With the kick off of the second edition of the Viessmann FIS Tour de Ski races in December, the Golden Ski event in Nove Mesto na Morave will celebrate its 70th anniversary. The Golden Ski is the most famous skiing competition organized in Nove Mesto and one of the oldest skiing races in the Czech Republic and Europe. The first edition took place on January 6-7, 1934. It was founded by Secretary of the Ski...
Everybody agreed that the inaugural Tour was a success and that the basic idea works. For the second edition, the FIS Cross-Country Committee, led by Chairman Vegard Ulvang, reviewed the rules and made some adaptations at the FIS calendar meeting in Portoroz (SLO) in May. A summary of the most important rules amendments follows: Newly introduced will be the Tour Team Cup — a team scoring. In each Stage, the racing results (time score) of...
There are just 100 days until the start of the 2nd edition of the Viessmann FIS Tour de Ski. The event is scheduled to start on December 28th, 2007. In early September, a team of Tour Board members led by FIS Race Director Cross-Country Jürg Capol visited the future Tour sites (Nove Mesto, Prague, Oberstdorf, Asiago and Val di Fiemme) to discuss the status of preparations and to iron out the final logistical details. “The...
Five questions to Sara Renner (CAN) Sara Renner (CAN), 2006 Olympic medalist in the team sprint and 3rd in the individual sprint at the 2005 World Championships in Oberstdorf, shifted gears after the 2006 Olympic season to take a break and have a baby with her husband, the now-retired top alpine skier Thomas Grandi. We recently had a chance to interview Sara to ask her about motherhood and her future plans. Sandra Spitz: Sara, your...
The first Working Meeting for the Tour Board and the five Organizing Committees of the Viessmann FIS Tour de Ski as well as their National Ski Associations took place last Friday at Ammersee near Munich (GER). 29 representatives met to discuss the various aspects of event planning, current status of organization as well as possibilities for further coordination and cooperation across the eight events in three countries. The meeting participants also included new partners interested...
June 21st, 2007 — After a successful comeback by Russia with the host city Rybinsk into the Cross-Country World Cup last January, the Viessmann FIS Cross-Country World Cup Calendar for the upcoming season now includes the Russian town as well. Following the decision of the Austrian Ski Federation to return the planned Ramsau World Cups in December, Rybinsk, which is situated 320 km in the north-east of Moscow, jumped on the newly-available weekend from 15th-...
At its Portoroz (SLO) meeting, the FIS Council confirmed the competition schedule for the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Liberec (CZE) in 2009, including the two new events: the ladies' Ski Jumping on the normal hill and the mass start competition in Nordic Combined. Here is the full schedule: http://tp.posta-nova.fr/lien.php?id=f7082ac1db06ff52a770dbb6513c5c38f4c5ca7477e3950a821f43df76319145 Source: FIS
After a successful start for the ‘Tour de Ski’ around last New Year’s, the 2nd Viessmann FIS Tour de Ski performance by Craft Sportswear will be take place from 28th December 2007 to 6th January 2008. This spectacular, unique event series includes: 3 countries 5 different venues 8 competitions in 10 days As planned last year, the Tour will start in Nove Mesto (CZE), the Czech winter sport center, with a prologue over 3km (ladies)...
Under the leadership of Chairman Vegard Ulvang (NOR), the FIS Cross-Country Committee spent time on finalizing the calendar (view it here http://www.fis-ski.com/data/document/cc0708.pdf ) for the upcoming season and reviewing rules for both the World Cup as well as the FIS Tour de Ski. As part of next season’s schedule, it decided to introduce a three-day competition series as an end of the season highlight, the so-called ‘FIS World Cup Finale’. The Finale will start with...
Canada will host four World Cup races in Canmore between January 22 and 26, 2008. The races are pursuit, classic sprint, skate sprint and 10/15 kilometer freestyle. Here is the link to the 2007-2008 World Cup schedule http://www.fis-ski.com/data/document/cc0708.pdf
The International Ski Federation (FIS) is adding money prizes in the overall World Cup starting this season. The top six men and women will be awarded money prizes. 31.500 Swiss franc (roughly US $25,000) will go to the overall winner, while those who end up in sixth place will get roughly $3000 each. The money prizes will be the responsibility of each World Cup organizer which each will have to contribute about $1800. Tour de...
US Men Again Raise the Bar: Tenth Place in Nations Cup Highlights Record-setting Season The 2007 Biathlon Season was another record-setting year for the US Biathlon Team, led by the men’s squad of Tim Burke (Paul Smiths, NY), Jay Hakkinen (Kasilof, AK), Lowell Bailey (Lake Placid, NY), and Jeremy Teela (Anchorage, AK). If 2006 was a renaissance year for the men, then 2007 was a coming of age for the group. Led by the new...
PARK CITY, Utah (April 19) – U.S. international cross country results showed more major improvement during the 2007 season with the first U.S. woman's podium in World Cup history from Kikkan Randall (Anchorage, AK), a World Championships top-5 from Andy Newell (Shaftsbury, VT) and his first top-10 in three years from a healthy Kris Freeman (Andover, NH). “This was a good season. The impressive thing for me,” said U.S. Nordic Director Luke Bodensteiner, “is that...
After three seasons with title events, and with two or three years to go before the next FIS World Championships or Olympic Winter Games, respectively, some well-known athletes in the skiing circuit are putting an end to their careers. The retiring stars include a few that have played a key role in defining the sport of skiing in the past years. In Cross-Country, the best-known retirees include Katerina Neumannova (CZE), six-time Olympic medalist including gold...
The Viessmann FIS World Cup Cross-Country 2006/2007 came to an end in Sweden last week. At the Royal Sprint – held for the fourth time in front of the Royal Palace in Stockholm (SWE) – Petra Majdic (SLO) and 21-year-old Mickael Devjatiarov (RUS) took the top spots. For Devjatiarov jun., the son of the 1988 Olympic Champion, it was his career-first World Cup win. In the winter’s last individual races on Saturday in Falun, Marit...
Norway scored once again the most World Cup points and captured the overall Nation Cup crown. USA improved to 12th place while Canada dropped to 21st place. Here is look behind the numbers. The Nations Cup is given to the top overall country on the World Cup circuit. The Nations Cup points are determined by adding up all the individual World Cup points earned by a country’s skiers during the season. Individual World Cup points...
The German men’s relay team sat on the sideline and drank beer while Norwegians, Italians, Swedes, Frenchmen and other nations struggled through the 4 x 10 kilometer relay in warm conditions in Falun, Sweden on Sunday. FIS and Vegard Ulvang disliked the German â€stunt.” They choose not to race the final World Cup race of the season. Instead they brought several kegs of beer and lined up along the course in the sunshine. – This...
Team Germany (ladies) and Team Norway won the last World Cup race of the season, the Relay over 4 x 5 km (ladies) and 4 x 10 km (men) in Falun, Sweden. In the ladies race, Germany with Stefanie Böhler, Viola Bauer, Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle and Claudia Kuenzel-Nystad took the victory in a time of 57:12.4. On the second place finished Finland (Pirjo Manninen, Virpi Kuitunen, Riitta Liisa Roponen and Aino Kaisa Saarinen) just 0.9 seconds...
Marit Bjoergen from Norway and the Tour de Ski winner Tobias Angerer (GER) won the last individual races of the season, the Pursuit over 7,5 km + 7,5 km (ladies) and 15 km + 15 km (men) in Falun, Sweden. Marit Bjoergen Marit Bjoergen finished the season like she started into it — with a victory. She took the victory in the finish sprint with a total time of 51.40 minutes. Katerina Neumannova finished her...
Marit Bjœrgen finished as she started the season and won Saturday’s World Cup pursuit in Falun. And then it was hard to hold back the tears. Therese Johaug pushed the pace that broke up the lead-pack and could celebrate with a 3rd place. Marit Bjœrgen showed a lot more energy than what we have seen the last couple months. And the â€energy bunny,” Therese Johaug did a great job in pushing the pace. Thirteen (13)...