheim, Norway. The study, led by Vegard Rasdal of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the Norwegian Olympic Sports Center, was recently published in the...

Flying Farther: Developing Ski Jumping and NoCo, USA Nordic Style

Three years ago, U.S. Ski and Snowboard (officially dropped nordic combined from its funding rolls. It was a potentially big blow and flat-liner moment for a program coming off one the most successful runs in U.S. nordic sports history. As recently as 2013, the foursome of Todd Lodwick, Billy Demong, Bryan Fletcher, and Taylor Fletcher earned bronze in the team event at World Championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy. Now, under the umbrella of USA Nordic, and two World Championships...