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23-year-old Olga Tiagai (RUS) won the today’s 10km classic interval start race in Schlinig in a time of 29:41.6. The young Russian was the 2005 FIS Nordic Junior World Champion in the Pursuit. She finished 11.9 seconds ahead of French World Cup skier Aurore Cuinet. Silja Tarvonen of Finland took third, 37.3 seconds behind the winner. Tiagai increased her speed over the course of the race. At the intermediate point at 5km, she was 4th...

MALLES, Italy (Feb. 24) – Simeon Hamilton (Aspen, CO; Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club/Middlebury College) finished 20th Sunday in a 1K sprint in the Under-23 Cross Country World Championships. Mike Sinnott was the only other American to qualify for the heats, finishing 29 on the day after qualifying in 18th. Hamilton finished nearly 20 seconds out in his quarterfinal heat meaning that it is likely that he was involved in a crash. Robin Bryntesson...

Nove Mesto na Morave, Czech Republic. Laura Spector (Lenox, MA) finished 12th, with Brynden Manbeck (Grand Rapids, MN) 14th in the Junior Sprint competition at the European Biathlon Championships. Cloudy skies and breezy conditions with a temperature of plus five Celsius, greeted the competitors today for the Sprint competitions. Even after some heavy rain on Thursday, the tracks at Nove Mesto are in decent shape, although the artificial snow is getting quite dirty in places....

Dominating. That's about the only way to describe Russell Kennedy this season – in only his Sophomore year of High School. Except for a narrow 1 second loss to Daniel Gelso in last week's penultimate event in Kirkwood, Kennedy has won every event in the CNISSF Nordic League season, an astounding feat for so young a skier, especially in the boys' field. One of the few skiers known to compete in both Junior National Championships...

Nove Mesto na Morave, Czech Republic. Laura Spector (Lenox, MA) and Russell Currier (Stockholm, ME) finished 15th and 17th in the Individual competitions at the European Biathlon Championships. Both Spector and Currier after the long trip from Sweden, performed well today. Spector, with five penalties finished 5:54.5 behind Elise Ringen of Norway, while Currier was 5:56.2 behind Anton Shipulin of Russia. The European Biathlon Championships come just three days after the World Championships in Ostersund....

Men 1st Place – Kevin Hochtl 2nd Place – Zack Simons 3rd Place – Justin Beckwith 4th Place – James Southam Women 1st Place – Martina Stursova 2nd Place – Sarah Konrad 3rd Place – Kate Arduser 4th Place – Johanna Winters

Pinkham Notch, NH—When the cannon sounded at 10:00 a.m. for the start of the Great Glen Nordic 300 at Great Glen Trails in Pinkham Notch, NH, the skies were clear and sunny. By the time the cannon fired at 3:00 p.m. signaling the end of the race, heavy snow and wind was in the face of every competitor. A lot can happen in 5 hours of Nordic skiing. Phil Lawson of Bethlehem, NH won the...

Frigid temperatures throughout Alaska couldn't keep many of the state's best skiers from turning out for the final races of the 2008 Besh Cup race series. Besh Cup races #5 and #6 were originally scheduled for Salcha and Fairbanks on February 2nd and 3rd. The races were postponed a week due to cold temperatures in interior Alaska, which reached as as low as -67F in some places. The one-week delay was no help, as temperatures...

New Gloucester, ME. The International Competition Committee of the US Biathlon Association named Russell Currier (Stockholm, ME) to fill the remaining spot on the US Team for the Biathlon World Championships, which open this Friday in Ostersund, Sweden. For the past week, Currier, from the Maine Winter Sports Center has been competing in the Youth/Junior Biathlon World Championships in Ruhpolding, Germany. In those Championships, Currier placed 15th in the Sprint, 20th in the Pursuit, and...

Ruhpolding, Germany. Winter weather arrived on the final day of the Youth/Junior Biathlon World Championships, with steady wet snow falling all morning that made the tracks deep and slow for both the Youth and Junior Relay competitions. Before the start of the Youth Women 3 X 6K Relay, US coach Gary Colliander stated, “I hope we can have clean shooting with no penalties. That would be a good goal for this group.” The snow piled...

Ruhpolding, Germany. The US Team of Leif Nordgren (Marine-on-St. Croix, MN), Russell Currier (Stockholm, ME), Wynn Roberts (Battle Lake, MN) and Mark Johnson (Grand Rapids, MN) finished 9th in the 4 X 7.5K Relay at the Youth/Junior Biathlon World Championships today. The ninth place finish, 6:53 behind Russia’s Gold medal effort, is not indicative of the outstanding effort by Nordgren in the first leg. Nordgren, moving up from the Youth category for the relay, skied...

VUOKATTI, Fin. Brian McKeever took another stride forward in his goal of becoming the first winter-sport athlete to compete in both the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Fresh off competing in the Alberta World Cup where he finished amongst the top-40 against the best cross-country skiers in the world on Friday, the 28-year-old McKeever and his brother and guide Robin hopped a plane to Finland to join their Canadian mates on the Para-Nordic World Cup....

New England New England JOQ Day Two: Chisholm Ski Club welcomed recently retired US Ski Team member Justin Freeman and current USST skier Liz Stephen to Sunday's TD Banknorth Eastern Cup Freestyle races. The course featured two times up the feared “High School Hill” for women and three times for men; for many juniors it was their first crack at a longer distance race. For the full story and complete results, NENSA New England JOQ...

The best laid plans of mice, men, and ski race promoters don’t count much for anything when it comes to Sierra Nevada weather. And in the case of the Tahoe Rim Tour and Race, a premier new, classic technique-oriented competition in the Lake Tahoe region, flexibility and “going with the flow” is as important as fluorocarbons on a warm, snowy day. Conceived by Far West Nordic Board President Jeff Schloss, the Tahoe Rim Tour is...

The FIS Nordic Junior World Ski Championships and U23 Cross-Country in Szczyrk (POL), scheduled for February 3-10, have been canceled due to lack of snow and will be rescheduled in Szczyrk for February 21-28.

Cross Country Alaska held the second of three weekends of Besh Cup ski races this past weekend in Homer, Alaska. The Besh Cup Race Series is the premier cross country skiing competition series in Alaska. Results in Besh Cup races are used to select the Alaska Teams to the United States Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) Junior Olympic National Championships (JO's), as well as the biennial Arctic Winter Games, which will be held this year...

Regional Race Recap New England CSU Sprints Tt was a great day of skiing at the at Weston Ski Track today with a rare double-header. First up was the Mass High School Freestyle Qualifier race, one of two races used to determine who qualifies for the J2 Championships (14-15 year olds) and the Eastern High School Championships. The second event was the CSU sprints, starting with a 5km qualifier race and followed by the sprint...

Despite this week's 60 degree heat in New England, racing near Boston – yes Boston – is on this weekend. What's more, Weston Ski Track's CSU Sprints will be held in a new format. FasterSkier contacted Rob Bradlee, CSU coach, to get the scoop. FasterSkier: Hey Rob, What’s this we hear about a new sprint format that your club, CSU, is trying this weekend? Rob: Yes, it’s true. We heard many complaints last year from...

There is something special about skiing a point-to-point race. It often feels like more of an accomplishment to arrive somewhere different than where you started after skiing hard for 5, 10, or even 30 kilometers. Point to point races can make you feel like an explorer, an adventurer—someone who is really going places in this world! Far West Nordic has teamed up with Northstar Resort and Tahoe XC to create “The Tahoe Rim Tour,” a...