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The cream of the crop. The best in the world compete all winter long on the World Cup. We follow them at every stop with article and results. We also post occasional reports from North America’s best as they travel the globe.
BiathlonInterviewsWorld Cup

Kocher Regroups and Moves Forward as Part of New Biathlon Alberta Regional Training Center

Chelsea LittleSeptember 19, 2011

When two-time Olympian Zina Kocher was left off of Biathlon Canada’s “A” team this spring, she was surprised. “Criteria was never set before the season started,” Kocher told FasterSkier in an interview; it wasn’t until after the season was over that athletes learned whether their results were good enough for a nomination. Instead of simply adjusting and continuing on with the national team, Kocher turned down the “B” team nomination altogether and joined another squad,...

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U.S. Biathletes Shine in European Training Camp; Women’s Team Attends for the First Time
BiathlonGeneralWorld Cup

U.S. Biathletes Shine in European Training Camp; Women’s Team Attends for the First Time

Chelsea LittleAugust 31, 2011

Last year, the U.S. Biathlon Association (USBA) took eight men to Europe for a summer training camp, leaving the women’s team to train by themselves in Lake Placid. Since then, a dedicated women’s coach (Jonne Kahkonen) has been hired, so the women are in some ways more than ever their own team. But this summer three of them were invited to the camp in Germany and are training alongside the men. “For us, it’s definitely...

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World CupXCFeeds

World Cup Field Strength Follow-Up

JoranAugust 31, 2011

As promised from last time, a quick look at some similar data broken down by race length. I’ve filtered out the occasional “strange” race length, to focus on just the standard 5, 10, 15, 30 and 50 kilometer distances. The metric is the same: the median number of skiers within a fixed percent of the [...] Related posts:

  1. How Well Prepared Are World Cup Rookies? (Part 1a: Distance)
  2. US World Cup Split Times
  3. Canadian World Cup Splits

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World CupXCFeeds

Are Women’s WC Fields Really ‘Weaker’?

JoranAugust 29, 2011

I received an email recently asking about field strength for the men’s and women’s WC fields, particularly as it applies to mass start races. Lately we’ve seen the men’s field engage in a fair bit of pack skiing, whereas the women’s field strings out more quickly. First, I want to dispatch with a common bit [...] Related posts:

  1. Marit Bjoergen’s Best Freestyle Race
  2. La Clusaz Recap: Distance Mass Start
  3. WSC Women’s 30k Recap

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The Hoffman Chronicles: Part 5 – Tennis, Bowling, US Nationals and Back to Europe
RacingUS NationalsUS Ski TeamWorld Cup

The Hoffman Chronicles: Part 5 – Tennis, Bowling, US Nationals and Back to Europe

FasterSkierAugust 26, 2011

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...

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World CupXCFeeds

Predicting World Cup FIS Points (con’t)

JoranAugust 26, 2011

On various occasions I have looked at FIS point race penalties, in a very general, roundabout way.  Most recently, I looked at whether the FIS points you get in a non-World Cup race accurately reflect what you would have scored if you had raced in a World Cup race. The answer appeared to be: kind of.  At [...] Related posts:

  1. How Well Prepared Are World Cup Rookies? (Part 1a: Distance)
  2. How To Win The SkiTrax FIS Fantasy World Cup Contest
  3. FIS Points Development Guide

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World CupXCFeeds

Predicting FIS Points For World Cup Races

JoranAugust 24, 2011

The title of this post has dramatically over-promised on the actual content.  Sorry. I’ve talked a little before about race penalties.  Since race penalties are specifically intended to adjust for the strength of the field, I thought it would interesting to think up some way to see how well they do that. Everything having to [...] Related posts:

  1. Variability In World Cup Ski Racers
  2. How Well Prepared Are World Cup Rookies? (Part 1a: Distance)
  3. OPA Cup vs Scandinavian Cup: Quality

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Retired Ukrainian Biathlete Oksana Khvostenko Handed One-Year Ban for Accidental Ephedrine Violation
BiathlonGeneralWorld Cup

Retired Ukrainian Biathlete Oksana Khvostenko Handed One-Year Ban for Accidental Ephedrine Violation

Chelsea LittleAugust 15, 2011

wrote in June, the Ukranian biathlete Oksana Khvostenko, who anchored her country’s relay team to silver at World Championships this winter, tested positive for the banned substance ephedrine. Khvostenko’s hearing with the International Biathlon Union (IBU) took place on June 1st, but it took them until last week to issue their verdict on the embattled veteran. With both the A- and B-samples testing positive for greater than ten micrograms per milliliter of ephedrine, they had...

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Starting from Nothing: Estonian Skiing, Past, Present, and Future
GeneralNewsOlympicsRacingWorld Cup

Starting from Nothing: Estonian Skiing, Past, Present, and Future

Nathaniel HerzAugust 11, 20112

Before flying to Estonia last January, I didn’t know much about that nation’s cross-country skiers aside from their names—and their medal records. Jaak Mae, Andrus Veerpalu, and Kristina Smigun-Vaehi—between the three of them, seven Olympic and 10 World Championship medals. Not a bad record for a country with a population of 1.3 million, or the same as the state of Maine. But while Scandinavian stars like Petter Northug and Marit Björgen blend a certain appeal,...

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GeneralInterviewsWorld Cup

Eileen Carey on “Changing the Face of the Leadership” at FIS

Chelsea LittleAugust 11, 20111

Eileen Carey is a busy lady. In 2010, while working as the Vice President for the Maine Winter Sports Center, she oversaw three huge events in Aroostock County: Junior Olympics, biathlon national championships, and spring series. Since then she’s switched jobs, and is now overseeing adaptive skiing for the New England Nordic Ski Association. Along with all of her other responsibilities, Carey is a member of the Ladies’ Cross-Country Subcommittee for the International Ski Federation...

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InterviewsRacingUS Ski TeamWorld Cup

NZ Sprint Interview: Kris Freeman

FasterSkierAugust 8, 2011

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...

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BiathlonWorld CupXCFeeds

The Hot Hand (con’t)

JoranAugust 5, 2011

In a previous post I raised the question of whether biathletes might be more likely to shoot clean (i.e. hit all five targets) if they have just shot clean at their most recent trip through the shooting range. I left off with some numbers that suggested this was the case, but they were aggregated over [...] Related posts:

  1. Career Retrospective: Kati Wilhelm
  2. US Biathlon Preview: Women
  3. Biathlon Briefs: Lowell Bailey and Laura Spector

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“I Got Too Greedy” – An Interview With Sami Jauhojaervi
InterviewsNewsRacingUncategorizedWorld Cup

“I Got Too Greedy” – An Interview With Sami Jauhojaervi

Kieran JonesAugust 3, 2011

While you might not be able to spell or pronounce his name, if you’re a fan of elite cross country skiing, you should be familiar with Sami Jauhojaervi. Jauhojaervi is one of Finland’s top cross country skiers – the 30 year old has finished as high as 5th in the World Cup Overall, has four World Cup podiums to his credit, and two World Championship bronze medals from Liberec in 2009, where he was a...

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Elliott Is Still Riding, But Skiing Gains a Foothold
US Ski TeamWorld Cup

Elliott Is Still Riding, But Skiing Gains a Foothold

Chelsea LittleAugust 2, 2011

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...

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World CupXCFeeds

Competitiveness Trends

JoranAugust 1, 2011

With Marit Bjørgen (and only a handful of others) dominating the women’s WC circuit last season, I thought I’d check out how this compared to past seasons. I took all WC, OWG, WSC and TDS races for each season and counted the number of distinct skiers finishing at four different levels: 1st, top 3, top [...] Related posts:

  1. Trends In US Skiing Performance: Sprint
  2. Measuring Competitiveness Using Churn
  3. Biathlon and Cross Country Volatility Trends

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Olympic Gold Medalist Anna Carin Zidek Retires
BiathlonOlympicsWorld Cup

Olympic Gold Medalist Anna Carin Zidek Retires

Chelsea LittleJuly 22, 2011

After a long spring of indecision, Anna Carin Zidek of Sweden finally announced her retirement from biathlon last week. “I no longer have any desire, my motivation has disappeared, and so I will stop,” the 2006 Olympic gold medalist told an Ostersund newspaper. The announcement came after months of deliberation. “Oh yes, there are many who wonder if I should continue or not next season,” Zidek had written on her blog in late April. “And...

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BiathlonInterviewsOlympicsWorld Cup

Burke is Back!

Chelsea LittleJuly 20, 2011

Tim Burke is one of the best biathletes in North America. The Paul Smiths, New York native finished on the World Cup podium three times during the 2009-2010 season, and even donned the yellow overall leader’s bib. But in 2011, he had a disappointing year, with his best finish 18th place in the opening World Cup sprint in Ostersund, Sweden. In April Alter-G, and it allows you to run with whatever percent of your body...

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World CupXCFeeds

WC Split Times: Biggest Gains

JoranJuly 20, 2011

Continuing with my series of posts looking at some split time data (kindly provided by Jan at WorldOfXC.com), we turn to identifying some folks who tend to ski better (as measured by their % behind the leaders) towards the end of a race than the beginning. I actually fit a model on this one (gasp!) [...] Related posts:

  1. Trends In Race Times
  2. The Difference Between Mass Start And Interval Start Races In One Graph
  3. US World Cup Split Times

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