As the Tour de Ski drags on, the World Cup field is tiring. Nobody – atrial fibrillation in the Ruka, Finland, 10 k. “It is great to be on the podium again, especially after I crashed today,” she told FIS. “I had to fight my way back in the race but in the end I felt very strong.” While Kylloenen had praised her skis, one team wasn’t doing so. The Norwegians failed to reach the...
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Soldier Hollow): 10 k skate [UPDATED] Don’t bet against Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) in a distance skate event. The 36-year-old took another national title in the 10-kilometer freestyle individual start at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, earlier today in the first event of the 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships. Gregg’s winning time was 27:00.6 on a cold, slow-snow morning at SoHo. Chelsea Holmes (Alaska Pacific University) was second, 2.2 seconds back,...
Lining up at the start of the women’s 5-kilometer freestyle individual start on Friday, it was a different Jessie Diggins than a year ago. Here the American was, again in Toblach, Italy, again in the third-to-last stage of the Tour de Ski, again about to race another one of those rare formats on the World Cup circuit: the 5 k individual. But this time last year, she had never won a World Cup, let alone...
Big wins, small wins – wins of all sizes and over all sorts of rivals. That’s how Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov has built his lead, over a minute and a half now, in the FIS Tour de Ski. For his fifth consecutive victory, Ustiugov started last in the field in the 10 k freestyle in Toblach, Italy. He knew exactly what he had to do: beat the pace set ten bibs earlier by Maurice Manificat of...
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 5 (Toblach): 5/10 k freestyle Men’s report Two U.S. women on the podium. Remember when that happened with Kikkan Randall and Sophie Caldwell back in 2015 World Championships, with Jessie Diggins and Caitlin Gregg in the 10 k freestyle? Well, it just happened again, this time with Diggins placing first and Sadie Bjornsen third in the women’s 5-kilometer freestyle individual start on Friday at Stage 5 of the Tour de Ski...
Canada’s Alex Harvey is still on the podium. Then there’s the U.S. women’s team, with athletes in fifth, 10th and 12th in the Tour de Ski standings after big-time performances in Oberstdorf, Germany. Harvey kept himself in third overall and ahead of Switzerland’s Dario Cologna with a strong pursuit finish on Wednesday, and Jessie Diggins led her U.S. teammates on consecutive days, notching second on Tuesday for a career-best skiathlon result and holding onto fifth...
The immovable object that is the Norwegian women’s ski team may finally have met an unstoppable force: 23-year-old Swede Stina Nilsson. Norway’s stars Heidi Weng and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg skied with Nilsson for most of Wednesday’s 10 kilometer freestyle pursuit, the fourth stage of this year’s Tour de Ski. But in the end Nilsson came flying off the final downhill in Oberstdorf, Germany, in exactly the same position she had the previous day: first place....
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 4 (Oberstdorf): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits [UPDATED] Another win for Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (that’s four in four stage races at the 2016/2017 Tour de Ski), another second place for Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby, and another third place for Canada’s Alex Harvey. That was how the podium shook out on Wednesday in the Stage 4 men’s 15-kilometer freestyle pursuit, with Ustiugov winning by 37.2 seconds after starting 4 seconds back and...
Ustiugov, Ustiugov, Ustiugov...the Russian skier has made it there wins in a row to open the Tour de Ski. Despite a wrong turn, Norway's Sundby placed second and sits second overall. Canada's Harvey has skied consistently -- a fourth today -- and is seeking an overall podium in the Tour. He's third overall after three stages.
In the final kilometer of Tuesday’s 10-kilometer skiathlon in Oberstdorf, Germany, American cross-country skier Jessie Diggins saw a chance to grab her second World Cup win of the season. It came on the final lap up a 35-meter tall climb, just a few hundred meters from the finish. All she had to do was go over the top and ace the next downhill – a downhill where she had been flying by other racers all...
Sergey Ustiugov (RUS) sprints for the win and shows he's in good form. Last year's second place TdS overall finisher Finn Hågen Krogh was second and a certain Norwegian named Sundby was fourth. Canada's Alex Harvey was sixth. And yes -- it's Tour de Ski time!
For a good portion of Friday’s race, Susan Dunklee found herself in first place. Not fourth, not third, not even second. First. The ninth starter out of the gate in the women’s 7.5-kilometer International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia, Dunklee cleaned the first of two shooting stages — prone — to put herself in second behind Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff, who was leading at the time by a mere 0.9 seconds. Eckhoff started...
Caitlin Gregg didn't feel like herself when she started out the season on the World Cup, so after pushing through the Tour de Ski she came home. Now she's shooting to win the American Birkebeiner for the fourth time and set a new record as the all-time winningest athlete in race history.
Americans Holly Brooks, Torin Koos and Lauren Fritz, along with Canadian Graham Nishikawa, share their travel stories and racing adventures from the 2016 China Tour de Ski earlier this month. “I see why the Chinese don’t come to the World Cups very often, they seriously do it up in their own country,” Brooks said.
Just six months after graduating from UNH, Annika Taylor, a 22-year-old California native, found herself starting her first World Cup race in late November as the sole female representative of Great Britain's cross-country ski team. "I’m actually addicted to the lifestyle because every weekend is a new experience," Taylor says.
Can't get enough of the Midwest-skiing sensation? Here's an all-Jessie photo gallery from the sixth stage of the Tour de Ski, where the 24-year-old Diggins won the 5 k freestyle to become the second U.S. women to win a stage at this year's Tour.
The women’s overall podium at the 2016 Tour de Ski on Sunday was all red. Norway swept the top three, with Therese Johaug taking the overall title from Ingvild Flustad Østberg on the final climb, and Heidi Weng retained third. For the U.S., Jessie Diggins locked up 10th, Sadie Bjornsen was 14th and Liz Stephen posted the third-fastest time of day.
Martin Johnsrud Sundby won his third-consecutive Tour de Ski by a record-breaking 3 minutes and 15 seconds and another Norwegian, Finn Hågen Krogh, bested a tight chase pack for second overall. Russian Sergey Ustiugov captured third, and Alex Harvey led the North Americans in 14th at the end of the eight-stage Tour.
Martin Johnsrud Sundby showed he's still got it, winning Saturday's 15 k classic mass start ahead of Norwegian teammate Niklas Dyrhaug and Kazakhstan's Alexey Poltoranin, for nearly a 1 1/2-minute head start in Sunday's final climb. Alex Harvey notched seventh on the day for 12th overall heading into the final stage.
Despite starting 26th in Sunday's final stage of the Tour de Ski, nearly 10 minutes back from the leader, Noah Hoffman is excited for the opportunity ahead of him. "You couldn’t design something that could be more to my strengths," he said of the infamous 9 k freestyle hill climb up Alpe Cermis.