Feisty, unintimidated, and encouraging—if ultimately overmatched. That’s probably the best way to describe Jessie Diggins’ effort at World Championships on Thursday, in which she anchored the U.S. women to a ninth-place finish in the 4×5 k relay. It’s also an apt description of the performance of the entire U.S. team, which fought hard to its best World Championships women’s relay result in over a decade, but was ultimately left three minutes behind the winning Norwegians....
After just missing the medals in the first two competitions at the 2011 World Championships, an American-born athlete was back on top of the nordic combined podium on Wednesday. Billy Demong? Nope. Todd Lodwick? Guess again. Maybe Johnny Spillane? Or the two flying Fletcher brothers, Bryan and Taylor? No, no, and no. Instead, it was Jason Lamy Chappuis, a French citizen born in Montana, who took the win in the individual large hill competition in...
The Canadian men might have won gold in today’s World Championship team sprint, but they weren’t the only ones walking away from Holmenkollen Stadium in Oslo with smiles on their faces. Another Canadian team was excited about its results, too: Canadians Perianne Jones and Dasha Gaiazova, who finished sixth in the women’s final. After the semifinal, in which the pair was forced to ski mostly alone after Slovenia, Norway, and Sweden went off the front,...
OSLO, Norway (Mar. 1) – The residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Norway took on a festive atmosphere this week as the U.S. Nordic World Championship Team was hosted by Ambassador Barry White to a reception during the 2011 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Oslo. The historic Villa Otium played host to over 50 athletes, coaches and parents in Norway for the World Championships at Holmenkollen. “It’s a real honor to have the U.S....
When Matti Heikkinen caught Kris Freeman just three kilometers into Tuesday’s 15 k classic race at World Championships, Freeman was surprised. “I was thinking, holy God, what is going on,” Freeman told FasterSkier. “Turns out he was having the race of his life.” The Finn has just one World Cup victory to his name this season, and came into the individual start race more favored than Freeman, but only barely. So when he had made...
“Comfy,” was how American Sadie Bjornsen described the leader’s chair, the seat occupied by the finishers with the best times after they cross the line in individual start races. The young American continued a strong World Championships showing, notching her second top-30 in two starts in the 10 k classic in Oslo. Starting at bib 36, Bjornsen was not unseated as race leader for nearly five minutes, when Sweden’s Sara Lindborg took over. Bjornsen, who...
Five years ago, a fourth place finish for the Americans in a nordic combined team event at World Championships would have been tough to swallow, since U.S. medals at major competitions had been few and far between. But in the season following the 2010 Olympics, which saw U.S. athletes take three silvers and a gold, collecting the “wooden medal” in their first of two team events in Oslo was merely a mild letdown. “Considering I’m...
The American men were overshadowed in Sunday’s 30 k pursuit by the performances of their Canadian counterparts, but there were still some promising signs from a pair of U.S. starters. Kris Freeman (USA) skied three quarters of the race with the lead pack of men, before losing contact and trailing in for 29th, two minutes behind the winner—while by no means Freeman’s best, an improvement on some subpar races over the past week. He said...
Marit Bjoergen (NOR) has already achieved her goal of winning an individual gold at the 2011 World Championships. Now the ski world gets to see what a relaxed Bjoergen can do. The winner of five medals, including three golds, at the 2010 Olympics, Bjoergen is the clear favorite in the women’s 15 k pursuit on Saturday, as distance racing gets underway at Holmenkollen in Oslo, Norway. While rival Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) is the defending World...
The U.S.’s Kikkan Randall wasn’t the only North American to see her World Championships skate sprint hopes go down the drain in a collision. Canada’s Alex Harvey met with the same fate in his semifinal heat on Thursday when he tangled with a Swiss skier, Martin Jaeger, to fall out of contention. On the back side of the Oslo sprint course, before the men re-entered the stadium, Harvey said he was skiing at the head...
Out of a crowd of 20,000 people watching at the 2011 World Ski Championships, there can’t have been more than a few dozen who were disappointed when American Kikkan Randall crashed out of the women’s sprint. After all, the race was in Oslo, and as a big favorite, Randall was one of the only athletes expected to threaten the hometown favorite, Norwegian superwoman Marit Bjoergen. So when Randall slipped on one of Ida Ingemarsdotter’s (SWE)...
The North American men may not have a gold-medal favorite among their ranks for Thursday’s men’s World Championship freestyle sprint in Oslo. But if they lack a reliable podium candidate, they make up for it in their numbers: no fewer than seven U.S. and Canadian skiers have a shot at cracking the heats. In Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey, the Canadians have two men with freestyle sprints podiums already this season—Harvey’s a second place last...
Gearing up, getting ready and talking smack. Norway’s sprint teams are kings of the hill. But their competitors are on their mind, and the Americans are in that mix.
Four weeks training at home without a race did not slow Kikkan Randall. The defending World Championship silver medalist in the freestyle sprint picked up where she left off a month ago, and found herself in the same spot – standing on the top of the podium. Randall scored her third career World Cup victory, and second in a row when she powered to the front on the tough finishing stretch in the Konnerud Ski...
For Canada’s Alex Harvey, the bad news is that at next week’s World Ski Championships in Oslo, he’s not likely to improve much on his finish in his final tune-up race. The good news is why: in Sunday’s World Cup skate sprint in Drammen, Norway, he was a stunning second place, surging on the homestretch to top Olympic medalists Petter Northug (NOR) and Marcus Hellner (SWE), and falling just a few feet short of catching...
Last year the Canadian men proved that performance a week before a major championship event is meaningless as a predictor. The hope is that that is the case this time around, as well. Both the Canadians and Americans did not impress in their final distance tune-up prior to this year’s World Championships – but the general consensus was that there was little to be concerned about. Devon Kershaw led all North American finishers in 26th...
At least there’s another week until Oslo. That was the take-away for the Americans after Saturday’s 10 k classic race in Drammen, where the top U.S. women struggled on a tough course, in a stacked field of Norwegians. In her World Cup debut, Sadie Bjornsen (USA) led the way in 52nd, 3:19 behind the winner, Marit Bjoergen (NOR). But none of the other American women came within three-and-a-half minutes of Bjoergen’s time, leaving them with...
A World Cup race in Norway is always a big deal, but with the start of World Championships less than seven days away, this weekend’s two-race stop in Drammen serves as both a tune-up, and an indicator of who will be contending for medals in Oslo. FasterSkier arrived in Oslo on Friday morning, and will be reporting live from the event! With many skiers skipping the Rybinsk World Cups two weeks ago, it has been...
The three day Beitostolen FIS race series in Norway concluded with a frigid race, featuring delayed start times and shortened distances. But this did not stop American skiers from continuing to turn in strong performances on the track. The races were originally scheduled as 15/30km freestyle events, but with predicted highs in the low single digits, the always cold-wary Norwegians opted to cut the distance to 10/15km. The US women packed the top of the...
Europe seems to suit Sadie Bjornsen just fine. Nearly a month into her first long-term overseas tour, Bjornsen is skiing fast and appears to be getting faster. She led a contingent of a US World Championship skiers in the 5km classic FIS race in Beitostolen, Norway, placing 8th overall. The race was won by former overall World Cup runner-up and current Norwegian World Championship team member, Astrid Jacobsen. The veteran posted a time of 15:02,...