Several members of the U.S. Ski Team and National Training Group came out for Day 2 of the Lake Placid USST dryland training camp on Thursday, competing in a classic rollerski sprint. Over the two-hour time trial, six women and nine men raced four times — the women on a 1.3-k loop and the men over 1.5 k. Everyone advanced to the finals, and the idea was to go hard. Here is a recap...
The Men’s XC ski team is inviting athletes from all around the country to join them for a virtual training camp. Men, Women, and athletes of all ages are encouraged to join in on one of the US Ski Teams toughest training weeks of the year. Starting now everyone can go to the US Ski Team XC Men facebook page for constantly updated information. Athletes, Coaches, and clubs are encouraged to ‘like’ the page and show their...
Two rounds of cuts have hit the U.S. Ski Team’s already-reduced budget this spring and summer, increasing demands on athletes, coaches, and administrators alike. According to U.S. Ski Team (USST) Head Coach Chris Grover, the program was directed in late June to trim nearly $60,000 from its 2012 operating budget—in addition to a $30,000 reduction that came in the spring, during the annual budgeting process. The impact of the cuts will mostly fall on the...
For the last two years, the U.S. Ski Team (USST) and U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) have been pushing American athletes to compete more in Europe, citing a need for experience in the cutthroat racing environment there. Belying that push, however, were thousands of dollars in prize money awarded to the winners of the sprint and distance disciplines of the SuperTour, the four month-long domestic race series. Those bonuses—$2,000 for each one, for men...
This is the fifth installment of a seven part series in which the U.S. Ski Team’s Noah Hoffman recounts his 2010-2011 season. 1/26/2011 I’ve been very busy since my last update in Davos. The last two race weekends on the World Cup didn’t go as well as the start of the trip. I did more training in Davos than I did in Scandinavia and I was a little tired for the races. However, my teammates...
How does a high school student from Massachussetts end up skiing on a glacier with the best athletes from the United States and Canada in the middle of the summer? The answer is a program, and a promise for other young skiers. Corey Stock, a 17-year-old racer who usually represents the Cambridge Sports Union, was nominated this year to be a member of the National Training Group (NTG), a program of the U.S. Ski Team....
With midwinter conditions in the Southern Hemisphere a a collection of some of the world’s top skiers have assembled in New Zealand for training camps and racing. Led by strong contingents from the US and Canada, there is no shortage of talent. On-snow training is occurring at New Zealand’s premier cross country ski venue, Wairou Snow Farm, located just South of Wanaka, NZ. The athletes arrived at the end of July and will stay through...
In March, two-time U23 mountain bike national champion Tad Elliott told FasterSkier that he was planning to scale back his bike schedule in the coming year in hopes of snagging a nomination to the U.S. Ski Team. “That’s kind of the focus now, is putting more chips into skiing, and wanting to do World Cup skiing, wanting to do World Champs,” Elliott said. Despite a strong 2010 season, he had not been named to the...
U.S. Ski Team Women’s Video Challenge: 24 women’s training groups all over North America submitted their video entry to the contest! The U.S. Ski Team women voted for their five favorite videos. Now it is up to you to decide the winner from finalists posted on USSA Nordic’s facebook page. Voting ends when the Women’s Team comes down from Eagle Glacier on August 1. Prizes will be awarded to the most popular video! Here’s the...
United States Ski Association (USSA) Chief Executive Officer Bill Marolt took a five percent cut in base compensation and benefits in the 2010 fiscal year, according to federal tax forms recently released by the Internal Revenue Service. In both 2010 and 2009, Marolt received a $250,000 bonus from USSA and its affiliate organizations. In the last fiscal year, however–which ended April 30, 2010–his base pay decreased from $309,947 to $269,258, while his benefits and nontaxable...
In the lead-up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Zach Caldwell led a much-discussed, multi-year effort to pin down the best stonegrinds and waxes for the challenging, variable conditions at Whistler Olympic Park. Caldwell’s months and months of hard work even drew the attention of National Public Radio, which Kris Freeman’s horrific skis in the opening 15 k freestyle in Vancouver. When the best skiers and wax techs in the world can be baffled by conditions,...
As Kerry Lynch’s career was ascending, Walter Malmquist’s career was peaking. Graduating from New Hampshire’s Holderness School, he joined the U.S. nordic combined team in 1974, retiring at the end of the 1980-1981 season. Competing in the 1976 and 1980 Winter Olympics, his best finish was 12th the 15 k nordic combined event in the 1980 Games, in Lake Placid. Today, Malmquist is a volunteer coach at the Holderness School, Proctor Academy, and Andover Outing...
As the ski season for Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club (SSWSC) wound down, juniors coach and former World Cup nordic combined skier Kerry Lynch answered questions via phone and e-mail with FasterSkier correspondent Peter Minde. A three-time nordic combined national champion, Lynch raced from 1979 until 1987, and his international success presaged the later successes of Ryan Heckman and the current crop of U.S. nordic combined skiers. A participant in the 1980 and 1984 Winter...
They may not be getting much more than a black shirt and a pair of tights, but two young sprinters have secured one of cross-country skiing’s most coveted prizes: a nomination to the U.S. Ski Team (USST). On Thursday, the USST announced that Erik Bjornsen and Skyler Davis, both 19, had been offered spots as the first-ever members of its “D-team.” According to Head Coach Chris Grover, the D-team is a new development squad intended...
The following is the USSA’s list of nominations for the 2012 U.S. Cross Country Ski Team. The nominations include those athletes who qualified based on published selection criteria. The USSA will announce the actual team roster later this spring, naming those athletes who accept the responsibilities of being a part of the U.S. Ski Team and who are planning to compete in the 2012 season. Athletes nominated to the 2012 U.S. Cross Country Ski Team...
The U.S. Cross-Country Ski Team (USST) for the 2011-2012 season is expected to be announced in a few hours, according to John Farra, the program’s director. The nominations haven’t been made public yet, but in making them, Farra and Chris Grover, the USST head coach, have faced a familiar dilemma: add a number of athletes to the squad, and dilute an always-tight budget, or preserve the higher levels of support that come with a smaller...
Kris Freeman (USST) had one last chance to nail it. A type 1 diabetic, Freeman had had two straight races in Sun Valley in which his efforts had been stymied by the disease. Saturday’s freestyle hill climb up Dollar Mountain, the final race in the four-stage SuperTour Finals, was his last shot to get it right. He did, which allowed him to leave behind three other athletes on the toughest section of the four-kilometer course,...
If there was anyone who deserved a beer after Saturday’s hill climb in Sun Valley, it was Kikkan Randall. After winning four straight races here—and the first three in the four-stage SuperTour Finals—Randall (APU/USST) had a whopping 1:23 head start over her nearest challenger in the four-kilometer hill climb up Dollar Mountain, which was handicapped based on results from earlier this week. Randall could have taken it easy. But that’s not the approach that gave...
At the top of the results sheet for Friday’s classic sprint qualifier in Sun Valley, there weren’t any surprises: Kikkan Randall, Ida Sargent, and Chandra Crawford were the top three women, and Andy Newell, Simi Hamilton, and Skyler Davis were the top three men. But scanning down and looking through the rest of the top 30, one name was conspicuously absent: that of Kris Freeman, who was the overall leader of the SuperTour Finals mini-tour...
Off days are good for any number of things: big breakfasts, easy ski sessions, and watching NASCAR on TV. (Yeah, it’s been a slow afternoon at the FasterSkier regional headquarters). But they’re also good for catching up on all the things we missed from the last few days. Below is a brief selection. –Simi Hamilton’s dominating performance in the men’s prologue on Tuesday was a demonstration of what a well-trained athlete can do in a...