Double Olympic gold medalist Björn Lind of Sweden has announced his retirement from professional cross-country ski racing. The man who perhaps is best remembered for his dynamic double pole finish in the team sprint at the 2006 Olympic, where he became fully airborne with each stroke – a technique he referred to as “yumping” – leaves the sport after 10 years on the World Cup circuit. Lind won the individual skate sprint at the 2006...
Roar Hjelmeset will replace Jon Arne Schjetne as the Norwegian women’s national sprint team. Hjelmeset replaced Fredrik Aukland as the Norwegian junior national team in 2008. After three years as the head coach for the Norwegian junior and U23 national teams, Hjelmeset was supposed to be the head coach for the new recruitment/development national team for the upcoming season. “A month ago, I was approached about the position as the women’s sprint team coach, and...
With Cross Country Canada (CCC) announcing selections for the Canadian World Cup and Senior Development Team last week, the Canucks are loading up for another season. There were no surprises on the World Cup Team, as six of the seven have been part of the squad in the past. The one new addition, Len Valjas, is no shocker, because ‘Big Tall Lenny’, as he has been nicknamed by his teammates, tore up the World Cup...
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...
Kris Freeman, the U.S.’s top male distance skier, will have a cutting-edge on-board computer system implanted into his skull this summer, completing his transformation into a race-winning cyborg. Freeman, a type one diabetic, has been racing for the last year with the help of two devices: a continuous glucose monitor and an insulin pump. Those products have helped him render the effects of his disease all but moot. But the computer, constructed by his longtime...
After many years on the national and international stage, 2010 Olympian Haley Johnson is calling it quits. 29-year-old Johnson, who had several of the top U.S. women’s finishes in biathlon events in the last five years, was nominated for the national team again this year. So it came as a surprise to some that she turned down that nomination and is instead moving to Denver to finish her college degree and get married. “She called...
Ski fans who get nostalgic thinking back to the days of the two-day pursuit can take heart—you’re not the only ones. When cross-country skiers Kikkan Randall and Sami Jauhojaervi travel to the International Ski Federation’s (FIS’s) spring meetings, they could be advocating a revival of the format, based on feedback from their colleagues on the World Cup circuit. As the two athlete representatives to FIS from the discipline of cross-country, Randall and Jauhojaervi, who’s Finnish,...
In a gesture of unprecedented generosity, U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) chief Bill Marolt says that has taken a pay cut from his 2009 salary of nearly $652,000. With the effects of the economic having forced cuts to USSA staff and programs over the last few years, the organization released a statement Wednesday that as part of new austerity measures, Marolt agreed to have $4.52 sliced off his pay for the fiscal year 2010....
(Note: this is first in a series of interviews with the coaches and staff of the U.S. biathlon team.) When Per Nilsson took over head coaching duties for the U.S. biathlon team after the 2006 Olympic Games, the U.S. men had already begun a slow ascent in the nations cup standings, climbing from 20th place in 2003 to 15th after Torino. With Nilsson’s help, the rise has continued: the men have now finished either 10th...
Cross Country Canada (CCC) is expected to announce the 2011-2011 National Ski Team (NST) in the next couple of days, and some major personnel changes may be in the works. According to head coach Justin Wadsworth, there will be three divisions to the National Ski Team in the 2011-2012. If you are a Canadian athlete, you can be nominated to the World Cup team or the Senior Development Team, while the country’s top juniors skiers...
Jean Marc Gaillard (FRA) won the 38-kilometer Skarverennet from Finse to Ustaoset in Norway after a fierce sprint to the finish Saturday.
The Norwegian Ski association announced the 2011-12 national teams at Geilo, Friday night.
Scattered across the United States are a handful of skiers belonging to an exclusive club—one that includes Kris Freeman, Colin Rodgers, and Morgan Smyth. Earlier this month, biathlete Tim Burke became the club’s newest member, but not by choice. Instead, he joined the other three when he lay down on an operating table in Lake Placid and went under the knife, to relieve the symptoms of compartment syndrome. Quietly, Burke had endured the condition since...
After considering her options for a month, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen (NOR) has made up her mind.
A record warm April has been rough on the snow pack, even in the mountains. Race organizers are bringing in truckloads of snow to save Skarverennet 2011, scheduled for Saturday.
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...
Head wax tech for Sweden’s national team, Larry Poromaa, takes on the rumors surrounding the wax issues during the 2011 World Championships in Oslo.
Aiming to add more action and increase interest for the sport, the recent FIS Nordic Combined meeting in Zürich (SUI) discussed new race formats.