Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey have been setting an impressive standard on the Canadian team of late, regularly battling at the front of races, and making frequent podium appearances. But even the best have off days, and as an indication of the depth of Canadian squad, Dasha Gaiazova and Lenny Valjas picked up the slack when Kershaw and Harvey failed to advance to the heats in the classic sprint in Lahti, Finland. Gaiazova and Valjas...
Emil Jönsson needed this. He had been sick for too long, without a top 10 result since December and mostly out of contention for a World Cup podium since the end of last season. Two weekends ago at the freestyle sprint in Szlarska Poreba, Poland, the Swede was 62nd. That was behind him. This was Lahti, Finland, where he won the classic sprint last year. With some of the trickiest descents on the World Cup,...
Marit Bjørgen (NOR) doesn’t enter many races as an underdog, but with the way Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) advanced through the early heats in the classic sprint in Lahti, Finland, the Norwegian was just one more woman in the final trying to avoid being embarrassed. Kowalczyk powered away from the field in both the quarter and semi finals, opening up gaps on the first climb that ultimately reached as much as 30 meters. No one could...
Whatever condition they were in a week ago, most of the members of the U.S. Ski Team would rather forget it. The ride to Davos, Switzerland, had been rough enough with Kikkan Randall and Andy Newell suffering the worst of a stomach bug that affected the team for most of February. Newell wrote in a Feb. 23 blog post that he and Randall vomited right before leaving Poland for a nine-hour road trip. With two...
Like the man himself, Dario Cologna (SUI) wins with a certain quietness—no devastating sprint entering the stadium or on the homestretch, ala Petter Northug (NOR), and definitely no theatrics across the line. Instead Cologna relies on his clearly superior fitness to help wear down the field, pushing the pace at the perfect times, and usually attacking early and convincingly somewhere out on the course. Despite a sluggish start, Cologna executed a strategically fine performance to...
Norway’s Therese Johaug notched her fourth individual World Cup win of the season on Saturday in Lahti, Finland, skiing to a comfortable 10.8-second win in the 15 k skiathlon. She won a the 10 k pursuit race there last year. Johaug led a top-four Norwegian sweep; Marit Bjørgen led the chase pack to finish second, Heidi Weng notched her first career individual World Cup podium in third and Kristin Stoermer Steira was, once again, fourth. Just...
All American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. Dr. Ian Duncan’s first phone call to Vegard Ulvang two years ago met a little dead air. It wasn’t that Ulvang, the executive director of the International Ski Federation’s cross-country committee, didn’t want to talk. He couldn’t at the time. The former Norwegian cross-country skiing superstar had the Olympics to tend to. Last summer, Duncan, a world-renowned National Multiple Sclerosis Society researcher...
With racing taking a break for the day in Ruhpolding, Germany, here’s a gallery from the kickoff race, yesterday’s mixed relay. Norway took the win followed by Slovenia and Germany. Click any photo to enlarge.
RUHPOLDING, Germany – It’s never a good start to a relay when the leadoff skier tags off in tears. Unfortunately for the U.S., that’s exactly what happened today at World Championships. Scramble leg Sara Studebaker suffered a minor implosion (although it was nothing compared Race report
After notching his first World Cup top-tens two weeks ago in Oslo, biathlete Brendan was having the best season of his life and hoping that he’d peak for World Championships in Ruhpolding, Germany, which start on Thursday. But when his Canadian team kicks things off with a mixed relay, it will be without their best male athlete, because Green will be watching from home in Canmore. While taking a corner in his warmup for the...
Sometimes you have some data and a specific question. Other times, you have some data, and you just sort of noodle around with it aimlessly. Sadly, I’ve been known to do that just for fun. I know, I’m a nerd. So I was looking at the gaps between 1st and 2nd place finishers in World [...] Related posts:
For some people, back-to-back World Cup races is just not enough. Fortunately for elite skiers looking for more fun, more pain, and potentially more cash, there was a perfect option on Sunday—the World Uphill Trophy. The Polish World Cup races were shifted to Friday and Saturday to accommodate the event that had originally been considered for the World Cup calendar. It ultimately did not make the cut, but that didn’t stop some of the top...
As always, thanks to Jan at worldofxc.com for the heat time data… I’m beginning to get a feel for the relationship between heat times and sprint courses. It’s hard, cause I’m not actually there skiing on the courses, so I do the best I can reading about them. But it seems this course was pretty [...] Related posts:
At the end of last week, both the U.S. and Canadian biathlon teams announced their rosters for the upcoming World Championships in Ruhpolding, Germany, March 1-11. The biggest surprise was the absence of Brendan Green, the top Canadian man who is currently ranked 32nd in the world. Green recently had a trio of career-best results and his first top-ten finishes on the World Cup in Oslo, Norway, but was hit by back problems before the...
Noah Hoffman had plenty to overcome in today’s World Cup 15 k classic race in Szklarska Poreba, Poland. First, there was the thing that bothered everyone: the snow, which was variable and caused plenty of problems for racers and wax techs on every team. “I’m not sure that any team really feels like they truly nailed the wax or ski preparation,” U.S. Ski Team coach Matt Whitcomb said in an interview. “Variable conditions throughout the...
Expectations of the Canadian team are at the highest point since Beckie Scott’s heyday, what with Devon Kershaw winning races, Alex Harvey and Chandra Crawford on the podium, team sprint medals, Ivan Babikov showing off classic chops and regular appearances in the points by a strong group of up-and-comers. So a day with a top result of 15th may have once been cause for celebration, but is now just ho-hum, especially coming off of Kershaw’s...
After mounting an improbable comeback to finish third in Saturday’s sprint final in Szklarska Poreba, Poland, Kikkan Randall turned in another strong showing on Sunday, placing eighth in the 10 k classic race. It was her eighth distance top-ten of the season, counting tour stages, and one of the best classic results of her career. Teammate Ida Sargent also had a personal best, scoring World Cup distance points for the first time after placing 26th....
In what couldn’t have been a better-scripted home-coming, Justyna Kowalczyk (POL) blew the World Cup women’s field off the tracks with an uncontested win in the 10km classic in Szklarska Poreba, Poland. Kowalczyk has singlehandedly put cross-country skiing on the map in Poland, establishing herself as one of the all-time greats with three consecutive World Cup titles and the same number of Tour de Ski wins. She is known for her massive training volume and...
It isn’t all that common, these days, to see Johan Olsson on the World Cup. After a strong start to this season, Olsson took a two-month forced hiatus due to illness. Last year, after the November World Cups he didn’t return to the top level of competition until World Championships in March. In 2010, he skipped the entire month of January to prepare for the Olympics. Injury and illness are sadly par for the course...
Alex Harvey (CAN), back in action after a cramping back caused him to drop out of the 30k last weekend, crashed out of the quarterfinals in Szklarska Poreba, Poland. Harvey qualified in 20th in the skate sprint, but his day came to an early end when he went down on the tight left turn above the stadium “I was feeling pretty good in my quarter, the pace felt pretty easy,” Harvey wrote in an email...