At 21 years old, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo of Norway had already locked up his second-consecutive Sprint World Cup Crystal Globe several weeks ago. A down-to-the-wire, season-ending finale for the sprint globe was out of the question. Klæbo has simply been that good. Out of 11 sprint races this season, Klæbo won the seven out of the nine sprints he contested. He placed second and third, respectively, in the other two. One word to describe it...
FIS Cross Country World Cup Finals (Falun, Sweden): Freestyle sprints Men’s report In the last sprint of the season and the first race of the three-day World Cup Finals in Falun, Sweden’s Hanna Falk and Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo won their respective 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint finals, while Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla and Klæbo claimed the season-long Sprint Crystal Globes and Sophie Caldwell of the U.S. placed third in the Sprint World Cup. Falk started Friday...
*Update: This article previously stated that Jessie Diggins was the first American woman to reach a podium at the Holmenkollen. Diggins is actually the first American woman to reach the Holmenkollen podium in the 30 k distance, second woman to podium at a Holmenkollen in history. In 1980, American Allison Owen reached the podium in the 10 k distance. OSLO, Norway — Some pointed to the broadcast screen in disbelief. Others began waving their Norwegian...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Oslo, Norway): Women’s 30 k freestyle mass start last race of the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea (a 30 k classic mass start), Bjørgen came from behind to win Sunday’s Holmenkollen 30 k and wasn’t able to let off too much before finish. She didn’t take the lead until less than a kilometer to go and put just enough time into her competition to take the win in 1:18:12.4...
OSLO, Norway — Thumping house music. Thousands of raucous fans, who, if not waving Norway’s flag, had their faces painted in their national colors of red, blue and white. If the American Super Bowl translated to cross-country skiing and snow, the Norwegian Holmenkollen is as close as it gets. Saturday saw the 116th edition of the annual 50-kilometer men’s event, a race that totals roughly 6,574 feet of climbing for those who complete it...
NCAA Skiing Championships (Steamboat Springs, Colorado): 15/20 k freestyle mass starts On the fourth and final day of NCAA Skiing Championships at Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, Katharine Ogden skied to her second-straight national title, Ian Torchia became an NCAA champion and the University of Denver (DU) won its 24th NCAA National Championship. Ogden, a Dartmouth College freshman, raced to a 38.4-second victory in the women’s 15-kilometer mass start, finishing in 43:22.0 minutes for her...
DRAMMEN, Norway — Barring the spectators cheering from their apartment balconies, the most marked aspect of Wednesday’s 1.2-kilometer classic sprint course was the finish line. It crosscut the top of a 15-meter climb. Throughout the day, no skier closed out Drammen’s uphill finish better than Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla. After winning the day’s qualifier in a time of 3:19.44 minutes, Falla won her quarterfinal in photo-finish fashion and outlunged Sweden’s Stina Nilsson to place first...
In the classic venue that are the Drammen city sprints, it was a singular affair from start to finish during the men’s World Cup 1.2-kilometer classic sprint on Wednesday. In a race format that tapered from a field of 61 skiers to the winner, one only needs to track the skier in the overall World Cup’s leader bib to follow along. The yellow-bibbed skier, Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, didn’t surprise with his sprint win in...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Drammen, Norway): Classic sprints Men’s report The cross-country World Cup hit the city on Wednesday, with classic sprints contested in the Oslo suburb of Drammen on snow which had been trucked onto the streets. And the crowd was rewarded with wins by two Norwegian favorites: Maiken Caspersen Falla in the women’s sprint and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo in the men’s race. In the women’s final, Falla and Natalia Nepryaeva of Russia battled at the lead for...
On Saturday in Lahti, Finland, Kevin Bolger of the Sun Valley XC Gold Team made his World Cup debut. In his first season since graduating from the University of Utah, Bolger earned start rights for the final period of World Cup racing by leading the SuperTour. It was quite the debut: in the skate sprint, Bolger qualified in 16th, then advanced through the rounds to the semifinals and finished 11th on the day. There are...
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from American Caitlin Patterson.) The 2018 Olympics were pretty successful for Finland, in terms of cross-country skiing: Iivo Niskanen won gold in the 50 k and Krista Pärmäkoski earned silver in the 30 k and bronze in the skiathlon and the 10 k skate. After the Games finished, the FIS Cross Country World Cup moved to Finland, but on the first day of competition – skate...
You could call him a specialist. An all-around contender in classic distance races, Alexey Poltoranin of Kazakhstan has proven time and time again that he has the 15-kilometer classic individual start figured out. On Sunday in Lahti, Finland, he set a new World Cup record by winning his eighth-career 15 k classic (including both individual and mass-start formats). He had previously tied Swedish legend last 15 k classic contested in Planica, Slovenia. Three of Poltoranin’s...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Lahti, Finland): 10/15 k classic Men’s report Racing at home in Finland, Krista Pärmäkoski picked a good time to collect the second World Cup victory of her career, and again in a 10 k classic. Pärmäkoski’s first win came in the 10 k classic in Planica, Slovenia, earlier this season. In second was Russia’s Natalia Nepryaeva, who picked up her first World Cup podium. The current U23 standings leader, Nepryaeva’s time was 20.9...
Eight points. That’s the number that separated Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla and Sweden’s Stina Nilsson in the Sprint World Cup standings before Saturday’s freestyle sprint in Lahti, Finland. Three sprints. That’s the number of World Cup sprint races that remained in the 2017/2018 calendar, one of which took place on Saturday. With one down and a classic sprint and skate sprint to go, Falla’s lead has grown to 28 points. It’s not much, with 150...
The men’s freestyle sprint final in Lahti, Finland, started in almost comical fashion: the six men who had made it to the final heat of the day skied slowly, then even slower, as nobody wanted to lead. The final was full of dangerous men. Norwegian youngster Johannes Høsflot Klæbo has won five sprints this season, and he just became an Olympic gold medalist in the sprint in PyeongChang, South Korea, a mere ten days ago....
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Lahti, Finland): Men’s & women’s freestyle sprints Men’s report The defending world championships from the 2017 freestyle sprint prevailed again in Lahti on Saturday, with Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla winning the women’s 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint final and Italy’s Federico Pellegrino coming out on top in the men’s 1.6 k final at last year’s World Championships venue. Falla’s rise to the final started with her qualifying in 12th, 7.96 seconds off the...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2,
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, cleared 28 Russian athletes of doping charges. Many people seemed shocked by this development. The athletes had been disqualified from the 2014 Games by an International Olympic Committee (IOC) Commission. This was after more than 18 months of buildup in which the world learnt of systematic manipulation of the anti-doping process by the Russian state security apparatus at those Olympics. I was both shocked, and not shocked. When all...
Since March of last year, Cendrine Browne has been waiting and trying, with all her might, for another top 30. She achieved it twice last season, placing 26th in the World Championships 30-kilometer mass start and 35th in the World Cup 10 k skate in Ulricehamn, Sweden (30th with Olympic-style scoring, which counts the top-four athletes for each nation in a given race). To meet Cross Country Canada’s (CCC) alternate qualifying criteria for the 2018...
NorAm Eastern Canadian Championships (Gatineau, Quebec): 10/15 k classic pursuits Rosie Frankowski defended her lead and tallied her won Saturday’s large hill/10 k competition, took the final spot on the podium after a photo finish with the Czech Republic’s Tomas Portyk. They finished 11.1 and 11.2 seconds behind Schmid in third and fourth, respectively. American Adam Loomis achieved his best individual result in three years, placing 24th (+3:03.4), after jumping to 30th and starting 3:20...