World Cup

La Clusaz, France – Ivan Babikov (CAN) fresh of the plane from North America skied to an impressive 8th place finish in the World Cup 30km Freestyle in La Clusaz, France. Petter Northug (NOR) won the race in an exciting sprint. Babikov, who just a week ago won both SuperTour races in West Yellowstone, Montana, showed no ill effects from the international travel. Arriving in Europe on Thursday, the Russian-turned-Canadian citizen posted the second best...

La Clusaz, France – Kristin Stoermer Steira (NOR) was able to break away from the pack at the half-way mark for her second-ever World Cup victory. Canadian Sara Renner finished 17th in her first World Cup start of the season. Steira made a big move between 7.5 and 9.8 km, opening a gap of 14 seconds on the field, a margin that grew as large as 24 seconds. A mainstay of the Norweigan team over...

Ostersund, Sweden – Lowell Bailey (Lake Placid, NY) battled tough conditions to finish 15th in the 20K Individual, the first competition of the Biathlon World Cup season. Moderate to heavy snow fell here throughout the day and continued all evening. This left the previously well-groomed tracks covered with deep snow, slowing the athletes and making an already tough layout brutally hard. Despite the conditions, Bailey had one of his best days ever of his World...

You can now watch the 10/15km classic World Cup races from last weekend on Universal Sports. There is also a photo album from the weekend. http://www.universalsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPID=12760&DB_OEM_ID=23000&ATCLID=3625457

Demong 13th In Windy Kuusamo KUUSAMO, Finland (Nov. 30) – Bill Demong (Vermontville, NY) and Johnny Spillane (Steamboat Springs, CO) put the hammer down in the cross country portion of their competition, finishing first and third in the race, and 13th and 14th for the day in a nordic combined World Cup Sunday in Kuusamo. The Finns picked up the top two podium spots with Anssi Koivuranta winning the event and Janne Ryynaenen was second....

KUUSAMO, Finland – Bill Demong (Vermontville, NY) and Johnny Spillane (Steamboat Springs, CO) led the way for the U.S. Nordic Combined Ski Team as they finished 27th and 28th in the first World Cup competition of the season. The day got off to a rocky start when Spillane jumped to just 35th and Demong 39th, which put Spillane 3:16 back in the cross country start, and Demong nearly four minutes. Demong sprinted to the fifth...

Kuusamo, Finland – Canadian Devon Kershaw bounced back from disqualification in yesterday's sprint to finish 5th in the men's 15km classic World Cup. For the 26 year old Kershaw, this was his top finish ever in a World Cup distance race. In 2006 he cracked the podium in the sprint, finishing third, and last season he posted a fifth in Lahti, again in the sprint. His previous best distance finish was a 12th place in...

Kikkan Randall, who last year became the first American woman to win a World Cup race, turned in a career best World Cup distance race, finishing 23rd, 1:31.6 behind winner Aino Kaisa Saarinen of Finland. Randall scored her first World Cup points (top 30 finish) in a non-sprint event, and showed significant improvement over her past distance races. Her previous best finish was a 37th place, 57.89 point effort in December 2007 in Davos, Switzerland....

Kuusamo, Finland – Ola Vigen Hattestad led a Norweigan sweep of the podium in the men's 1.4km classic sprint. Teammates Tor Arne Hetland and John Kristian Dahl followed close behind. Last year's NOrweigan sprint Natinal Champion, Hatestad qualified in 6th position and made his way through the heats to capture the third World Cup victory of his career. The veteran Hetland qualified in 17th, but showed his experience in capturing second. Top qualifier Kalle Lassila...

Kuusamo, Finalnd – Petra Majdic (SLO) claimed her first victory of the season in an effort to defend her World Cup sprint title. Lina Andersson (SWE) finished second and Justyna Kowalczyk third. Majdic posted the fastest qualification time of the day besting last year's overall World Cup Champion by .69 seconds. Kuitunen also advanced to the A-Final, taking the final spot and finishing 6th. this was Majdic's 7th career World Cup victory. Overall, the host...