SHAFTSBURY, Vt. – Andy Newell had been home in southern Vermont for just about a week – and he hadn’t had a ton of free time between
Mati Alaver is a legend in Estonia. Alaver, 58, is credited with building his country’s cross-country ski program from scratch following Estonia’s independence in 1991. Over the last two decades, its athletes have won more than 15 major medals at World Championships and Olympic Games—not bad for a country with a population of 1.3 million. Alaver is known not just as a knowledgeable and successful coach, but also as a pitchman who found the sponsor...
Aino-Kaisa Saarinen’s got a lot on her plate. Finland’s celebrated cross-country skier is currently on Eagle Glacier with the North American Women’s Training Alliance, a group of about 20 women from the U.S. and Canadian national teams. A multiple world champion with three Olympic medals, Saarinen, 33, has been in Alaska for more than two weeks, staying with U.S. Ski Team member and World Cup sprint champion Kikkan Randall during the first part of camp...
By request, we’re looking at how the length of World Cup sprints has changed over time. Specifically, since the length in time of the effort is really more meaningful than the length of the course in terms of distance, that’s what we’ll consider. So the following graph shows the average of the top five qualification [...] Related posts:
Since I’m starting to accumulate a reasonable collection of heat times from World Cup sprint races, I thought it might be interesting to compare general trends between the few seasons I have data on. The biggest trends that you can typically see are the differences in tactics between the men and women. Generally what I’ve [...] Related posts:
It was almost as if Aino-Kaisa Saarinen read Kikkan Randall’s mind. Longtime acquaintances, the two international cross-country superstars knew the best time to find each other – for a warmdown, a distance ski or just a chat. Finland’s two-time Olympian and multiple world champion, Saarinen caught Randall before a morning run in March at the World Cup Finals in Falun, Sweden. Fortunately for Saarinen, the sprint World Cup winner was in mid-thought. “I saw her...
The saga of Estonian Andrus Veerpalu’s doping trial has dragged on for well over a year, but with a final ruling in his appeal expected soon after the conclusion of the trial this week at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausane, Switzerland, Veerpalu may have finally run out options. According to Aivar Pilv, Veerpalu’s defense attorney, their appeal claims that FIS’s testing methods for doping are faulty. The appeal proceedings began on Monday...
It’s easy to get caught up in busy work. Torin Koos has plenty between taking two summer courses toward his master’s at Westminster College, fitting in workouts and writing features for a ski website he and seven others took over June 1. The three-time Olympian has website-usability tests to prepare for, professional and technical writing work to do. His site, his blog, Koos reflected on two notable races at Norwegian nationals in March. First, he...
This is just a quick note as I sift through some of the alpine skiing data. I’ve made similar plots as these for XC skiing in the past, so these are just the same idea but for the US alpine folks. First a look at the men: This is tracking the results (per race) for [...] Related posts:
This is just a quick note as I sift through some of the alpine skiing data. I’ve made similar plots as these for XC skiing in the past, so these are just the same idea but for the US alpine folks. First a look at the men: This is tracking the results (per race) for [...] Related posts:
The International Ski Federation (FIS) Doping Panel has ruled that the competition ban on Estonia’s Andrus Veerpalu will have to start from scratch. The three-year doping ban was originally set to end the day the 2014 Olympic Games concluded, but because he violated its terms this winter by testing skis for the Estonian team at the Otepää World Cup this January, the ban’s start date has been reset to January 21, 2012. The World Anti-Doping Agency...
Everyone wants to nab podiums at the World Cup level, which means everyone can be pretty fascinated with the development characteristics of those skiers who end up on the podium. Here’s yet another way to slice that. If we take the skiers who’ve attained at least one podium result at the WC level between 2006-2007 [...] Related posts:
Most days of the week, Alex Harvey hits the road to Québec City, where he works out with the Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre, undergoes physio treatments and studies law at Laval University. The drive along route 440 from Mont Sainte-Anne (MSA) to Québec’s capital is about 45 kilometers and lined with views worth pulling over for. Just outside the city, there’s Montmorency Falls, the province’s largest waterfall and 30 meters (98 feet) higher than Niagara...
Less than a week after racing in Germany last December, Alysson Marshall smiled as she soaked up her surroundings at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre in Vernon, British Columbia. The Canadian senior development team member had just completed the first four World Cups of her career and left Europe on an extremely high note. With national team skier Dasha Gaiazova, she placed 21st in the team sprint in Düsseldorf, Germany. Six days later, Marshall won...
The 2012 edition of the spring International Ski Federation (FIS) Congress draws to a close on Thursday in Kangwonland, South Korea. While the selection of the 2017 World Championships host has yet to be announced, several decisions have been finalized pertaining to World Cup races for next season. The Norwegian National Team’s
Drenched in sweat, Alex Harvey stood surrounded by fans, media and children. He couldn’t have escaped the swarm at Mont Sainte-Anne if he wanted to. People wanted his autograph, answers and face in their photos. Two months after the masses flocked to the Québec ski area to see their hometown World Cup skier win three straight races at Canadian Ski Nationals, life for Harvey had mellowed. On Tuesday afternoon, the 23-year-old was headed to Laval...
Note: This is the second piece in a three-part series following several groups of biathletes as they negotiate the college question.
BEND, Ore. – The U.S. and Canadian national teams are here in Bend to get on snow, and they seem to be loving it. But what about skiers who are already located in the Oregon Cascades? On several days, local high school athletes have also made the drive up to Mount Bachelor to ski and soak in the atmosphere at North America’s own version of the Dachstein glacier. Unlike senior World Cup athletes, most juniors...
BEND, Oregon – Biathlon Canada Head Coach Matthias Ahrens, a native of Germany, had never been to Bend until this month. But now that he’s seen what the town has to offer, he anticipates being back. “It’s perfect,” he told FasterSkier as his athletes did an interval workout on Wednesday. “It’s so nice that now we have winter conditions – every day it has been perfect conditions for skiing, plus you can go down and...
BEND, Ore. – It may have been spring at Mount Bachelor this weekend, but by the time Wednesday rolled around, it was more like winter. Snow had fallen overnight and stuck to the mountain’s flanks, and flurries continued to drift from the sky as the U.S. and Canadian national ski teams competed in relay races with several club teams. Canadian Olympian and current Alberta World Cup Academy coach George Grey skied the course before the...